Camp coffee

Coffee percolator

I can’t make percolator coffee without thinking of Edna. We just came back from a coast camping trip, Labor Day tradition, and we have an old Colman stove and a Corning coffee percolator. The stove is a cantankerous beast and getting up each morning, getting the stove to work properly and making coffee is a camping tradition. Because I’m the only one who can make the stove work, I get up early.

And I make percolator coffee—I don’t do this at home. Percolator if strong, hot and very dark coffee compared to the drip systems. The only similar styles would be boiled or cowboy coffee and staying in the Newman’s house at camp we made percolator coffee. Edna made good strong, get up in the morning coffee. I think it was a Faberware plug in coffee maker. All stainless steel, automatic. Your only choices would be how much coffee and how much water. In later year we bought coffee in Fort Bragg to use, one of the first coffee roasters, a hot air system, I forget the name, good coffee.

But Edna used canned coffee—don’t remember a brand.

The other tradition was making iced coffee. In the late afternoon she would take the cold coffee from the morning and create a great afternoon pick-me-up. To this day I like iced coffee—of course I was too much sugar, lots of milk, even ice cream. But the key is strong coffee. And every time I pull out the camping gear, head to somewhere with the family, and get up early to make the coffee, I think of Edna.

Funny where memories live and are reborn.