Instructions

Yesterday, we purchased a new coffee maker as our old one was getting to be temperamental. With all new buttons and lights, I sat down to read the instruction manual. Little did I know that my new found knowledge would soon be sent to the test.

During Jeopardy, just a couple of hours later, an answer came up and I shouted out the question "How do you clean a coffee pot?" Alex Trebek could have been reading the answer out of the same instruction manual I had recently finished. I'm sure I would have won the match if I'd been there in person.

What interested me the most in the manual was the troubleshooting section. Here are just a few of the actual problems and possible causes listed in the book:

• Coffeemaker does not turn on - Coffeemaker is not plugged in. Check to be sure appliance is plugged in to a working outlet and the ON/OFF button is powered ON.
  
• Coffee is not brewing - Water reservoir might be empty. Make sure water reservoir has sufficient water to brew desired number of cups of coffee.
  
• Coffeemaker brews clear water - There may be no grounds in removable filter basket. Add sufficient amount of coffee grounds to paper or nylon mesh filter in removable filter basket.

Substitute Sugar

Many of my readers know that my wife is out of town, so the title of this post may raise some eye-brows. But I'm not talking about THAT kind of substitute sugar, I'm talking about the stuff that comes in little blue, yellow or pink packets. I'm talking about this kind of substitute:

When looking for an image to go with this post, I even learned there's a NEW substitute, I wonder what color package it will use? Probably green, everything seems to be going green these days.

Yesterday, I decided that I would try an alternative in my coffee. I know I can stand to lose a couple (no laughs please) of pounds, so I decided to use some of the pink packets instead of the normal stuff.

Now my coffee usually has this really rich flavor. I've gotten used to this Colombian coffee that I received as a gift earlier this summer (which is about all gone, hint, hint). It was given to me by someone who actually went to Colombia just to pick up the coffee. While they were there, they decided to make it a week long stay, see some friends and some sights etc.

I've decided that the rich coffee flavor is a combination of the special beans (if you've seen "The Bucket List", I don't want to know why these particular beans are special) and the fact that the coffee is finely ground. I'm convinced that some scientist somewhere knows that the fine ground coffee permeates every molecule of water as it brews.

But I noticed that the flavor wasn't the same with the pink stuff. This morning, I tried the blue stuff. Still not as flavorful. I don't have any of the yellow stuff, so tomorrow I'm going back to the real deal.

As a side note, why is it that we choose our sugar by color now?

Anyway, I just want to say, no substitute sugar for me. That goes for my coffee and my lips too!