I'm glad I got to #spillthebeans this time 😄☕️ The idea of this post came to me as I sipped my coffee this morning while feeding my furry companions and walking around the house verifying that everything was under control.

As I was growing up,

maybe I never noticed it, but in retrospect, I realize that coffee was always brewing in my house, every day, often more than once a day. Not only was it mandatory to brew coffee immediately when my parents brought my grandmother to visit, but it had to be full-bodied, just the way she liked it. The coffee my mother used to make was weak, as if you put water in an americano; this one was a guayoyo (Venezuelan americano, usually sweetened), not a traditional guayoyo but a clear one; it was like putting water in a guayoyo. My mother was always looking for ways to make everything healthier, less greasy, less sweet, less, less, less. But she was a plus, you know? Yes, she was: six kids, the house, her job, my dad. She needed lots of coffee without a doubt. My mother's plate was full.

Fish & cassava cakes soaked in sweet coffee 😆

It's funny I never remembered this before, but it's very likely that I got my first coffee served on a plate... I must've been really young. Four perhaps? Three?

My love for coffee, fish, and the sea comes from a long tradition of stories from my grandmother's and my mother's childhood, nurtured by sunlight and a clear view of the ocean and the horizon--let's leave hardship for another day--. I learned to eat fish at a very young age--three? Ah, who knows!--The thing is I never swallowed a fish bone to everyone's amazement. I remember my mother would split a cassava cake, soak it with sweet coffee and put it next to my fried fish. My eyes would fill up. There, that was my first coffee!

Oh, and I can never leave out those very strong coffees with a little La Campiña (powdered milk) or Natura (milk from the carton) milk and more sugar than you can imagine; my grandmother would serve me some sort of macchiatone (un marrón in Venezuela) and buttered bread on those afternoons when I remember little more than the apamate flowers rolling down the street in front of my grandmother's house, while I drew princesses with a limestone on the sidewalk. My mother was opposed to this idea of an afternoon snack, but I enjoyed it, and my grandmother didn't care how strong the coffee was for a six year old--was it five or seven?--, how much butter it was, or the nonsense that came out of my mother's mouth who tried hard and unsuccessfully not to let me enjoy that abundance.

Coffee & Fun & Duty

When I became a teenager, a latte and treats were a weekend thing, in some downtown coffee shop, a chapter too long to recount today: writing workshops, book clubs, first love, night & early morning coffee... But at home, coffee was a marker of moments and hierarchies. The first coffee in the morning was my father's.

Over the knotted tie, my father's severe gesture. The small cup gave off a thick smoke that disappeared in a second. Gone was the delicious smell of coffee. A minute later, the car engine would start and soon its sound would become distant. Then came the rush, coffee with lots of milk, toast with cheese, hair tied in a thick bun, each hair in its place, school uniform, hurry up!, books into the schoolbag, the noise of the car engine again this time making my feet vibrate and the coffee still hot in my stomach. Off we went!

As adults, my sisters and I have created a tradition of sitting down to play a board game with the nephews and nieces while sipping lots of coffee. They love coffee as much as we do. I'd like to listen to what they have to say about it when they are my age.

The afternoon coffee was calm and more of an adult thing: coffee for visitors, small cup, sugar, a glass of cold water to alleviate the coastal heat. Napping? Sure. There was always time for the afternoon nap.

Time went by.

...My mother was still alive when I was in high school. She'd bring me coffee along with dinner to the computer table where I would sometimes burn the midnight oil. She taught me how to properly use the moka pot so that I could make some more coffee after she went to bed. Her plate was full, but there was still room for me and for some cassava cake soaked in sweet coffee now and then.

Sometimes when I'm really tired, I imagine my mother's hands around my cup of steaming coffee. Then I know it's Ok if my plate is full. There's always some more room for coffee and the things I love.

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

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