I was going to write a little something about the Pico Act, which would, around 1859, have split California in two, largely to preserve the potential of a free state (n. cal) and a slave state (s. cal), and which was approved (overwhelmingly!) by the California legislature, and would have been ratified had it not been for the Civil War, but there’s lots of docs that do this better, and so I merely want to point out that my favorite mode of coffee production, the Mokapot, which I’ve carted pretty much everywhere, and is fairly endangered (so far as home coffee makers go) has a nice social history in Atlas Obscura.
How much do I love my Mokapot? In “Goat Pharmacy,” nestled in the middle of Two Californias, I named a character Mrs. Bialetti.