The Saga of the Coffee Maker Continues…
Writing by treason on Wednesday, 22 of November , 2006 at 11:13 am
I don’t want this to turn into a product review - really, I don’t. I went back to Linens & Things knowing that the 14-cup Cuisinart would be gone, considering it was the only one left on the shelf on Sunday. I had read more online reviews than I care to admit and they left me confused and depressed. It shouldn’t be this difficult to make a @#$%ing cup of coffee. No wonder people pay Starbucks four bucks to do it for them.
So I get to the store, clutching that 20% off coupon they always have in their ads that never applies to any item you ever want to purchase, and I look at the 14-cup maker again. I’m still an appliance racist. I see that black plastic and I cringe.
On the bottom shelf is a lone stainless and white 12-cup model: The Brew Central. Twelve cups should work for us, I thought. (”Ah, but don’t be so sure,” said the little voice in my head.) That’s when I started talking to the appliances. I noticed a woman was staring at me. I was compelled to bore her with the entire story about my quest for a decent coffee maker. She was helpful in that she told me that she thought the 14-cup model was unattractive, too.
I went with the white and stainless - begrudgingly. The good news is that it was the first time one of those coupons was accepted. Already the Cuisinart is cheaper than the KitchenAid. Good, because I’m going to have to spend a fortune on little replacement water filters and carafes for the bastard.
I won’t compare them feature to feature because there are things I love and hate about both designs. And the 14-cup model, I realize now, would have been a smart choice because Cuisinart considers a cup to be not 8 ounces, not 6 ounces, but rather 5 ounces. That is not a cup of coffee; that is a few drops more than demitasse.
This entire excursion into appliance shopping madness has got me thinking about my sister. It’s been three and a half years since her death and it’s the first time I realized that she was probably Amish. I knew she was an atheist, but I’m thinking now that somewhere in our genetic make-up - no doubt on the English/Dutch side of the family - there were weird Amish genes.
My sister insisted that the fewer bells and whistles the better. There’s more that can go wrong, she said. I’m looking at this Cuisinart and thinking she had a point. I’m not fanatical about it, but I don’t particularly like too many functions, either. My sister, on the other hand, was a bit of a zealot. My stepfather tried to convince her to buy the green car with more options, but she insisted on the beige AMC Hornet sedan with no air conditioning, radio, power steering, power windows, or power brakes. She just didn’t want anything to go wrong on it and require repair. What was wrong with it was that it rarely ran. (To be fair to AMC, her second Hornet - “The Blue Bomber” - was a pretty reliable wagon.)
I remember we bought her a microwave oven that never came out of the box. I sent her a snazzy radio/CD player with Vivaldi and Glenn Miller CDs, and that, too, stayed in the box. (She preferred to listen to El Rushbo and Lee Rodgers on a portable battery-operated radio with a handle and antenna.) The washer died and I sent her a $500 gift certificate from Sears that sat in a drawer and was never used. When her TV set blew, she never replaced it. Same with the fridge. And she refused to use an automatic drip coffee maker - that’s why I had to send her my percolator when hers fried.
For my sister, life was not about convenience. This was a girl who pulled her own teeth.
So by now you’re probably saying: “Cut to the chase - did the Cuisinart make an acceptable cup of coffee?” Eh - mezza mezz. The true test will come when I brew a full pot. But, for the eight cups I produced today, I was pleased. It needs to be stronger, of course, but too much ground coffee can result in a mess. I’ll use stronger, darker beans to compensate. For the most part, the Amazon reviews were helpful and I see what some people meant about “quirks.” A word to the wise: Do not buy a coffee maker with a flat bottom brew basket and filter (like the KitchenAid); instead, go for a cone shape. There seems to be more room to accommodate more ground beans.
Now, if money had been no object and I’d been able to find these quickly on a store shelf this week, I think I would have liked to have tried that pricey beaker-style DeLonghi (I give it points for originality and design) or the Zojirushi ZUTTO model that is so wonderfully simple. A pity that it’s too small, but the feature it has that I’d like to see in more coffee makers is the removable (and cleanable) reservoir. What a concept.
But time was not on my side. I needed something fast and I didn’t want to shop around to find the best deal. After reading countless reviews on Amazon I’m prepared to start researching now and give myself more time to track down the next replacement.
I have a nagging feeling the microwave is going to go next.
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