Fireroast Mountain Cafe

Weather: 31°, light rain/snow. Dreary.
Coffee Shop: Fireroast Mountain Cafe • 3800 37th Ave. S. • Mpls • First Time
Drink: Americano ($2.16 M)
Book: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo


Coffee
Fireroast Mountain Cafe had been on my list to visit for awhile and since a friend mentioned it last week I decided it should be my first stop for the season. The cafe is a quaint little spot in the residential Howe (Longfellow) neighborhood. There's a decent food menu that I wish I could've dug into, but alas there are no tamales allowed on the Hop. I was feeling fairly indecisive today, so I just ordered my standard Americano. The prices are really good here, I got a medium for $2.16—although I overheard the manager training a new employee that all Americanos are the same size in volume; that confused me. My best guess is that it was a double shot.

 The Americano was not particularly good; although I'm no expert judge of coffee—I can only speak to my personal tastes. It tasted a little burnt, a little too much like mediocre coffee. Perhaps I should have gotten the Tanzania Peaberry Pourover instead. It made me feel a little sick, but so did my breakfast, so I think that may have more to do with my stomach and less to do with the coffee.

The atmosphere was cozy. I snuggled up in a big armchair in a back room, which allowed me to get away from the training session going on at the counter. The clientele in the front was edging on geriatric, it had a definite neighborhood after-church feel, although it was pretty quiet until closer to noon. The music was fantastic. Lots of bluegrass country, and I even got to hear Down To The River to Pray at one point.

 Fireroast wasn't a terrible Hop, but I think it would be better for conversation and lunch with a friend. I've gotta have me one of those tamales.

Book
The book I'm reading is Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. When I put it on reserve at the library (when? January?) I was around #800...it took until November to get to #1. I'm about halfway through and I'm really enjoying it. It's a true story about a slum in Mumbai and the people who live there. Having been to Mumbai I'm finding it extra intriguing, but it also makes me wish I had paid more attention while I was there. It's a very heartbreaking book.

Today I read about the juvenile detention center that one of the main characters is in and two things struck me. First, child labor is illegal but only rarely enforced. However, when it is enforced, it's the children that get in trouble, not the company employing them.
Two boys who looked to be seven years old had been picked up while sweeping floors in a cheap hotel. [Abdul] couldn't see why the state had taken them from their parents. Being so poor that you had to work so young seemed like punishment enough.


The second thing that struck me (and has throughout the book so far) is the depth of corruption. Police and political corruption are pretty familiar to most people, but this chapter revealed an even lower low:
...a doctor had been assigned to check the ages of suspiciously old-looking juveniles...and those over eighteen would go to Arthur Road Jail. In the examination ward, Abdul was weighed by a medical assistant: 108 pounds. He was measured: five foot one. He lay naked on a table as his pubic hair was declared normal, his facial hair categorized as 'sub-adult'...Then a doctor entered the room with the results of the forensic investigation. Abdul was seventeen years old if he paid two thousand rupees, and twenty years old if he did not.


Overall, the book is sad, as India in all its realities often is. But there was one part today that I liked, when one of the characters woke up to the Adhan (I have the Adhan set for my alarm clock, because I also think it is soothing): 
Still, he'd always felt soothed, hearing the meuzzins as they summoned believers or announced that lost children in green shirts were at the mosque awaiting reclamation. Under the care of men with such voices, he figured all lost children would be safe.


People Watching
The people watching was fairly non-distracting today, especially because I was in a small room where few people could sit. However, there were two girls there working and one was apparently working on a novel, which I couldn't help but eavesdrop on. It was interesting listening to her talk about how she had never wanted to write a novel but got this character in her head and couldn't stop thinking about her for a year. While she was describing the bits of plot that she was working on she said something that I liked, because it's how I've been feeling lately: "She's figuring out relationships: who is on your side, and what does that mean?"

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