The STYLE DEFINERY COLUMN -
from now on every Monday for the first coffee ☕️
Sometimes I think I have ADHD. I have no idea if it's due to social media, the internet in general, Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV, age, the many different tasks that style definition entails every day, too many self-optimization apps and not enough Movement - but my average attention span is now well below that of a goldfish. According to a study from 2015, the latter manages to concentrate fully on one thing for a total of nine seconds, which should be tight for me. My mind races back and forth, up and down, jumping from right to left and then back to center. My head is more cluttered than a triple room at my son's boarding school. While writing this column, I was freshly making my bed, making spaghetti with pesto, changing the cartridge on my Brita water filter, ordering swimming shoes from Amazon because I'm invited to Hydra next week and suddenly remembered that in the many emails somewhere in the planning and program it said something about needing swim shoes on a day. After that I watched videos of Hydra on Youtube, because I've been to Greece many times, but I've never been to Hydra. Then it occurred to me that I actually wanted to write something about my love for Nescafé in my column, so I started by making myself a Nescafé and eating a piece of chocolate, which in turn reminded me that I really should finally wall- should download the Pilates app, because, as is well known, nothing comes from nothing. After that, I looked on Google Maps to see where there is a church near me, because when I woke up this morning, I heard the bells ringing for the first time since moving to my current apartment. I couldn't find a church, only the synagogue around the corner from me, and it became clear to me that I basically know far too little about synagogues and whether bells are rung there. When I finished researching this, my coffee was cold and the column still non-existent, which in turn led to the realization that if I carry on like this, I'll never live up to the claim I made about my column become fair. What I wanted to deliver was "creative style guides, exclusive insights into the world of sustainable luxury, inspiring and sometimes tragi-comic stories from my everyday life, delicious culinary discoveries and personal film and book recommendations" - at least that's what the website says . But because I couldn't decide which of these to talk about first, I went to the bathroom and smeared on a Sisley face mask that promised "Instant Youth." In the closet I found an overnight rescue mask for my hair, which needs urgent care after my return from Andalusia. And since I was already standing in the bathroom, I decided to quickly paint my nails, because they looked almost as battered as the ends of my hair.
After that, I sat back down at my laptop and decided to write something about my beloved Nescafé after all, even though for 90% of people it doesn't really fall under the heading of "delicious culinary discoveries". The opposite is the case. Instant coffee has about the same standing as canned ravioli. But I love it and can't imagine a morning without it. In fact, I'd rather not drink coffee at all than a cup of coffee from the Nespresso machine or, worse, a filter coffee that's been on the hot plate for a couple of hours. Nescafé is always fresh and quick. No hours of heating up the portafilter machine, no complicated programming processes on the Jura display, no sudden request to descale the machine when you just want to start the day in peace and quiet. In addition, the instant coffee has a high emotional value for me. It brings back childhood memories of balmy summer days when my brother and I ate loads of vanilla ice cream with my mother. My mother always sprinkled Nescafé over her balls, which made a delicious melange. When we were kids alone or our parents weren't paying attention, we secretly made this "ice cream café for the poor" because we were of course still much too young for coffee. We then felt tremendously mature and sophisticated and imagined being able to go through whole nights on our caffeine trip without sleeping. The latter is completely illusory today, so the memory is all the sweeter.
When my eldest daughter fell seriously ill in 2012 and we had to move to the hospital for months at a time, the first Nescafé in the morning was like a ritual. Amidst the hospital din of beeping IV poles and monitoring equipment of all kinds, amid a plethora of tests and procedures, and a never-ending struggle between hope and fear, that first morning cup of coffee was like a tiny little island on which I was all alone . I sat on my deck chair and mentally prepared myself for the new day, watched my daughter sleep and was happy that another night was over. The coffee tasted of peace and gratitude, of hope and comfort - and it still does for me to this day. For me, Nescafé is like the man I love, like "Sex and the City", swimming in the sea, Berlin in summer and my ancient but beloved blazer by Vanessa Bruno - a love, an attitude to life, a moment with a guarantee of happiness. And there aren't that many of them. Maybe fries with a salad. But I'll write about this culinary amour fou another time.
Have a wonderful start into the new week,
LOVE, Anya
