As if this year wasn’t tough enough with the loss of my beautiful mother, a few weeks ago I went to the hospital and got an ultrasound of my kidneys. Turns out, I have the same disease that took my mother from me. Polycystic Kidney Disease is hereditary and there is a 50% chance of your kids developing it. So I developed it. This means that my genes have sent a signal to my tubules to develop cysts that are non-removable in BOTH kidneys. The disease does not attack just one, it always attacks both kidneys.
In the end, unless some miracle happens and the cysts shrink on their own or disappear my only hope of leading a healthy/normal life is by transplant (which doesn’t happen til the kidneys are usually below 15% functionality) or by dialysis. Dialysis is extremely hard on the body. My mother surviving on dialysis for 19 years is a god damn miracle.
All this to say, that the best thing one can do a a PKD sufferer is go vegan. High protein diets are TERRIBLE for the kidneys, especially MY kidneys. Animal products are not good at ALL. Salt is terrible as well, and one of my vices…CHEESE is the worst of all. All animal protein and salt! damn it.
Anyone who knows me well, will tell you that I was a HUGE meat eater, cheese eater and I loved me some fatty, juicy animal proteins. So this switch was a strange one for me, but it happened from one day to the next. That’s right, the day I was diagnosed was the day I went vegan. July 10th, 2009.
But you know what? Even though this choice was not an ethical one or a socio-political one, I have to say it has opened up an entire world for me. I will go so far as to say that I actually TASTE more now. I think all that delicious umami from amazing meat products was masking other stuff. I feel physically more energized, I sleep like a stone, wake up really early and have way more energy through out the whole day. My mind is way clearer and I can eat a lot of food without feeling like I am gonna pass out or be rolled to the car. I have eaten varieties of fruits and vegetables I wouldn’t have touched prior to the diagnosis. My wife has been amazing enough to join me in the diet when she doesn’t have to. It’s been an interesting thing so far, because I am guilty of not understanding the whole concept of veganism prior to this. But I am going to say this, and I may get shit for it…I feel like more of a foodie by being vegan, because there is WAYYYYYYY more out there, culturally and other food-wise than just a good smoked beef/roasted pork/juicy bacon or what have you.
It’s approaching food in a way of truly fueling your body and mind, not just enjoying a salty/fatty piece of meat for enjoyment’s sake. In Hindu they believe that being vegan brings you closer to true life, as you are eating directly from the sun…the true source of life.
Believe me, I enjoy eating as much as I ever have, but there is a weird sense of truly tasting things in a way I have never really experienced before. I am not the type to turn down food at say Mae’s grandfolks’ house, or any other get together where it may be difficult to be vegan. I don’t believe in that, I believe if someone offers you food, and the only food they have is non-vegan it is right to take it and enjoy it because it is the fruit of their labor. There is some getting used to (veganism) by folks of an older generation for sure, especially in the midwest! I was wrong all those years for thinking vegans didn’t really enjoy or appreciate food. This will teach me! I’m puerto rican, roasted pork is in my BLOOD. But this has been a test for me, and I know that when it comes to my health/well being and prolonging the already shortened life I have…well, I don’t really have much of a choice do I?

She got out of the car and she had a red sweater on and red hair. She was so beautiful and I shit you not, when I was introduced I KNEW I was in deep, deep trouble. I have no idea how else to say this, but when I met Mae, I knew I would marry her. I mean, the minute we locked eyes I knew. So needless to say the rest between us is history, as she felt the same way I did. I brought her home to meet my mother, and at the time Mae was a vegetarian. My poor mother had no idea what to cook for her, she would cook rice in chicken broth and then tell Mae to pull the pieces of chicken and ham out of it and tada! it was now a vegetarian dish! It was a trip, and Mae was kind enough to tolerate it in exchange for some delicious Puerto Rican home cooked meals. At this point my sister started going in and out of mental hospitals due to her now severe schizophrenia. Mae met her in the height of her mental illness when one look she gave you would give you the chills. Mae’s absolute calmness through my fucked up and dysfunctional family was a sure sign to me that I had found the right person in my life. She never judged any of us, ever. My mother took about a year to truly warm up, but there was one day where she said to me “Gabriel, I can now die a calm and happy mother because you found someone that loves you as much as I do and you are happy. This is all a mother ever wants for her child.”

