Many years ago I worked for an Italian furniture importer down in Chelsea. Of course back then it wasn’t down in Chelsea as I lived on Avenue A and 4th above a hardware store and below a heroin junkie (which was a prerequisite for living in the East Village at that time.) This said Italian employer was named, surprisingly enough, Guido. I know what you’re thinking, but let’s not confuse this gentle man from Mi-laaa-no, with a previous Guido I knew in Chicago. I never actually met the Chicago Guido but his name was used like a baseball bat whenever the fine establishment I worked in would get behind in a liquor bill such as, “Maybe you should like for me to send Guido down to pick it up poi-sanally.” I would naturally grab the nearest intern and set them out front with an envelope for Guido instructing him to “give the nice man the envelope and under no circumstances show him back to the office.”
The Mi-laaa-no Guido would come to the New York office a few times a year and it was always a pleasure to have him as aside from the few business discussions I was involved in, I mostly got to dress up, ride around in limos and eat dinner at swanky restaurants with Guido and the showroom crew. Then one day during a meeting he looks at me and says “It is good for you to make the espresso, yes?” I stand up and nod “Oh yes.” And as I head toward the kitchen, my heels clacking across the showroom floor, I am thinking no doubt it would be very good for me to make the espresso but it will be a miracle if my picture of good and your picture of good coincide. I’d seen him drink espresso from a beautiful little demitasse cup many times, but I had no idea where it came from, the only thing I knew about espresso is that it came in a little cup and was enjoyed by either a man in a thin silk tie or a fez. I got my coffee like everyone else did, in a blue and white paper cup with Greek stuff written on it. (yes, these are now actually found in museum gift shops)
I go into the kitchen and I see this:
I puzzled for a moment but it seemed pretty clear cut. Espresso is made out of water and well, espresso. This thing only has one opening at the top, it’s clearly designed to make espresso so I threw a couple of spoonfuls of coffee and some water in the top, put it on the heat and waited for it to work it’s swarthy black magic. But wait…
I was bothered by something here. Something about the grounds. Where do they go? Do they get sucked down the hole? What is that hole? Where does it go? What does it lead to? All these thoughts are going through my head in a sort of David Byrne type ditty while the curtain is being held for my reappearance with a perfect little cup of coffee. No, this is not right, this is not “good.” I dumped the contents out of the top and considered the object again. I grasp the top and the bottom and attempt to pull it apart with all my might. Aside from a nasty burn on my hand which comes from touching metal that seconds ago was engulfed in flames, I got nowhere. And then a light bulb went on over my head… sadly, not the cartoon kind. My office manager had sneaked in behind me flipped the kitchen light on and hissed “where the hell is the coffee?” She took the mystery object from me with an audible sigh (is there any other kind?)
Friends, the damn thing screws apart. The water goes on the bottom, the coffee in the middle and the stuff burbles out on top.
A delicious lesson learned as I am now, all these years later, wearing a fez and finding it very good to make the coffee. Yes!
