phaelon56

Not sure how to do that but there must be a way. French NASCAR driver Jean Girard (played by Sacha Baron Cohen), in the movie "Talladega Nights", gets a bit miffed when the sketchy hero Ricky Bobby bumps his car from behind during a race - because it caused him to spill his machiatto (at 200 mph while he was also reading Camus).

That's a very nice rosette, nothing to slouch about! It *might* be a little more clear if you draw though pattern with a straighter pull...? ← I'm pretty sure the pour is straight down the mug, but the latte is swishing back and forth while I'm trying to draw... Any ideas? ← Yeah... I have an idea.... try standing still in the kitchen while you're pouring instead of doing it in the passenger seat of snazzy little British sports car whilst your wife is driving you around the hairpin turns of some mountain pass at breakneck speed. Have you thought of starting there?

Just out of curiosity, Owen, how was this packaged? Vacuum-sealed "brick," whole beans or ground? ← It was whole bean in a bag with a one way valve (which allows CO2 to escape the bag as the beans degas after roasting but in theory prevents oxygen from entering the bag). The only coffee I ever buy in pre-ground form is the Trung Nguyen Vietnamese coffee I get at the local Asian market for making cafe sua da. And "Italian Roast" does refer to a specific level of dark roast but I hate it when I see the term "espresso roast" used. In the US it usually means dark and oily beans (i.e. over-roasted). Espresso refers to the beverage itself and specifically to the extraction method. A variety of beans and roast levels can be and are used for espresso. I typically blend three to five different bean types and my preferred roast level never ever has visible oil on the beans (unless they're about ten days old and finally starting to exude tiny amounts of oil). I've certainly had some very good espresso from darker roasted beans but any time I've ever had it from the dark oily beans called "espresso roast" it's been bitter and acrid. Yuck.

Also - I can vouch for the fact from personal experience that the espresso I had in Europe made from Illy beans seemed to be far fresher than any I've had made from Illy here in the US - despite the fact that I wasn't in Italy and the beans weren't likely to be as fresh as they could be. Another good case in point is Lavazza. Not only do they have a number of varieties sold in Italy that are different than those sold here - there's a huge difference in freshness. My former GF visited Italy and returned home with a gift for me: a one kilo bag of Lavazza - black bag with gold letters. It was remarkably good with plenty of crema and good robust flavor - one of the better commercial espresso blends I've ever had. And she picked it at random - just bought what she saw other people getting in the grocery store.

If you can't find any mention of on English language web sites using Google (I could not) then chances are good that their plans to penetrate the US market may not have come to fruition. I know it's not what you're really asking for but I'll propose an alternative: if you'll tell us what the characteristics are of the type espresso you enjoy most and are trying to achieve by brewing Palombini - perhaps someone can suggest an independent US base roaster who roasts and ships fresh beans that will achieve this. One of the frustrations many people have when they come back from Europe, especially from Italy, and unsuccessfully try to replicate their espresso experience here is due to the simple fact that even the best vacuum packaging, nitrogen flushing etc. can not preserve beans adequately for a period of months after roasting. If you buy Lavazza, Illy or a few other major Italian brands in Italy there's a good chance that you may get beans which were roasted within the past few weeks or at least the past month or two. But when those same beans get packed for US distribution, go through containerized shipping, wholesale and retail distribution channels at both ends etc - they often end up being purchased at retail many months after roasting and are a bit flat (i.e. really stale) due to excess aging and oxidation (which occurs as a natural process even inside sealed packaging). Whether you are in Italy or here - there's no substitute for freshly roasted whole beans that are within two weeks of roast date - it's the nature of the beast.

I'll eat egg salad when nothing else is available but I'm not a real fan of it and understand why some people are repulsed by the very thought of it. Adding chopped olives makes it a genuine abomination - even for me who will eat it in a pinch. Chopped sweet pickles would be a better choice. And it's not that I don't like eggs. Scrambled, fried, hard boiled, omelets and especially deviled eggs are all to my liking. But egg salad? Yuck.

