il caffe

Coffee is an essential part of Roman life. Along with the sock stores, you can find a bar almost every few feet where you can drink a quick coffee in piedi (standing at the counter). Unfortunately we seem to live in an area devoid of either grocery stores or bars so we must make our coffee at home. When we arrived there was an american-style coffee maker in our apartment but Chris and I wanted to get a little cafetiera to make espresso. We thought this made the most sense since all of the coffee here is fine ground for the espresso machines. I did see something labeled "american coffee" in the supermarket but the layer of dust on the box scared me away.

We had a cafetiera in New York, but we hadn't brought it with us so I bought one. Perhaps it was a mistake to buy it at a store called "Top Sound" which sold mostly electronics but how wrong can you go with a cafetiera? Aparently disastorously wrong. Chris made the coffee while I was sleeping so I didn't witness what happened, but he described an "explosion." He cleaned up rather well though so I thought he was probably exagerating a bit. You might be thinking, "How stupid to buy a cafetiera in an electronics store!" Well, our stupidity goes beyond that. We thought perhaps we had done something wrong, so we tried it again. This time Chris thought perhaps the flame underneath had been too low. So in an effort to make the coffee quickly he tried it on high. At first everything seemed fine and then, without any warning (or even the faintest gurgle of coffee) there was an explosion which spewed coffee and espresso grounds all over the stove, walls, sink, cabinet, fridge and the drying rack full of clean dishes; everything within a six foot radius. The clean up took two days. I hope that someone has some advice on how to fix this. I think that perhaps the flames on our stove are too high or the cafetiera is simply faulty, but with results like this we can't afford to experiment.