Sugar

When my family would go out to eat, my father would pull the little white sugar packet out of the condiments bowl and whack it against his finger before tearing it open and pouring the contents into his ice tea or coffee. My brother picked up the habit and I soon learned to open a sugar packet it must be beat against a finger.

I never saw anyone else do this ritual but it is an unconscious automatic reaction. These are just little observations made through life that we copy.

I was never instructed on the action or told why sugar had to be beat before opening.

I don’t bake cakes or pies or cookies, but I’ve had containers of sugar in the kitchen. White refined, powdered, cane and brown sugar were in the pantry.

I only use sugar for my morning coffee. That is my morning cup of instant coffee with fake sugar and powdered creamer.

Now all you caffeine snobs who are appalled, I’ve had all the coffee variations there are. My mom went to A&P to get fresh ground coffee to percolate on the stove and then a multi-cup brewer when losing weight for black coffee has no calories.

At my first house I explored all the coffee processes from grinding beans with a manual crank to espresso drip.

This was also the time of sitting at the counter with a thick white mug drinking coffee that was made an hour ago for a quarter and free refills. After a late night or an early morning it was the best coffee around.

One of the first appliances for this house was a coffee maker. I’d pour the beans with an electric grinder and in a few minutes had a decanter of four cups of coffee.

At work I’d have to go next door to the doughnut shop for a Styrofoam cup with a plastic lid. Later there was a coffee maker in the break room but no one ever cleaned it. Finally I put a coffee pot in my office but most of the time it was cold.

Rather than using sugar or even sugar packets that seem to attract ants, I switched to ‘fake’ sugar. Little pink or blue or green packets gave enough sweet taste for me.

So why the history of sugar use?

Since this year has slowed down we have time to examine the little quirks of life.

The last time I went to replenish my ‘sugar jar’ there were no store brand boxes. I buy the store brand. I’m not just cheap but frugal.

This summer has been hot and humid. The sugar jar has a screw on lid, but the popular brand clumped in the packet. I’m sure all the cooks know what happens when sugar gets wet.

So until I use up all the name brand pink packets that I tear open and a plop of white sweetener drops in the cup of hot dirty water, I’ll deal with the extra sweet until I can get back to a pack that I can pour half in and save the other half for the next cup.