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Me
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Every year I took a piano examination at Friends House in the centre of
Sheffield, usually playing Mozart. While
the examiner worked out how much to deduct me for fluffing D major left
hand only again, we would go to the coffee shop in Cockaynes, across
the road. They did a famous milky coffee, and just thinking about milky
coffee, made the Sheffield way, makes me salivate, and somehow Cockaynes'
coffee shop epitomized it. The shop had a name, but I can't remember it
now. You only make milky coffee with instant - this is what distinguishes
it from cafe-au-lait, apart from the class thing. The best strategy is
to heat the milk up in a saucepan and when it reaches a certain thermo-chemical
state (described by my half-cousin David as "groobling") you sprinkle the
coffee on top. You then stir for 10 seconds and wait until "bubblification"
begins (these are static bubbles, not boiling). Then you stir it again
and watch carefully until the moment before it starts to boil ("droobling").
Then serve and enjoy. They didn't actually follow this process at Cockaynes,
but I managed to pass all my piano exams, so my memory is of perfect milky
coffee.
When I did particularly well in a piano exam, I got to play the piece
again at the awards concert. On one of these occasions I rested my right
heel on my left toe as I pedaled! Mrs Nuttall knew that rock
music was behind it: she never quite trusted me again.
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