Today I posed the Korean-Japanese question to one of my morning regulars at the coffeehouse where I work part time. He is Korean and owns a Korean-Japanese restaurant (in addition to a conveyor style sushi bar). He believes there to be close parallels in Korean and Japanese foods (in terms of the ingredients the kitchen must keep on hand) and he also commented that in his opinion there are far more Koreans here in the US interested in running restaurants than there are Japanese. Due to a language barrier I think he didn't quite grasp the other aspect of my question - whetehr it's a logical fit based on market demand. If one includes sushi in the mix I think a conservative small city market such as ours has a greater demand for Japanese 'style" food than it does for Korean - despite our city having a miniscule Japanese population and a much larger (although still relatively small) Korean population.

I'm not the OP but I always try to use a price metric that references a per person price that includes 10% tax and a 20% tip for either an entree and an appetizer or an entree and dessert - and possibly one non-alcoholic beverage per person but not alcohol. Wine or mixed drinks can skew the apparent pricing wildly depending on what alcohol is purchased and how much people drink. A place I haven't been to in years but used to be both cheap and good was Khyber Pass - an Afghani restaurant on St. Mark's Place near NYU. I also know people who swear by that little Thai place in Tribeca a few doors over from where the Wetlands music club used to be (name escapes me but it's close to the Holland Tunnel entrance). I love their deep fried tofu but the other items I had were less impressive.

I think that when wraps really took off in the US it was at the height of the Atkins Diet craze. There was a largely incorrect assumption that wraps had less carbohydrates than sandwiches because the "bread" portion was thinner. But the fact that many were marketed with "healthy" fillings was an added appeal at the time. Have I ever enjoyed a wrap? Yes - on several occasions. It is a good way to enjoy a portable hand held meal that includes healthy stuff such as rice and beans. You can easily eat a wrap with one hand while driving and create less mess than you would with a sandwich. One might argue that wraps are just re-inventing the burrito. But in my area (small Northeastern rust belt city) there have never been any good taquerias and even today we have only one (which opened just a few months ago). I'll agree that pre-made wraps are an abomination just as pre-made sandwiches are. But I don't think wraps are an inherently bad idea - just one that is nearly always poorly executed.

Uhhhh.... because I have a small freezer and affordable good quality good tomatoes are available only a few months each year in my area. If I find a good quality jarred sauce it's actually cheaper to buy that on sale and add a bit of onion, garlic etc. as needed. Barilla Marinara or Tomato and Basil has long been my go to jarred sauce. Nice to have a few on hand in the pantry for those quick "throw it together" meals that end an overly long work day. The addition of sugar ( I assume it's HFCS? ) tells me that either they're adapting to American tastes or they went to a cheaper grade of tomatoes and are compensating by adding sweetness. Regardless - I'll need to search for a new brand.

Can't be much worse than an empanada - can it? Funny... there's a business in my town called Pizza Frite. They have a hugely popular stand at the NY State Fair every year that sells two foot long hunks of fried dough sprinkled with granulated sugar. And we also have a few neighborhood pizza shops that sell "luna's". It's a full size pizza that looks exactly like the stuffed pizza frite in the linked article but it gets brushed with olive oil and then baked like a regular pizza. And it's incredibly greasy. But tasty

Reminds me of a Peruvian chicken joint that has shops in Brooklyn (or is it in Queens?) and on the Upper East Side. It's called "Pio Pio" for the sound baby chicks make (probably the sound they make right after learning that they'll be your meal in a few short months!).

Great report! I'm impressed by what they're doing and truly appreciated the photo of the menu. In light of the apparent quality I think the prices are quite reasonable for food and especially for non-alcoholic beverages and desserts (I can't comment on wines as I'm clueless about wine pricing). Are they planning to remain open during the winter? I'm thinking that it may be a tough row to hoe financially between late October and early May. But I certainly wish them the best of luck and will be sure to visit when I finally get back up to that area.

I don't know that this is the case in large metro areas such as NYC but elsewhere I most often see Korean food in the context of Korean-Japanese restaurants. And those establishments are nearly always run by ethnic Korean operators. Thus my puzzlement... Why do we see in so many areas a number of Korean-Japanese restaurants and also "Japanese only" restaurants but a far smaller number of "just Korean food" restaurants? And why do the operators of the Korean-Japanese restaurants appear to nearly always be Korean? Why don't we see Japanese-Korean restaurants with Japanese operators? In the same vein I have long wondered why one doesn't typically see Chinese-Korean or Chinese-Japanese places. Are Korean and Japanese ingredients and cooking style so similar that it's just a logical fit or are there other factors at work?

