Coffee Mix Up

So having a baby in the house has led to a few "moments" - moments of forgetfulness, moments of sleepiness, moments of anxiety, moments of tears, moments of the most incredible joy, moments of confusion, and moments of laughter.

My most recent "moment of laughter" happened to take place while attempting to be a proper hostess for a couple of neighbors.

Now that I'm getting up and moving around a lot better, it's becoming more and more necessary for me to resume the role of hostess, especially when Mark is not around the house to help. The day these particular neighbors came by, I wasn't expecting guests (no, they don't normally call before coming), but since they came, it was appropriate for me to offer something to drink at least. I offered them a cup of national coffee. They both accepted.

Let me describe the coffee here and the process used to brew it . . . the coffee is a very fine powder (think espresso) and it is placed in a small pot with water and a cube of sugar (if desired) and brought to a full boil until foam forms on the top. It is then poured into the cups (and hopefully the foam will stay put on top of the coffee as a sign of one's hostessing skills).

Well, I went into the kitchen, got out the coffee, sugar cubes, and coffee cups. I mixed the coffee, sugar, and water and started heating it. When it started to boil, I removed the pot from the stove to pour it into the cups. I noticed that it wasn't keeping the foam very well. Strange . . . I've become a decent coffee maker and mine usually foams pretty well. Then I caught a quick whiff of the coffee . . . hmmmmmm . . . it didn't smell like coffee. One more whiff . . . it smelled like cocoa. I realized that I had mistakenly pulled the container of cocoa out of the cabinet, thinking it was coffee - they look practically identical!

One of my neighbors had walked into the kitchen as I was finishing the coffee and we were chatting when I realized what I had done. I told her that what I had fixed wasn't coffee. She asked me what it was, and when I told her it was cocoa, she (thankfully) thought it was funny, too. I insisted that she let me make coffee, but she insisted that they would drink it.

Drink it they did, too! I couldn't believe it!!!

Normally, people offer small chocolates to eat when drinking coffee . . . since my guests were drinking "hot cocoa" I didn't even bother to offer them any chocolates. I figured what they were drinking would be enough chocolate.

A few days later a group of neighbors came over together to see Nathan. The plan was to serve coffee. Do you think I made coffee??? Not a chance! And fortunately I just provided a brand new bag of coffee for my friend to make so there would be no confusion.

I guess I need to label my storage containers so there aren't any more mix-ups. My saving grace is that I'm a sleep-deprived new mother. I'm thankful they were so gracious to me!