(X-Post) What to do with coffee beans when you don't have a grinder?

[IrishAyes]

27. Unfortunately, no... I don't have a mortar and pestle. Never saw one in this area's minimal

shops. Some of the stuff I thought I had in the Penske when I moved here disappeared between the time I packed and unpacked.

More unfortunately, it was not atypical when a 30-something guy here bragged to me that his girlfriend had almost made it through 11th grade. Not that he made it anywhere near that far, but he still declared himself an exceptional intellectual. There's absolutely no end to the amount of crap in people's 'brains' around here. But that's how they grew up, and since they don't see where it hurt them a bit, they totally believe there's nothing else of value to know that they don't already. They will tell you, for instance, with the straightest face in the world that the bread you might feed your dog will literally transform itself into worms.

Here's perhaps the saddest consequence of their xenophobia: a mother (whose husband was the banker) bragged to me about how her daughter turned tail and ran back home when she was sent to college in Chicago. They're rich enough that I could easily believe the setup described: a lakeside apartment in a prime building with a doorman etc. But the daughter 'realized' where she belonged and quickly fled home. The world on a platter at her feet, and the pitiful creature turned up her nose at it. Now, with what passes here for a high school diploma, she's the bank's senior officer since her parents retired. Who needs book larnin' anyhow? They already know that the outside world is evil and to be sampled at their own peril.

No, I'd almost bet my life that half these folks wouldn't know what a mortar and pestle is for, at least in the kitchen. If they don't already (think they) know something, they certainly don't need to. Direct quote there, pal.