Coffee Talk
Keep it on ice, mostly
Well, I’m still in recovery mode from what has been the most exhausting but exciting few weeks in New York. Shout out to everyone who pickled their livers and brains while watching one of the most thrilling runs of games I’ve ever seen. The city’s bath houses and saunas should have all been free this week so we can sweat out all of the celebratory tequila I assume everyone drank.
Before I dig into another week of whatever this is, I want to take a minute to talk about my big fun book launch show coming up July 7!!!! It’s the day the book comes out (PRE-ORDER IT NOW PLEASE) and at one of my favorite venues on earth, The Bell House! It’s going to be a kind of hybrid comedy show/book reading and interview so there is truly something for everyone! I’m going to host the hell out of this thing and just be kind of gal of the hour, keeping things moving. I’m having two of my best friends and the funniest comics I know, Liza Treyger and Josh Gondelman doing stand-up sets. Then I’m going to read a little from the book, just to give everyone a taste of what they get to read. And then my brilliant friends, podcasters, cultural critics Ashley Hamilton and Claire Parker from the podcast Good Noticings are going to do an interview with me about the book and a little audience Q&A! And then everyone can hang at the front bar and drink cocktails and chat and hang because it’s a Tuesday, and that’s what we do. So if you’re in or around New York, get your tickets NOW!
This week, we’re having [Linda Richmond voice] Coffee Talk.
I would say that I’m in no way a coffee snob, but I do have specifics in how I take my coffee. There are things I’m undoubtedly snobby about (jeans, television shows, you know, the usual). But I think coffee, like most things, is something that I’m just incredibly particular about. It’s not that it has to be “good” or “the highest quality” for me to like it, it just has to be exactly what I like or I don’t want it.
My parents were (and still are) coffee drinkers when I was young. I grew up eating breakfast before school to the sounds of the Mr. Coffee percolating and draining and the smell of Maxwell House flooding the kitchen. I started drinking coffee young, probably in yet another attempt to jump up to a maturity level I hadn’t actually reached. By my junior year of high school I was stopping for coffee on my way to school, popping into the little spot nearby and getting a large hot black coffee and a muffin. Man, I miss the days where I could start the day with a muffin and that day wouldn’t end at 10:02am with me going back to bed.
I always got hot coffee because it was all that I knew. And I never added much to it because I’m not a dairy gal. Well, I’m a dairy gal, I’m not a milk gal. I think in my life (that I can remember), I’ve had like 9 glasses of milk cumulatively. We weren’t a milk house, save for the occasional small cold glass when my mom would make brownies from the box. But from the jump, my coffee was usually black, maybe a sugar packet in the early days as my tastebuds adjusted to starting the day out with acidic hot bitter water.
It wasn’t until I was out of town that I learned about iced coffee and it changed my entire life. I was visiting Cornell with my dad the summer before my senior year. On the day we were leaving, we popped into what became one of my favorite places, Stella’s, on College Ave. When I actually got in and went to Cornell, I went there all the time to get a mesclun salad and the lobster bisque while half working on my Virginia Wolff essays and half talking to Natasha across a wooden booth about what happened at the rugby party we both went to the night before. But before those days, my dad and I went there for breakfast before heading back home to Maryland and I had a piece of dense banana bread and my first iced coffee.
I was forever changed. I’m not a huge hot beverage person. I love ice. I eat popsicles year round. And now I had a chilled version of morning caffeine that I can drink twice as fast as a steaming hot coffee? I never looked back. When I was at Barnes & Noble with my friend Caroline reading magazines and looking at college prep books at night I would get a black iced coffee and she always thought I was having a Starbucks Diet Coke.
I’m a year-round iced coffee drinker. If it’s hot coffee or no coffee and it’s morning, I will manage hot, but I really always prefer iced. I want either a black iced coffee or a black iced Americano. I don’t take sugar and I never ever want milk. When I was younger, I dabbled in other, milkier drinks both hot and iced. I would sit in the cafe at Olin Library on campus and drink a chai latte while reading the Cornell Daily Sun. I sometimes got a small hot coffee with a splash of milk, no sugar, on Fridays when I worked at Random House and would treat myself to a coffee cart glazed donut. But on the whole, my day to day coffee consumption is always a big ol’ cup of cold iced coffee.
Let’s talk about cold brew. Here’s the thing, I don’t like the super intense fancy coffee nonsense. I almost like it a little weak so that it goes down faster. I hate the super bitter versions, or the ones that borderline taste like vodka somehow because they’re so concentrated. I don’t need nitro anything (nitrous, different story). I don’t need my coffee to be $9 or sourced by Peruvian monks or any other bullshit. I like my iced coffee to taste decent, but I’ll happily take it from a bodega over an overcomplicated stupid place any day.
