I didn't really smell the coffee first thing in the morning. My mom loved to sleep in. So much so that she had black out curtains and those eye-cover-thingys. But once she woke up, the Mr. Coffee coffee pot started brewing the most delicious smelling java. Ten cups of rich, black liquid that would be sipped on all day. It didn't matter if it was four in the afternoon and the coffee had been sitting there all day. That's what microwaves were for. We didn't waste in our house (a trait I inherited - much to the chagrin of my husband and kids. I call it reuse, reduce, recycle). I guess that was in part because of her own childhood. My grandparents fled the Nazis and lived through the depression in their new country, while raising two little girls on, well, not much.
On hot summer days the morning brew would be poured over ice, then milk and sugar were added for the best ice coffee ever created. It was a special treat to be handed my own iced cup to sip on. Drinking it made me feel so grown up, made me feel so close to my mom...
I am now my mom's age when she handed that cup of joe to her little girl. I don't drink coffee. I never acquired the taste for it. But I love all things coffee flavored, especially Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream! And I love something even closer to that summer treat my mom handed me oh-so long ago. I'm hooked on those Starbuck coffee flavored Frappuccinos. The ones in the bottle, not the blended store ones. The ones that taste like coffee poured over ice... with milk and sugar added. Those ones.
Happy Mother's Day.