The Obligatory Coffee Post, At Long Last – or – Coffee, A Love Story

Given the name of this blog, it’s about time I shared my thoughts on coffee!

Mainly, I love it. This warm delicious beverage brings me comfort as well as energy.

I’ve always liked the smell of coffee, but I didn’t start drinking it until I finished college and went to Sarajevo, Bosnia to teach English. Coffee is an institution in Bosnia. It is everywhere, and it is very, very important.

I started with espresso with regular white sugar. I expanded to Nescafe, which I still love. Instead of Splenda, I used some kind of fake sugar in a plastic pellet dispenser. Sometimes I drank Bosnian coffee, which depending on the producing country, people may also know as Turkish coffee, Greek coffee, or muddy coffee (the last one is the Israeli variant I believe).

If people can make themselves healthy, should we blame them for getting sick?

Slate recently asked If people can make themselves healthy, should we blame them for getting sick? This is framed around the “obesity crisis”, which doesn’t surprise me: being overweight is probably one of the few things you can write an article about, blaming people for, and hardly make a splash.

As much as people might reference other health issues that are considered preventable, people mostly don’t publicly say things like, hey, you’ve got cancer? Why didn’t you eat more carrots and kale? I don’t want my insurance to subsidize your expensive treatment. Your mother had a heart attack? She should have gotten up from the couch every once in a while! It would be considered very mean and unsympathetic – and rightfully so, in my opinion.

How to Not Waste Stuff

Some days I am quite literally amazed that I feed myself. And I feed myself fairly healthy food in fairly reasonable amounts. I remember eating a lot of microwaved food growing up, and some days it just strikes me: I am now a grown up. I also tend not to waste food.

I believe this skill comes partly from living abroad, but mainly from living on a budget. I just can’t stand spending money on something I won’t use. I’d like to believe there’s a small dose of environmentalism in there, too.

Sarah Wilson’s post i love food, hate waste made me think more about how to not waste stuff. Or how I avoid wasting food, anyway.

I freeze a lot of stuff.