A Tasteful Blend

I knew I would run Wednesday, because I had missed Monday and Tuesday. You see, I thought I would try to conserve my energy for rehearsals for Harvey, the play I am in with Ilion Little Theatre (I feel I must say it every time, in case somebody forgot or just tuned in). I have to work hard at this acting stuff.

As rehearsal time approached on Monday, it seemed the conservation idea was not working out very well. I was exhausted. I knew some coffee would help, but that was problematic, too. If I drink coffee too late in the evening (ie, late enough to help me out with a 7 p.m. rehearsal), I don’t sleep at night. I’ve worked on not enough sleep. It’s not fun. I compromised with a tasteful blend.

OK, that needs a little explanation. The coffee machine at work offers a selection of “Mocha.” Below “Mocha” is the description: “a tasteful blend of coffee and chocolate.” Eventually I tried it. I’ll be honest, from a taste point of view, I prefer either coffee or chocolate. However, sometimes, straight coffee bothers my stomach and sometimes straight cocoa is just too sweet. And a tasteful blend offers entertainment value. I like to approach one co-worker in particular and say in a TV commercial tone of voice, “It’s a tasteful blend of coffee and chocolate.”

“A tasteful blend,” she repeats with a smile. Sometimes as I approach her with a cup, she forestalls me with “Is it a tasteful blend?”

I find it enhances my beverage experience to make a silly joke about it. I know, it takes so little to please some people.

I thought I would attempt a tasteful blend of my own at home, using instant coffee and cocoa. We normally brew coffee at our house, but we try to keep a jar of instant around for just such an emergency (I got that expression “just such an emergency” from a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Maybe it doesn’t perfectly fit in this context, but how often do you get a chance to quote Foghorn Leghorn?). So I put half instant coffee, half instant cocoa in my hot water. Hmmmm… when it got cool enough to drink, it was not the thrill I was hoping for.

It was not the boost I was hoping for either. I told my castmates I would consume more coffee prior to Tuesday’s rehearsal. Of course I still had to sleep Tuesday night. What to do?

Steven suggested I start with brewed coffee. Well, it just stands to reason: start with better-tasting ingredients, you’ll get a better finished product. I made half a cup of cocoa then added brewed coffee. Hmmm… better. I added a little more cocoa mix without adding more water. Better yet, but still not the tasteful blend I sought. I still drank it, of course (hell, I drank the first failed attempt; it wasn’t that bad). I thought of making a second cup, maybe adding more cocoa mix, maybe even making the cocoa component with hot milk instead of water, although that seemed a little fancy for my purposes.

Then I thought: the whole reason behind the tasteful blend nonsense is to keep myself from consuming too much caffeine. Even I can do sufficient math to realize that two half cups of coffee is equivalent to one whole cup (and considering “half” is a mere estimate, it could be more). Then I saw the error of my brewed vs instant decision. Brewed coffee has the most caffeine (I mean of several things: tea, soda, etc.) (a college friend read me the numbers out of drug studies book back in the ’80s. Of course I don’t remember the numbers, but for caffeine, brewed coffee is the way to go).

So I did Tuesday’s rehearsal on one tasteful blend using one half cup of brewed coffee. It actually did not go too badly. Wednesday I had no rehearsal, so I attempted no blends but went to bed early. I am typing this on Thursday. Rehearsal looms. Perhaps I have time to attempt another blend. I’ll report back in a subsequent post.

Just a final note: I think I will boldly categorize this under cooking, among other things, even though technically I guess I didn’t cook anything. I am such a rebel.