Nothing Like Your First
by Joel Bell

(from Ground Control Issue #2)

I remember it now. Sitting on the stove in all of the places we lived while I was growing up. Sentinel-like, it stood, cleaned of the morning grounds, friendly and patient. Skirt lengths changed, disco and Nixon came and went, but through it all stood the stove-top espresso maker my mom used daily. Nothing else looked quite like it--I know you've seen them: aluminum, octagonal, black enamel handle, that weird chimney under the hinged lid. Pros call it a 'Moka type'. It was, and remains, the most popular method for making coffee on the planet.

It was fairly ingenious: The ground coffee sits in a metal basket with a hollow stand (like a tiny percolator). The bottom half, is filled with water. This then screws into the 'receiving' half, separated by another metal filter and a rubber gasket. At boiling, the steam forces the water up through the stand, into the basket, then through the 'chimney' in the top half. What comes out the top, and gently flows down the smooth metal insides, is coffee. Magic.

I inherited an old one when I went off to school, and I hung onto it for years. I produced some of my biggest disasters in it--there's nothing quite like piping hot, exploding grounds to start your day. And it's no good for tea--no matter how much you cram into the basket. In England, I taught my friend Sigman how to use it and was woken up by howls of dispair on a few occasions. He sometimes forgot the water, which created an acrid metallic meltdown.

But mostly we produced glories. Anything finely ground took on great body and nose--from insanely expensive Jamaican Blue Mountain ( which we bought like pot in quarter pounds), to a commercial Italian espresso, 'Lavazza', that always streamed out like tangy syrup.

Cleaning it was a ritual as well. I'd inspect every dent on the lip of the aluminum basket with alarm; it meant that water could escape around the seal and diminish the brew. We'd huddle together and pray that the rubber seal, long dried-out and torn, would last one more day.

Eventually, the enamel handle broke, or melted, but I continued to use it anyway. When I fell in love with Shelly and lived in Brooklyn, it was in use all weekend. When we moved to Hollywood, it took its rightful place on the new stove. By the time we broke up, it had no cover and I angrily left it with her--aluminum's relationship to Alzheimer's was well-documented by then. But I would call what's-her-name just to see how it was doing, like checking on our child. I tried a stainless steel one, but it wasn't the same. Nothing is like your first. You should use yours. It's down there, behind the muffin tins and the cast iron skillet. It's waiting patiently. It likes you.

"Stay black as Death and hot as Hell."

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