making coffee with a fork

I made coffee with a fork, for today I have no spoon.

Living in the UK, I’m partial to good, instant (freeze dried) coffee. I pour the milk first, add a generous teaspoon of granules, a sweetener, and a quarter teaspoon of sugar. The water is 80C or so, never boiled.

I love a good ‘proper’ coffee when I’m out and about, hopping from one favoured café to another, but I haven’t brewed my own filter coffee since I was a teen.

I have often been chided for stirring my tea or coffee with a Biro, or the handle of a knife. “You should use a spoon”, they’d say.

I wonder why I ‘should’ use something I don’t have (at a café, at a service station, in a canteen). Isn’t the stirring the important part? The outcome I desired was effected, so why the outcry?

I understand that the right tool for the job can make all the difference in the quality and ease of work, but stirring a beverage is hardly a complex chore. Logical thinking matches ‘correct’ implements to the task; cultural experience matches the expected implement, but lateral thinking allows for imagination and discovery.

There is no spoon.

There is whatever you need – a thing is what it does – it does not carry its ‘isness’ within some esoteric DNA. A stirrer stirs.

Tomorrow, I hope to have a teaspoon, as a fork is a poor shovel when it comes to scooping coffee and sugar.