My wild Scottish hairdresser and I were discussing coffee -- the yearning and need thereof -- when I recalled my earliest coffee experience. My family lived in New York, and I was so little I crawled upstairs to another apartment to visit the elderly woman from somewhere in East Europe or the Middle East. Unfortunately, I don't remember that detail. She didn't speak English and I barely did either at that age, so we were fine companions. She served me coffee, black and thick, probably boiled. That was our occasional tea party. Sometimes, I tried to reach the sugar or butter or some pretty trinket on her cloth-covered kitchen table. I can still feel her hands, grasping my small body in toddler overalls and putting it back in the chair. I believe the coffee must have imprinted in my cells, because I still love it dark and strong, and I need it like a a sprout needs water.