For a long time, my daily routine was either getting it out on the go (when I left the house) or having a glass of iced coffee at home. My preferred version at home is Grady’s Cold Brew concentrate, New Orleans style. I know I just said I don’t care about cold brew, but this felt more controlled than begging a barista who thinks I’m a loser to make it to my liking. Occasionally in the winter I do dip into hot coffee when it’s freezing cold and I refuse to crank my heat out of frugality. When I do, I pull out my $29 Mr. Coffee and brew a whole pot of Lavazza Classico roast and drink cup after cup with a splash of milk while I work from home until I’m jittery and overheating.
When I was working at Maisel, they would do an afternoon coffee run for the writers room. I tried to take advantage of every free perk I could while working there, which I’m glad I did because it was the last time I saw many (or any) perks in a television job once everything went remote and you had to make your own stupid lunch every day. Our room PA would ask for orders, and I would struggle to know what I wanted. I had already consumed an iced coffee on my walk to work through Clinton Hill, and then another one when I got to the office and picked out all of my breakfast fruits for the day. Then I obviously had a can of Diet Coke with lunch. The afternoon felt like a bold time to go heavy on caffeine, especially if I didn’t have a late schedule of spots after work. This is when I leaned hard into the iced Americano: a little espresso, a little water, a ton of ice to get me through the mid-afternoon lull in the room, or to help me focus as I tore through a script hand writing my punch-ups.
Not to brag, but my podcast has advertisers, and those advertisers sometimes give us credits to buy things in addition to money for running ads. A few months ago, Wayfair gave me and Halle each some cash to shop with on the site. I knew exactly what I wanted: an espresso machine. I had toyed with getting one for a while, but have not been ready (financially at least) to commit to a $400+ version, but knew I didn’t want to cheap out on something only to have it make shitty coffee or break immediately. So I used my store credit to buy a very solid Italian espresso machine.
Now I get to start every morning with an iced Americano at home. It’s a delight. I wouldn’t say that I’m someone who enjoys the “ritual” of making coffee. In fact, I’m annoyed that I have to do it even though pulling an espresso and adding water and ice isn’t exactly hard or time consuming. I just hate anything I have to do in the morning that gets me to coffee consumption. But I feel thrilled to have finally landed on a relatively easy and satisfying morning coffee routine at home.
With the presence of my home espresso machine, I also have easier access to one of my all time favorite beverages: espresso and tonic. I sadly don’t live near any coffee shops who do it, as far as I know, and it’s not usually a start the day kind of drink but more a keep the day going one. A mid afternoon espresso tonic is a dream. And with a little orange peel in it? Now that’s living. And to be clear, it has to be tonic. This isn’t one of those times you can swap some other club soda or sparkling water or anything. This is about quinine. I keep a few mini bottles of Fever Tree light tonic around and if I’m dragging in the afternoon and don’t want a Diet Coke (rare), or am trying to stave off having a cocktail for another few hours (more common), I’ll throw together a little espresso tonic over ice.
My last diversion from the very basic iced coffee is my occasional cappuccino after a meal at a restaurant. Most nights, if I’m finishing up a big meal with a friend or two at a restaurant, I lean more into an amaro (or just straight up hitting a bar). But sometimes, in the right circumstances and with the right dessert, I indulge in a regular milk cappuccino. It’s my annual-ish step into the world of hot milk drinks and always a delight (though not in any regularity).
Well, this coffee talk substack has been neither a sub nor a stack. Tawlk amongst yourselves, I’m getting verklempt.
MORE STUFF! MORE STUFF!
My outrageously funny friend Emmy Blotnick has a brand new special “What’s Her Secret?” out on Youtube and you can watch it and should!!!
This week on Ruined we tackled the movie Bodycam.
Join us for Ruined Live on 6/28 because boy oh boy we are doing Backrooms!
Friday I’m on the 8pm at Greenpoint Comedy Club and Saturday I’m at P&L Knitwear for Astigmatism Comedy where I’ll be talking about my book!
Tuesday 7/7 I’m having my big book launch show at The Bell House! Stand-up from Liza Treyger and Josh Gondelman! I’m hosting! And reading! And getting interviewed by Ashley and Claire from Good Noticings!!!!
And every week until July 7, a reminder to pre-order my debut book of essays, I’m A Lot wherever you get your books!