I was still working 40+ hours a week as a waiter and trying to finish my last 15 credits of college, driving home once every other week, and sending money home when I could. I would try to pay for as many things as I could for my mom, since at this point she was now living on 12K a year. I have no idea how she pulled it off all those years, but she did. She would make pasteles at Christmas and sell them by the dozen. I graduated with a decent GPA and got my Ithaca College medal and my mother called EVERYONE in Puerto Rico to tell them I had made it through college. She was so proud. I was astonished I finished considering everything that had happened in the time I was in school.
I had a hell of a time finding a job after school finished, and so Mae and I gave it a shot in Ohio for the summer. I did everything from hotel work, to Walden books to food service trying to make something of it. It was unbelievable how shitty our time was out there that summer. No work. Reluctantly we moved back to Ithaca and stopped at a little coffee shop with a Help Wanted sign. I was so afraid I would have to go back to making bagel sandwiches at the local bagel shop like I did through high school…but I needed a job to pay the bills, and to save up for the future. I went in and asked the guy if they required experience with coffee and he was a bit snarky but obviously a smart dude, “nah, we will train you”. I took the application and filled it out.
I was interviewed in a couple of days, and started right away. It wasn’t easy work, it was fast paced, lots of new info to learn very quick and I had to be quick on my feet. My years as a waiter at a fancy Thai joint certainly helped me with the quickness of the movements and the precision of being a barista. I spent a couple of weeks learning the history of coffee, the process of building drinks and then actually building them. I kid you not when I say, that it changed my life. I never realized how intense coffee was until that moment. I knew I wanted more. I liked the interactions with locals, and I loved making beautiful drinks. I was hooked. We had a teeny apartment, and we didn’t make much money, but I thought I was headed down the right path. My mother was somewhat confused, because I had just finished college and now worked at the local coffee shop…but I knew if I stuck with it, something good would come of it some day.

I have been in coffee for the last 7-8 years. Time flies really. I have been heavily involved in the specialty coffee industry for 6. When I mean “heavily” what I mean is that I haven’t looked at making/brewing/serving/roasting/buying as just a way to pay the rent. I have realized that I do know a whole lotta people when it comes to the industry, as in, some of my closest friends I have met through working in coffee. Some of these friends know me, and some of my history as a person and some know very little but know the quality of my character (which I guess ultimately is what matters most right?).
Anyway, thinking about this I thought that maybe, for the little number of folks who still read my blog, I would write a short and concise version of my history. Many people know many other folks in coffee, but don’t REALLY know them and I think this is a shame. We only have but a short time here on earth, get to KNOW a brother, a sister and enjoy them as much as you can.

I was born in Puerto Rico. Born to a school teacher and a banker who eventually lost his job due to his severe alcoholism. Turned so bad he eventually left the country when I was 6 years old, and moved to of upstate New York, mostly to avoid paying his alimony and child support from a previous marriage. When I was 8, we moved to Rochester, NY to start again. My family in Puerto Rico was straight up working class, we had JUST enough money to eat and have clothing. Our vacations were spent going to the local beach and eating street food and fresh coconut. All of our cars were held together mostly by wire and ropes and tape. But we loved our island, and my hardworking family. The move was not easy. My younger sister and my mom struggled to deal with the new climate. The four of us lived in a 550 square foot one bedroom apartment and my parents slept on a pull out couch every night. I always smelled of cigarette smoke from my father’s terrible habit and the constricted space. I struggled fitting in in school. I had ratty-ass clothes, I smelled (cigs) and was incredibly shy. I picked up English very quickly though and eventually excelled in school. My schooling was my salvation, getting me away from a pretty shitty home life (my father was truly, a deadbeat dad) and it made my mother proud. Let me preface all of this by saying, I was in no way a mama’s boy. In fact, she was a tough mother, and a loving one, and wanted nothing more than happiness for me, but she taught me to work hard and to roll with the punches and fight back when I had to in order to be successful. She wanted a better life for me than what she was currently providing and school was the only way to do this.
Fast forward. I took a year off before going to college, moved to LA with a friend for a year to “experience” something totally different in my life. I was 18. This was my first step into a love affair with California. My father was still at home, drinkin’ not contributing so I made a deal with my mother. My mother was on disability due to her Polycystic Kidney Disease and on dialysis 3-4 hours/3 times a week. She was in less than ideal shape to work. I had $400 in my checking account and I told her that if she wanted me home for Christmas she would buy him a one way ticket back to Puerto Rico and file for divorce. I sent her the check with the last of my money at the time.
She did it. She actually did it. And this was the beginning of a long, long journey to some type of liberation for her. It was hard, but she did it.
I kept my promise and came home for Christmas, I was accepted at Ithaca College and started the following fall. I moved back home for the remainder of the spring and worked three jobs to help support us. Ithaca College was an expensive, private school but I was determined to make it work. Family contribution= $0 because we had no money. My mother was supporting two kids on less than $18,000/year. I worked 40+ hours a week, got a few grants and scholarships and although it wasn’t TRULY affordable I knew that an education was the only way I would be able to make it out here. I bought myself my first car for $1K, a 1984 brown Volvo Wagon 240DL and for the same price I bought my mother a 240 Sedan, same year. I didn’t think much if it, she was my mother, but I think that changed our relationship forever. She KNEW, deeply, that she would always be able to count on me.
Fast Fwd again…
Not having much of a social life due to all the time I spent working to pay for school, rent, gas, insurance meant that my interactions with people were limited to class time. I studied sociology, not art as I wanted to, because I needed to understand my place in the world. I still sort of don’t, but I now understand what it means to be a short, Puerto Rican man, from working class roots in the US going to a private school made up of mostly wealthy white kids in an ex-hippie, “progressive” mostly white liberal and highly educated town (Cornell U. reigns supreme). Meanwhile, all of my family is back in PR.
There was one class though “The Working Class and Unions” , where I met a woman, who I am still friends with. She had a roommate who picked her up after class to take them back home. We were chillin’ outside of class one day when her roommate rolled up in a little red Honda Civic…

