First Taste

Is it better bitter?

 

            Most people stand way back from the Edge of The Earth, out here where I serve up a daily menu of vittles. Drinking my coffee is about as close to the Edge as most people get. Today’s brew is dark and rich, brought to us from some uncivilized part of the world by well intended folks. The coffee is not like what most people expect. Living at the Edge is problematic that way: things are different than people anticipate.

            The coffee is one example: I feel you can always water coffee down to your expectation by adding coloring and flavoring, but then the diluted result is just a memory of the real article. My coffee, and I like a lot of coffee during an average day, has fragrance and body… sometimes a bite if it is not still warm. Most people defer a second cup.

            The cinnamon rolls are made with a touch of hot sorghum mixed into warm honey, never with sugar. The crystals on my rolls are cinnamon sparkles, placed on when the rolls finish baking, fresh from the oven. I have nothing against sugar. But no sugar in my rolls for the people visiting at the Edge of the Earth, who come here to see and experience the elements of life on and over the Edge.

            People are amazed by Rupert and Rudyard, the pair of near twin full red Irish setters that greet everyone. One or the other dog is psychic and can tell the nuts and posers from the “real” people who visit here. We have never figured out which dog has the power, but just watch them herd a couple to North room, as far away from the Edge as you can get in this place, and you know that they “know”. I just wave and tell people to “sit where you want” but R & R herd and steer them to an appropriate table.

            You cannot allow people too close to the Edge. I used to try to use vehicle models to say that this or that person should go to the North room. But leasing cars changed all of that. We get mostly Lexus, Cadillac, and Lincolns and a fair number of geezers on motorcycles. I just let the psychic dogs figure out who is likely to go over the edge, so I can concentrate of the food.

            Say ten years ago a couple would drive up in a nice Chevrolet Impala, to see if they could get next to the Edge. Not at all likely, them being in a Chevy, that they had the custom to stand close to anything. And kids in Mustangs and Camareos think they have the nerve. Reality sets in when the true distance ahead of them is viewed. If they get that far. Most do not. Back then the driver had an investment in his Lincoln, some substance, and a motive to seek out the Edge of the Earth. Cadillac and Lincoln owners always went to the South Room to acquire the true view and vision of the Edge.

            Bicyclists are a bitchy lot but if they can make the trip out here, surely they can get to the Edge, even if they cannot see over it. A philosopher, or an Indian maybe said that I think, about the journey being just as important as arriving. Mao? Mao never wore a cycling shirt with 7eleven on it or a plastic wrist band for cancer. Mao favored jade which tells you how close to the Edge he got. No, really. Jade is definitely a mineral found beyond the Edge, so while Mao had some personality issues, if he was into jade and the reverence of miracle stones he had a solemn vision compatible with mine. The cyclists that reach here espouse an aesthetic lifestyle fitting for those who tackle the Edge of the Earth. Peddlers all of them.

            The menu is simple: Coffee, cinnamon rolls, flat bread with country eggs. The eggs have virtues unto themselves, representing everything and anything found here, at the Edge of the Earth. Eggs are cheaper in the country, and fresher, and from healthier chickens. Every day I motor down the road to a free range chicken ranch, pilot my way up the gravel road through the fields of soy and corn. The fields are ready to harvest this fall with the beans all nut brown.

I have a total trust relationship with the owner of the farm. In eleven years I have never met them. Do the farmer and his family exist? Well the chickens do exist. And the eggs do exist. You know farm people are just too busy to talk about simple commerce. I just pick-up twelve dozen eggs daily from the table by the coop, or take a woven reed basket and pick the eggs from the nests, directly while they are warm. Occasionally I need to boot a chicken off the nest to collect the eggs. The money is placed in a foot high bar pickle jar that has seen several decades of farming. People are different at the Edge of the Earth. And a good farmer is a good friend, a person who is outstanding in a field. They do not need barbed wire to keep from the Edge, because they see the Earth for what it is and are pledged to serve it.

If one hundred forty-four eggs are not enough to serve all the customers on a given day I just make more cinnamon rolls. At the Edge of the Earth there is always tomorrow.