The American Reporter Copyright 1999 Joe Shea. All Rights Reserved.

I TAKE MY COLUMNS WITH HALF & HALF
By Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent

My daily ritual includes purchasing a start-the-day cup of coffee from one of the local food vendors in the building in which I work. I'm a weakling who favors a little coffee with my cream, and typically I can't get the clerks at coffee shops to put enough cream in the cup to satisfy my taste. Thus, I welcome a chance to put the cream in my coffee myself.

I'm a terror at restaurants. With a party of four at a table and each person ordering coffee, I usually am the one to drain the tiny pitcher of cream. I try always to be the last in the party to use the cream, but I often don't succeed in that noble gesture.

Go ahead you stalwarts of the black java; have your cynical giggle. We who like cream in our coffee stand by our cultivated tastes.

Here's my real gripe: The little plastic container servings of Half & Half are too small.

And while I'm at it, who invented this non-dairy creamer stuff? For me, the preference is real cream, not a container of pulverized vegetable derivative?

Am I the only person who puts cream in his coffee as much to cool it as to change its flavor? I've never known any restaurant to keep those artificial creamer envelopes in the refrigerator.

To add to my woe, over the years I've noticed that church kitchens are notorious for two ugly constants: casseroles and artificial creamer. It's enough to drive one from the faith. Office coffee klatches aren't much better with their oxymoronic non-fat pastries and donated non-dairy creamer.

Oh, sure, those gourmet coffee shops -- the ones associated with mass book stores and eight-dollar pita sandwiches filled with sprouts -- have got the right idea when it comes to coffee creamers: They put the Half & Half in an insulated bottle and keep it filled for fussy customers like me. But they pose other problems: one can't buy a simple cup of coffee at those counters for under two bucks!

Each morning, into a 12-ounce Styrofoam cup (I know I raise ecological eyebrows here, but the sin of consumption just multiplies once one is hooked), I pour hazelnut flavored coffee and turn to the end of the counter to lighten my addictive caffeine container with Half & Half.

On average, I pour between five and six of those little Half & Half buckets into my 12-ounce cup.

At this point almost every day I'm wondering: Why don't they make larger servings of Half & Half?

I mean, the size of coffee cups keeps going up. Have you seen the latest mug offerings? If I used one of those, I'd need a half-liter of Half & Half just to flavor it to taste.

I'm up for a morning 8-12 ounce cup. When will the dairy manufacturers get up to speed and provide larger servings of Half & Half to those of us who are faithful "extra cream" customers?

I wish the dairy folks would forget about milk mustaches on Cal Ripken Jr., Patrick Ewing and other celebrities. When do we coffee-with-cream working stiffs get larger Half & Half portions?

Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net

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