The right temperature
While waiting for the pest control guy to finish his rounds outside I let my coffee cool down to the right temperature. That’s a word that is filled with lots of interpretation. We start very early trying to control the temperature of food. Checking the temperature of a baby’s bottle against your arm or checking the spoon full of food. Get it wrong and the infant will paint you. One of the frequent questions to ask any visitor is was the coffee hot enough? We have certain assumptions about our food and about our bathwater. Yes there is a perfect temperature for my bath and my shower. And it is my perfect temperature. Yours may vary. I wish I had a better thermometer so I could try to quantify those numbers. This is where we move from subjective to objective. I realize the temperature in my shower cannot go beyond a certain level because I have a thermostat to control that. Also nature. It is hard to boil water beyond a certain level. Steam if you will. But the right serving temperature plays out in so many other areas. I have watched someone gently warm their ice cream in a microwave. I did not understand the why but you probably do. Is your soup too hot? Would you like an ice cube to go with that? Certain questions we learn to ask others. Right now I live in a house where the temperature is constant within a few degrees. If I go outside I consider whether or not I need an extra coat or not. We all have a level of comfort. What about the rest of the world. We try to make sure that the eggs we leave outside for our neighborhood friends are neither too hot nor too cold. We cannot ask for input but we know by their actions. When I make bread, I know almost instinctively how long to leave it on the counter before it can be put away. Again, I wish I had a thermometer to quantify some of these things.
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