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.

Today OCD and Candy and I were downtown for gelato, but got waylaid by waffles. From the outside, Sweet Iron looks like a swanky nightclub. Inside, everything is so clean and shiny and streamlined that we at first suspected it might be a chain (we asked, and it's not). I'm not a fan of the aesthetics of swanky nightclubs or slick corporate cafes, but I am a fan of Sweet Iron's delicious Belgium waffles.
It's immediately clear that a lot of thought has gone into these waffles. We tried a special, The Prosciutto, which was drizzled in crème fraiche, piled high with chopped prosciutto, and garnished with minced green onions. Being a fan of salty meats and rich dairy products, I assumed that the garnishes would demand most of my attention, but surprisingly, the waffle itself took center stage. Thick and dense, Sweet Iron waffles have a pleasing texture that is accentuated by the light crunch of caramelized pearled sugar (imported from Belgium). Definitely a meal in itself, and a good deal at 5.99, especially when you consider that Sweet Iron uses fresh ingredients and buys local and organic when possible. I also sampled the Ice Cream Waffle, which was topped with a veritable ice cream sundae, including Lopez Island Creamery  ice cream, delicate whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sour cherry compote. For 5.99 you get ice cream, and a meal-sized waffle. I’m definitely down with the idea of eating a meal that also happens to include ice cream and whipped cream. We didn’t try the Classic Waffle, but it’s only 2.99 and you can get its chocolate dipped brethren for 3.49. I will be returning.

Also, I’m probably selling the aesthetics of the joint short—I should mention that it has nice high ceilings and there were fresh yellow and red tulips on each table.

You can read The Stranger’s interview with the owners here.

I missed my bus yesterday, so I had some time to kill in the International District. Time to kill in the International District equals food, of course. Normally I'd pop into a unassuming cafe for a bowl of pho or some fresh spring rolls, or hop over to Shanghai Garden for their unforgettable hand-shaved noodles, but I'd just eaten, so I had to content myself with buying a bag of groceries.

Which is more fun than it sounds. Although many Seattle residents equate ID groceries with Uwajimaya, the epic and admittedly entertaining Asian superstore, I've always preferred to poke through the countless mom-and-pop shops that line the Jackson street corridor. The entire area is like a candy store for people who love pickled things and odd cuts of meat: you can find Chinese pickled lettuce, Vietnamese pickled water spinach, and about 50 varieties of pickled chiles, not to mention pigs' feet and live fish swimming woefully in murky tanks. Eleven dollars will buy you a bag bursting with odd roots and colorful cans, and the crowded isles and pungent smells create a vaguely Third World ambiance that always makes me feel at home, even though I'm sure I stick out like a sore thumb. If my  tendency to gangle over the vegetables, peering at roots with a confused expression didn't mark me as a novice, to the trained eye my selection of groceries spell dilettante: lemon grass stalks, a bunch of cilantro, rice sticks, oyster mushrooms (organic! 2.99 a lb!), canned baby corn, two cans of coconut milk, and a can of coconut juice (I am curious, but it turns out to be too sugary). Total cost: the aforementioned eleven dollars. Now on to find some doable recipes in my new Mini C cookbook. (On Sunday, I used her recipes to make marinated pork and rare sirloin steak with chili sauce, and both dishes turned out pretty damn delicious, so I have high hopes for the rest of the book.)