The World According to Mitch

Eighteen months ago when I went to work for Yakidoo I was chastised / berated / belittled / nearly shot out of a canon for using artificial sweetener in my coffee.  This could have gone any of several ways, but what I did do, partly to appease and partly because I simply didn’t feel strongly enough to do otherwise, is I started using maple sugar in my coffee.

A month later, when I moved into my condo, I bought a bag of brown sugar, and continued to use it at home.  Do I notice a difference?  Only insofar as Alfredo doesn’t bother me about it

However there is one thing that I did notice, and funny enough it was my other job at Rakuten/Kobo that helped to resolve it.

Maple sugar hardens.

I got back from a seven week trip to Japan, and to say that I was jet lagged did not begin to cover it.  I was (and still am) wiped.  The first morning back I made a cup of coffee, and had to chisel out some sugar from the jar.  Not fun.

Fortunately, sitting in the cafeteria at Kobo some months ago I overheard a couple of employees discussing this very issue.  One of them said that if you put a piece of bread into the jar, it will fix the problem after a couple of days.

I put a piece of bread into the jar, and closed it up again.  Two days later I opened it, and whaddya know?  It worked!  Wow!

So if you are wondering why I am writing about hardened sugar on a mostly technical blog, here is my answer: Just Coz.  I hope it helps!