taking over one more step of the process

Monday, August 16, 2004, at 04:34AM

By Eric Richardson

Yesterday, after church, Kathy and I stopped by the Farmer's Market as we often do. I got my usual dish (bbq chicken on what looks like an oval-shaped pizza), but accompanied it with a new drink -- a mix of pomegranite juice and lemonade. The lady I ordered from recommended it, and I wasn't disappointed.

After we ate Kathy bought some fruit, commenting as usual on how cheap it was. Then we walked along the edge of the parking lot to Cost Plus World Market. Ostensibly we were going because Kathy needed mugs, but really I end up finding something I just must have every time I'm there. This time was no exception, and I walked out with a little hand-crank coffee grinder and some whole bean Columbian coffee. Alan (who of late can't be bothered to pull himself away from the wonder of Hawaii and post to his blog more than once every few weeks) had told me that if I'm going to drink coffee I really must grind it myself, so I figured hey why not. And the hand-crank grinder was cheap (under $20) and looked cool, so I reasoned that even if I didn't end up using it often it would look good on the counter.

Yesterday afternoon I gave it a test run, just to see what the process was like. This morning I did it again before work. Both times I overestimated the amount of beans needed to fill my 3-cup mug. Both times I ended up with the little grinder drawer absolutely full of coffee. And both times I made some of the blackest coffee you've ever seen. Now, I like strong coffee, so aside from being a bit of a waste this isn't that bad of a thing. It's powerful stuff, and you can tell that way before you ever drink it.

So a little fine-tuning is to be had, sure, but on the whole I'm glad -- as usual -- that I followed Alan's advice.