Moopheus

You mean you don't expect to see menu items labeled "shrimp prepared in a manner vaguely resembling some traditional Italian dish, maybe, if you're lucky"? In some cases, it helps to remember that when a word is adopted from one language to another, it does not always, and in fact usually does not, retain precisely its original meaning or grammatical structure. This may be annoying when the adoption is relatively recent and the original meaning may still be discerned, but it is normal. When you see "shrimp scampi" on an English restaurant menu, you are effectively seeing an English phrase that has a particular meaning in English that may only be tangentially related to what "scampi" means in Italian. Of course, it is also true that when describing food, foreign words are sometimes used in place of perfectly good English words that mean basically the same thing, merely as an affectation. This is also annoying, because labeling something in French doesn't make it taste better. And then, of course, there are the words that are used as a sort of deceptive cover, or perhaps suggestive of a kind of fantasy, such as the "Tuscan" example. Does it really matter if the food is really "Tuscan"? The restaurants that do this are in the business of selling an atmosphere as much as anything else. An air of the slightly exotic. Sure, it's a delusion, but I don't really expect them to stop doing it.

Actually, I think that is just like what my grandmother made.

One can probably generalize that any time the word "style" appears on food packaging, it means "almost entirely unlike the thing we are comparing it to, a poor imitation at best." Kosher-style. Means "not kosher."

You don't have an officeful of corporate lawyers vetting everything you do and say in front of a national television audience, and Mr. Brown very likely does. They believe (rightly or wrongly I can't say) that if even one of the hundreds of thousands of people who watch Alton gets sick because they were doing something he did, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. And regardless of merit, their job is to keep that lawsuit from happening.

They used to have an old Mississippi riverboat tied up in a drydock next to the restaurant. I had my bar mitzvah on that boat. Chicken cordon bleu was served. Not very long after that the boat was destroyed in the Blizzard of '78. The vengence of god, I guess. I haven't eaten there since.

Both are depressing accounts of the damage people willingly inflict on themselves because of their addictions to harmful substances, and the evil of the corporate interests that exploit them. Just came back from seeing A Scanner Darkly, and it was cool, reasonably faithful to the book, but based on the reports from Cannes I'd guess the Fast Food Nation movie is going to be more like Dazed and Confused or Slackers.

Well, let's just say that the 'Bucks is overpriced, and now DD is catching up. Which it is. I remember (old man voice) when a coffee and donut were less than a dollar at DD. "But it seems not to be true: as this article in the Willamette Weekly discusses, Starbucks has increased the market for independent coffeehouses:" That might be true in Portland, but I think it just reflects the overall increase in the market for specialty coffee (which, to me, doesn't really include Starbucks), especially in the Northwest. You could just as validly argue that there'd be even more shops without Starbucks. And it certainly doesn't seem to be the case here on the east coast.

If that were true, Charbucks should have been put out of business years ago. They operate like the Borg: any threat is absorbed or destroyed.

Probably--there's another cart on the opposite corner, but it isn't nearly as good. Also, I tell a lie--I must also count the Chocolate Room on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn. It's local for us, but worth going out of your way for.

By those criteria, I think in recent months that only leaves for me the Kwik Meal cart at the corner of 45th & 6th ave. Good falafel.

One technical point Starbucks could claim is that "doubleshot" is not a generic term. Generically, a double espresso is a "double shot". The missing space may seem like a small thing to you and me, but it makes a difference to the lawyers. The argument then becomes whether or not this makes the term sufficiently "distinctive". I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how this will come out, though it would seem by any rational measure that the risk of consumer confusion in this case is virtually nil and that Starbucks is harassing these guys because they can.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if DD has been making it weaker in recent years--they've been pushing pretty hard on the flavored milk drinks and not so much on the regular coffee or even the donuts. I used to ake regular use of DD beans for my coffee mainly because it was pretty cheap and I had no money--made at proper strength it's not too bad. Charbucks I've never had any use for. Just all around awful--I'd rather drink Flavia. If you do a search you might find the old DD vs. Starbucks thread.

Is that the only way to get them? What about leaving a large rattrap out on the fire escape with some acorns as bait?

For their lawyers, yes. It's not really their trademark unless they always show it in its proper form. Also, 'grandpa' is a generic noun, not a proper noun, not always capped.

No, a doppio is a double espresso. I ordered one once in a Charbucks and the conversation went something like this: me: I'd like a double espresso. Clerk: A doppio. Me: yes, a double espresso. Oh, and it was crap. So, "doppio" is really bucks-speak for "crap." So, yes, a cappuccino made with only twice as much milk as needed will be better than one made with four or eight times as much, but still not worth paying $2.35 for.

Today I made chocolate-almond macaroons, using the recipe from Fran Lebowitz's Pure Chocolate. I think I pulled them a little too early--the tops did not get quite crisp. I could have taken pictures but they did not look nearly as nice as Patrick's. Just little brown blobs. Tasty, but not photogenic.

Get revenge. And remember, God hates lobsters.

Where I grew up, that phrase meant Chinese food. I had never heard of green bean casserole until I saw those commercials, but my wife says she had known of it previously. edited to correct historical inaccuracy.

Maybe I am getting cynical from watching too many home makeover shows, but it seems a lot of those sorts of things are intended for people with more money than sense, or to put it another way, they care about having luxury items more than they care about having good coffee. In which case I suppose you should stick them with whatever the market will bear. A buyer who is really knowledgeable about coffee (admittedly a small number) is going to see that as not a good value. At the other end of line I suppose, is the buyer who is just not interested in spending money on coffee equipment. Which is basically a long way of saying that I basically agree with Owen that a flexible space that allows people to put in what they want for a "beverage center" is probably best.

Sadly, the Art of French Pastry is OP and rather scarce--I recently tried searching for one, and they're kind of pricey. Art of the Cake is readily available (and yes, worth having--excellent clear and detailed descriptions of procedures).

Those numbers refer to different cup sizes; Starbuck's "tall" is 12 oz., and the caffeine figures for the home brew are for a "standard" 6 or 7 oz. serving. A DD small is 10 oz. And caffeine content in coffee is variable, depending on roast and variety, so it doesn't seem like anything really abnormal is going on there. If anything, the number for DD seems lower than it should be.

Hey, a half a box of Mallomars. 'Tis the season.

That probably means his profit margin is higher on the Flavia. I guess the Flavia is good if you like coffee that tastes like weak instant coffee. I haven't tried the Kuerig, but it sounds like it's a much better brewing system.

I start with 35 g coffee, ground for french press, 200 ml milk, 200 ml heavy cream, 1 egg yolk, 80 g sugar. use a fine strainer to shake some of the dust out of the coffee, then place in a french press. Heat the milk and cream in a pot to 200 F. Pour into press and steep for about 8 minutes. Press and pour back into pot, then make custard and freeze.

These are two of my favorites as well. I probably use the recipes out of the first more than the second, but Peterson's book, as is usual for him, is full of a great deal of useful information beyond the recipes.