M. had moved to Rosebud already to start the process of packing for Hong Kong, and she had brought the machine down with her. Who would have known that coffee was so important to my life? Yet that seemed to be what my reaction was telling me. This has probably been mostly a consequence of the last couple of years, which have involved a lot of moving around. At the beginning of 2009 we packed up our house in Brunswick so it could be rented out, and moved into the house at Rosebud for the first half of the year to help save up for M.'s sabbatical. In July we headed off, first to the UK, then for a month's holiday in Spain, then to an apartment in Bethnal Green, in London, for four months, then a month in the US (Washington DC & Dallas, TX) and then for most of 2010 in a rented apartment in the downtown area in Melbourne. And now we have packed up and moved for Hong Kong. Naturally it is not easy to lug the 25-odd kilograms of a Rancilio Silvia around all of those places, and so I think having the espresso machine around has come to represent a bit of permanence in this peripatetic (don't get to use that word very often) life, or at least a momentary stability. Hence the lurch of joy at seeing the machine - simple really.
Of course I do love coffee, and have enthusiastically recommended the Silvia to anyone who will listen. It takes a bit of attention to detail, but if you are up for that it prepares a great cup of espresso. Sadly though, this means that a cafe has to have really great barista staff to make a better coffee than I can make at home, and so inevitably I end up sounding like a coffee snob at times. Such is life! Now I wonder how you say that in Cantonese...
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