Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
he visited his Grandma and Grandpa Medvee every chance he got. When he was very small, Mama would drop Dougie off for the weekend, and before he began school he often stayed with Grandma for several days of the week. They lived in a house on a hill, very close to the massive Quartz Hill water tank -- the tank always reminded Dougie of the Tin Woodsman's head (later on a second, larger tank would be added, losing some of its resemblance to the Tinman). Grandma and Grandpa lived at 4747 West Avenue M (and the Larsens lived at 5050 West Avenue L-8).
He loved waking up in the morning, and coming out into the bright sunshiny house, to find that Grandma already had his breakfast ready for him. As Dougie, smiling, sat down at the table, he often would see Grandpa walking by the window outside, possibly on his way to feed Geronimo, Aunt Linda's big white and gray horse, an appaloosa. Moose, Grandpa's German Shepherd dog, would probably be sauntering at Grandpa's side, slobbering, always slobbering. Cocoa, already an old Siamese cat (older than Dougie) would lay upon the fireplace mantel, giving Dougie the evil eye (Cocoa had bright blue eyes, and Dougie learned very, very early not to touch the cat, or come too close, as the beast hated any being under the age of 21 years, and Cocoa herself would live to be older than 21 years, until she met her demise in the jaws of a German Shepherd, not Moose, whom she still thought she had enough meanness to beat).Grandma didn't even have to ask (but she usually did), as Dougie's favorite breakfast was a big mug of cocoa (not the cat, but hot chocolate) and four slices of cinnamon toast. Grandma fixed the toast by buttering the toasted bread liberally with real butter, sprinkling the tops with her concoction of sugar and cinnamon (one part cinnamon to two parts sugar, teaspoons for one or two slices, tablespoons for many slices). The cinnamon-sugar melted on the toast, and Grandma stuck the sliced back in the toaster for a few seconds, and when she removed them, they'd be runnning with buttery cinnamon-sugar frosting. She would dust them again, and sometimes this made for a layer measured at up to 32 feet in height!Dougie adored taking a slow bite, sinking his teeth lovingly through the layer of cinnamon. It was gritty, and somewhat pasty, but it was hot, and buttery, and sugary and (sad to say) Grandma made her toast with white bread, which has absolutely no nutritional value (I think that eating Elmer's glue is probably healthier), but tastes wonderful. This is a breakfast version of CAKE. Hot, melting cake.And the cocoa was rich and dark, and thick. Grandma made the cocoa by heating 100% cow's milk (before they added percentage signs to it) with a tablespoon of chocolate syrup from a dark brown can that said Hershey's on it. The result was absolutely nothing like you get when you add powder to hot water. Dougie would take long gulping slurp, and the chocolaty heat complimented the cinnamon toast. And a boy couldn't feel any more decadent than if he sat next to Marie Antoinette eating cake while the starving masses looked on.If Papa made this breakfast for his wee ones today, his wife, Mama Carolena, would seize the children up in her arms and run shrieking all the way to the dentist, to have the good doctor remove the nightmarish mush from their poor teeth with a jackhammer.Grandma usually sat close by, sipping at her strong coffee. Her coffee, in the early days, percolated in a shiny chrome coffee percolator, which looked like a metal pitcher with a glass chef's hat on top. You could watch the coffee bubbling up into the glass top, and it smelled wonderful. The coffee which emerged from this percolator was greasy, thick, and much stronger than what Starbucks brews today. The coffee oils swam about and made strange messages at the surface of the coffee.When Dougie was about five years of age, Grandma allowed him to have small teacup-sized cups of coffee, generally half of it was milk, with about three teaspoons of sugar. This angered Mama and Dada who didn't like coffee and forbade Dougie drinking it, but after the first time mentioning it, Dougie learned to keep it a little secret between him and Grandma, and soon he preferred the rich, strong coffee to even the thickest cocoa. Rumor has it, and family lore, that this secret sin is what stunted poor little Dougie's growth, as he never grew taller than 6'2" much to his 6'4" Dada's shame (of course, on the Hungarian side of his family, he has always been considered somewhat of a giant).To this day, if Dougie has a Cafe-Mocha at Starbucks, Grandma Medvee always comes to mind. He even adds cinnamon to his coffee.But his favorite drink today is a Venti Soy Coffee Miso with One Honey and a Sprinkle of Cinnamon (which can hardly be mistaken as a coffee drink, it is more a hot and healthy milkshake!).All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
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