Oh Coffee.. How I love thee....

Coffee.. the elixir of life, at least in my house. How I am able to function without this sweet concoction of ground beans, warm steamed milk and copious amounts of splenda is beyond me. Have you ever met anyone that has said: "I don't like coffee" or "I don't drink coffee". If I do, I am immediately thinking two things. First, we could never ever be friends (with the exception of my BFF Jenny, but that's another post entirely) and secondly, they must be an alien. I mean, seriously. Who in the holy hades is able to function, let alone function properly, without that morning cup of joe? I have been known to put the remote in the refrigerator, forget my lunch, lock the keys in the car and forget my computer when I don't drink my cup. (this all happened in ONE morning, so you've been warned) Now that we have established my slight obsession/addiction with coffee, let's talk actual type of coffee drink. My preferred go to is a Starbucks Quad Venti skinny latte. Yes, you read that right. QUAD. As in FOUR shots of espresso. Most people would need a crowbar to pry their fingers off the coffee cup, but this seems to be just the right amount of caffeine for me. Now, what that says about me is a completely different post altogether, but we digress. At slightly less than the cost of a pair of new jeans, this quad latte was quite the drain on financial resources. With three QuarterRican minions that I must feed, house and train, my drink of choice was now left for only special occasions. This left me with quite the predicament. How to feed the coffee addiction but still keep the quality. Well, I have come to realize that Starbucks ground coffee is caca. Literally, it tastes like burnt caca. How they make my delicious drink from those grounds is beyond me, but at home, it's DEFINITELY not the same. Now, at home, I am starting a blasphemous relationship with... ugh.. this is so hard for me to say.. Dunkin Donuts. Yes, that Dunkin. Home of the overly sweet donuts and mediocre breakfasts. I have turned to their Turbo Dunkin flavor. It doesn't taste burnt or like chewed up toast crumbs when brewed. Somehow, it comes to taste pretty close to my revered Quad with out the second mortgage necessary to pay for it. As for the actual creation of my said latte, I make it old school. With one of these: Now this may be considered prehistoric or BS (Before Starbucks), but I don't have the time, money or counter space for one of those new fangled high tech machines. (you know, the ones that cost about $2500 and pretty much hand it to you in a gold plated cup) I even heat the milk on the stove, bypassing the microwave. There's just something familiar and soothing about making my cup this way. It even reminds me of my beloved Mami (grandma/abuela) in PR. She made coffee every morning like this, and the smells totally bring me back to the island and her kitchen in Ponce. In fact, I have been drinking coffee since I could drink out of a bottle (albeit VERY diluted with warm milk) but this could be a slight indication of why I am such a caffeine addict and a short/rotund 5'3" tall. Why have I spent the last few paragraphs talking about coffee and my personal preferences. I have no clue. I was drinking my first cup and thought it would be a good second blog entry. Besides, if you are going to get to know me, might as well start with the important stuff, right?