A creative nonfiction piece by Kyra Rickman
Mud pies were a lower form of eatery. Grown-ups had no appetite for glob, slob or sludge. At six years old, we knew our parents’ refined palates required finer delicacies. The coffee pellet was our inspired solution and the jeweled candy of our Kansas farmland. It was pre-destined to complement any cup of freshly brewed coffee.
“God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt,” my cousin always sang as we pierced the glossed sheet of frozen topsoil with chipped plastic shovels in search of ingredients to create our prize. It wasn’t good dirt unless we had been digging long enough that the winter frost had kissed our fingertips lavender. Only then would we harvest the crystallized December earth in our dollar-store buckets. They were the neon kind, of course.
Snow was a must-have ingredient, imperative to the texture. A gourmet dish was not judged on taste alone after all. We would wait outside for the moment when the sweet fragrance of hay barrels and winter chill ghosted into our nostrils. The snow followed soon after in an ethereal fashion, and fresh flakes were always best.
My uncle built a clubhouse in the backyard, a wobbly old thing on swaying stilts, and it was there we brewed our potion. Though our cafe was small, we made do as we sat criss-cross applesauce on the splintered wooden floor. The making process was simple, really: add snow to dirt and stir well, then add water and mix contents thoroughly until viscous.
Casting our concoction with careful hands akin to Ghiberti’s as he crafted the Gates of Paradise, we poured our dessert into molds of ribbed plastic bottle caps, let them freeze overnight and voilà! Our tasty confection was complete, the solution now hardened into a smoky quartz rock candy.
We once slipped a pellet into my dad’s pour-over and asked him to drink it for us. He said he liked his coffee bitter, but I guess not too bitter. The liquid squirted out of his nose after only a sip, exaggerating his expression to the point of a caricature.
I remember this as a disgruntled customer harasses one of my fellow baristas at a coffee shop I work at in the summer. She says there is too much sugar in her drink; she wants something bold and earthy. Oh, how I wish I had one of Kansas’ finest coffee pellets to offer her.