There are coffee snobs and there are coffee snobs. If you live in Atlanta or New York, or, say, North Dakota, you will think me a snob. However, in the Seattle continuum of coffee snobbery, I'm somewhere in the middle, basically normal. And to your average Oregon hippie, I'm practically a philistine. For example, I often buy coffee beans at the grocery store. When pushed into a corner, I will even stoop to Safeway Select.

That said, I am a purist. Screw your double nonfat hazelnut latte. Espresso tastes like rocket fuel and makes my eye sockets clench. I'll drink it, but I think it's overkill. What I really prefer is a nice cup of drip coffee. Black. No sugar.

These days, I am in the minority. Simple tastes aren't always simple to accommodate. Your average coffee shop goer isn't there for the drip coffee. This means frequently waiting while the person in front of me orders a drink cursed with six adjectives or more, which takes six times as long to procure as what I want, which simply calls for the barista to pour some pinche coffee into a cup and hand it to me.

But the real problem is the quality. People don't order drip coffee, so the drip coffee sits in a fetid dispenser for hours on end or, worse yet, lingers in the pot burning into a ghastly substance better fit for the diners of purgatory. This brown swill requires heavy doses of cream and sugar to make it remotely palatable. Drip coffee at coffee shops is never good; at best its merely acceptable. I have choked down so many nasty cups that I rarely even bother anymore. I sigh and order an americano, which will at least be fresh, even though it's just espresso masquerading as drip.

Yesterday, I was at Victrola on Pike. Victrola has a reputation for good coffee, and I dimly remembered ordering an acceptable cup of drip there years ago.  I squinted at the guy behind the counter. He looked trustworthy. He looked, in fact, like he might be a transplanted Oregon hippy. Auspicious. I stepped out on a limb.

"I'll have a cup of drip," I said, my voice cracking a little. He didn't look surprised. Also a good sign. Clearly someone had ordered drip here within the last year or so, so maybe the coffee hadn't been sitting for too long.

The coffee, in a heavy white ceramic mug, was a rich opaque brown. It smelled good. The taste was lovely. Gone was the burnt undertone, the suspicious aftertaste of molding apparatus. No tinge of acridness, no bitterness. A well-rounded, dare I say, mellow, flavor. Better, even than what I make at home. Victory at last.

In news not related to consumption (yes, I do things other than eat or drink, God forbid): You can now see my articles online at ehow.com!
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If you already consider yourself a good cook, stop reading now. This post will only bore you.

1. Add fat.
Last night my friend OCD and her husband Juan came over for dinner. OCD asked me what on earth I had done to the salmon.
"Nothing special. Onion chives, fresh taragon, lemon, salt, pepper, and two incisions stuffed with butter," I recited.
"Butter!" she said, light dawning in her eyes. "I should use more butter..."
Yes, yes you should, I mused silently. This musing was not directed at OCD particularly, but at the world in general. Unfortunately, our national anti-fat hysteria has caused people to remove obvious sources of fat such as butter and olive oil from their diets while they continue to consume mass quantities of unhealthy additives in processed foods. It's a lose/lose situation.

2. Do not be afraid of existing fat.
OCD also has a phobia of visible fat on meat. Being OCD, she is inclined to remove all fat from raw meat with surgical precision. I can understand that. Fat is kind of gross looking and can have a rubbery texture. (I am the nasty sort of person that actually enjoys chewing on great pieces of succulent steak fat, but I can't expect everyone to be on that bandwagon.) Fat is also what gives meet its succulence. If you insist on removing fat or skin for dietary or aesthetic reasons, consider waiting until after the cooking process. Your meat may have a slightly higher fat content but it will also be more satisfying.

3. Grow and use fresh herbs.
Fresh herbs brighten any dish, and can do wonders for canned foods. Unfortunately, fresh herbs in the produce aisle are incredibly overpriced. The problem is easily rectified by creating a small herb garden. (I prefer growing herbs in a container because I am lazy and it saves me from walking all the way out to the garden for a sprig of thyme.) Plus, growing your own fresh herbs is an excellent way to impress the ladies. Or so I'm told...

4. Own cast iron.
A properly seasoned iron skillet is as nonstick as Teflon and you can treat it more roughly. (And instead of releasing particles of polytetrafluoroethylene into your food, cast iron pans leach trace elements of iron, which is actually beneficial, especially for all of you anemic vegetarians.)

5. Use stock.
Chicken stock adds dimension to sauces, soups, and sauteed vegetables. If you are interested in a simple and foolproof recipe, let me know.

"Only two things that money can't buy, and that's true love and home grown tomatoes," sings country troubadour Guy Clark. I'm inclined to agree with Guy (about most things he voices, actually) , though at the moment our tomatoes are just spindly starts and I'm singing the praises of one other thing that money can't buy: home grown salad greens.

Unlike the notoriously dreadful store bought tomato, store bought salad greens (especially the overpriced baby greens that I buy) are edible. However, the texture of homegrown greens is noticeably different: crispier, more delicate. Homegrown lettuce has thin, silky ruffles and homegrown spinach evades the leathery texture that mars, say, Popeye's Spinach Salad Mix. This year I'm growing butter lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, and rocket (which sounds infinitely cooler than arugula, does it not?). Having a pleasing array of fresh salad greens on hand is definitely an incentive to eat salad.

Not the gardening type? More of a cigar smoking libertine? Find salad totally boring even when it's crafted of the most meticulously harvested locally grown microgreens? This post is crafted with you in mind, too.

Yesterday I discovered that lettuce is better with single malt scotch. Don't ask me why I happened to discover this. But no, I wasn't just going around indiscriminately pouring scotch on things and then sticking them in my mouth.


Scotch Salad Dressing

You will need:
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of granulated garlic
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of warm water
1/2 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of scotch (I used Abelour)
4 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil

Mix soy sauce, granulated garlic, and balsalmic.
Add honey.
Add warm water and scotch.
Stir.
Add olive oil.
Close jar and shake.
Cool before applying to salad.