Triple Dose

In my parent’s house, not drinking coffee was not an option. Much as they tried to discourage us from drinking it when we were children, as soon as we became adolescents, all bets were off. We were free to drink what we wanted, and at that point, there really wasn’t much opposition from my parents. My brother became our family barista, mixing up different flavours of coffee, often to the point where we would take one sip, and everyone would say, “What did you put in it this time? Black pepper?”, to which he would smile to himself and say, “Among other things.”

While coffee time was known to be just after breakfast, there was another, less official, less formal coffee time in our house. It was second cup time, when my mom would make only a cup or two of coffee and try to hide it from everyone by drinking it while she was making dinner. Because I (sometimes) helped her, I began to join her in this second cup, using it as an opportunity to have some of our most heartfelt, private conversations.

Now in my own place, I find myself drinking a lot more coffee than the two I would have at my parents’, to make up for the lack of conversation accompanying the drink. I’m trying to cut down that number to just one, the morning coffee that I will not give up. I’ve been doing well so far, sometimes having green tea in the evenings for something hot to drink to pass the time.

Although, my sister did tell me that drinking decaf when I got the cravings for another coffee would do the trick, so I tried that a couple of times. The first time, I wasn’t paying attention when I drank it. The second time, I became very uninterested in it, so I thought that I just didn’t need another coffee anymore. The third time, I realized something– decaf tastes like bad coffee, plain and simple. It’s just not good. Some people say they can’t tell the difference, that it’s the exact same thing. But those people aren’t coffee lovers. They’re the imitators, the ones that carry around a cup of coffee just so they look important. “Oh, I can’t live without my coffee” or “Don’t you just love the smell of coffee in the morning?” they’d say. That’s how you know they’re the imitators–it’s not about the smell, which, of course, is lovely, rather it’s about needing to have it on your tongue, in your mouth, in your blood, every single day. Trying to replace that with decaf, well, I would prefer to have no coffee at all, thank you very much, than having terrible decaffeinated coffee, no less.

Back when we were living here in Montreal when I was a little girl, my dad used to take us to Marché Jean-Talon every time he would pick up my sister and I by himself from Saturday School. Marché Jean-Talon was a big farmer’s market, and in the springtime, there would be barrels and barrels of beautifully ripe fruits and vegetables. As we would pass by, farmers would offer samplings of their selection, and my dad always accepted and got more for us, buying a small bag of what he was offered to thank the seller. I used to beg him to buy more, to go for the big barrel of apricots, plums, apples cucumbers, peppers, or my favourite, tomatoes. I didn’t really want to eat so much of it, nor did I care to stop the seller from pestering us to buy it already, and I didn’t necessarily want to see the smile of gratitude on his or her’s face either. No, what I wanted was far better– I wanted to see the look of shock on my mom’s face when we got home.

And every once in a while, my dad would give in to my begging and I would see a smile sneak past his face. He knew very well what he was doing when he bought that big bushel of tomatoes. He knew that when we got home, my mom would be surprised, then annoyed, and then just confused. What would she do with all those tomatoes?

But my mom was resourceful. She knew what to do with all those tomatoes. She froze them, dried them, pickled them, and stuck them into every meal. They were in our eggs in the morning, in our sandwiches at lunch, and in our soup, salad, and main course at dinner. I have to give her credit–she even cleverly stuck them into our meals without our noticing it.

Now my daydreams take on a similar path as that of my parents. I sit on the bus and I dream about Omar taking our little kids to the market to buy big barrels of strawberries and tomatoes. I imagine how they would take delight in surprising me with their purchases and how we would together experiment with making different flavours of jams and freezing the rest. I think of the bonds created when parents and children share something as basic as food. I dream about creating good memories for life in my kids, of family and food.

I haven’t mentioned it, but I’ve joined the National Blog Posting Month. The challenge is simple– post everyday for a month. Not only is it good practice, but it’s great motivation to seek out things in your surroundings that you can write about.

But since this site is in its infancy, I’m still trying to set it up and make it more appealing. I’ve been on my computer, working on my site all day without a post to show for it!

So here’s a photo of this time of year, 6 years ago: my high school graduation. It’s  been a while since then.

For the past 8 years, Saturday mornings have been a mix of weekend laziness with the accompanying elaborate breakfasts and getting to school frenzy. My mother is the founder and principal of Manhal-Ul-Eman Academy, a weekly school dedicated to teaching Arabic and Islamic religious studies. Since high school, I’ve held different jobs at the school, from teacher’s assistant to office assistant to teacher.

For the better part of 8 years, I begged my mother to not go: I created excuses ranging from physical illness to  mental fatigue to school work. My excuses were elaborate, planned from the beginning of the week for a final finish on Saturday.

Nothing worked on my mom.

After patiently listening to me, week after week, she’d always end by telling me that I only had a few minutes left to get dressed.

Now I find myself waking up late on Saturday mornings to a quiet house and a different feeling of responsibility. My husband wakes up soon after me and we excitedly get to our tasks, his in the office and mine in the kitchen, rolling out the scone dough that I prepared the night before.

Sometimes I miss our previous routine, but then I see the satisfaction on my husband’s face as eats scone after scone and I think, this is exactly how Saturday mornings should be.

Recipe: Morning Raisin Scones