to be continued…

I.B.Martinez

Originally uploaded by boscana

My beautiful mother.

August 21st, 1948 – May 25th, 2009

Siempre te tendre en mi corazon, amor.

me heart fills with joy when I see this. enjoy.

This is document, the passing of my beautiful beautiful mother…Ingrid Martinez on Memorial day (May 25th) 2009. I am deeply saddened, devastated and all of a sudden feel deeply lost in the world.

We have been doing a lot of cupping recently, more than normal at Gimme Krums. We just got our delivery of 31 samples for the El Salvador Cup of Excellence. Unfortunately I will miss the festivities since the competition goes on the day I Get back from Guatemala.
I am honored to mention that I was asked to be a judge this year for the Guatemalan competition. I ma both humbled and nervous. I am excited for the opportunity to cup these beautiful coffees and to be in a group of folks that really care about the program and about the coffees.
I am concerned about calibration, though I trust my palate. I wonder how things will go. I am excited for Gimme, and for myself as we are making real efforts to become more involved with even higher quality coffee and projects. We scored a beautiful lot of the Panama Hartmann Honey and I can see us starting and maintaining this relationship with the Hartmann’s for a long time. I roasted a batch the other day in the drum and cupped it on Friday with Chris our production roaster and it was seriously delicious. I cannot wait to taste what the Hartmann’s have in-store this crop year.

Colleen cupping with Gabe

The ol’ lady and I spent 3.5 hours out in the sunshine this morning prepping (or starting to prep) our 22′X25′ garden space. We are sharing it with my friend and co-worker Anne Marie. I was raised in cities, never gardening ever in my life. The only gardening-like activity I did as a kid was pick lemons, bananas, mangoes and avocados from our back yard when I was a kid in Puerto Rico. That stuff grew on it’s own, no tending needed so I have VERY limited experience in the garden. So at the tender age of 30, I figured it wasn’t too late to start. I am very excited about growing out food. And canning and preserving the fruits for the winter.
We hauled manure, did soem rake tilling, weeding, set up posts and string and tomorrow we will go back to hook up the chicken wire and finish with the manure and de-rock and weed some more. Physically it is amazing, and exhausting but you feel like you have actually accomplished something. We went to a video art show last night and I saw that there are quite a bit of hipsters in Ithaca, and quite a few innovative artists too! sweet! I thought there were only hippy dippy, uber old school liberal quilt-makers and basket weavers here, but alas, there are young hip people doing cool shit here. I should be ashamed of myself thinking this way, but it’s the truth.
Not that there is anything wrong with quilting or basket-weaving, it’s the general attitude attached to these activities in this part of the country that truly make me wanna take a nap and not look at art.
I am ordering my supplies for a birthday porter I am making for a friend this week, and next weekend it’s beer-making time!
We have decided to grow tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, onion, eggplant, peppers, beans, squash, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, cabbage and the latest addition is hops! hells yeah. I am on the hunt for good hops. they are super expensive, so if I could grow my own it would be very very nice.
the weather here is beautiful, makes me happy to be back east. the seasons changing are truly good for the soul.

Huron, DQ

Originally uploaded by boscana

what a beauty.

go here…

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd6j9f4j_0d4jxsdgt