I'd be shocked if it really turns out to be true that places like Safeway or Whole Foods actually "compost" discarded produce rather than just throwing it away. I have never dumpster dived but the guy who taught me the ins and outs of hopping freight trains (circa 1977 in Tuscon Arizona) also showed me where to get free lunch. Adjacent to the rail yards was a food distribution center that supplied convenience stores. If you knocked on the back door and asked politely the employees would pass along pre-made sandwiches that were past their "sell by" date and had been returned from stores for credit.

I'm just back from a quick business trip to the LA area and have good news 1) Caffe Luxe is open in Santa Monica and they're doing a terrific job with traditional espresso drinks. All ristretto shots made on a Synesso machine with Vivace beans and it appears that they have well trained staff and good quality control. I tried a straight espresso, a machiatto and a cappuccino - all three were as good as the drinks I've had at Caffe Vivace in Seattle on multiple occasions. And that's high praise indeed. 2) Intelligentsia Coffee (based in Chicago) is opening a roasting plant in LA and also a retail cafe on Sunset Blvd. in the Silverlake neighborhood. I was fortunate enough to be given a sneak preview of the cafe and was mightily impressed. It's going to be the go-to spot in the city for great brewed coffee and excellent espresso. And they'll have a couple of Clover machines in operation. Very cool indeed. There was an Eater LA update on this back in February but the space is now nearing completion and should be open in a few short months. I can't wait to get back out there when I have more time to make the coffee rounds and at least an entire morning or afternoon to hang out at the new cafe and explore the surrounding stores in the neighborhood.

A china turkey serving platter passed down from my great grandmother - it's circa 1880's. Rather than leave it to be inherited by the next generation after death, each woman in the family, when reaching the age at which they no longer fix Thanksgiving dinner themselves, has passed it along to the most closely related and most active family cook. That person is then responsible for preparing and serving Thanskgiving dinner every year and inviting the person who passed along the platter - who gets to see the turkey served on "their" platter. Last November was the third Thanksgiving for which I was the cook - apparently I passed the test because the platter now stays at my house. My dad's father was a butcher but his Dexter boning knife - which has been sharpened down to a width of about 1/2" - won't become mine until my dad is no longer using it to cut cheddar cheese into slices (he never did cook but he loves cheddar cheese). My cousin got the life size Mr. Peanut costume when my uncle died but I only wore it to work at age 13 - I was never in line to inherit it.

Family dairy farms on my home turf (the dairy country of central NY state) have been going bankrupt for years due to wholesale prices for milk that have not kept up with the ongoing increases in the costs of production. If I recall correctly the wholesale prices, in real dollars, have been at their lowest level in years. I can only hope that a significant portion of the recent increases are going to dairy farming families and helping them to preserve their way of life. But I'd be surprised if that's the case.

The marble refinishing information I've been able to find on-line is limited and oriented towards floors. But it appears that with the right power tools and abrasives the surface is ground down and then polished with increasingly fine grits until a shine develops. Sounds like a lot of work for a single piece of marble. I think I'll try it with the pits first and see what happens.

I don't mind putting sweat equity into it but wonder about the surface. Are the marble slabs used in pastry and candy making operations just polished to achieve their super smooth surface or is there some sort of food safe sealant? Marble is indeed soft and is also porous to an extent - thus my concern.

I long ago cured myself of the habit of curb shopping - the practice whereby I'd adopt and take home some discarded but possibly worthy item that had been set out for out for trash day. After accumulating an attic's worth of stuff most of which I unloaded at a garage sale I've restricted my adoption practices strictly to those items of significant value that can be put to use quickly. Yesterday I found one: a slab of marble about 24" to 30" wide and with a usable length of nearly 48" (one corner is broken off but I have a stone and tile wet saw I can use to trim the end and also rip the length if necessary). I'll add a picture to this post later to clarify the details but here are the questions: 1) Can the surface be planed down and restored and if so is that process even worth doing? 2) Will the handful of tiny pits on the surface even matter if I clean it diligently after use? This particular slab was used in a restaurant kitchen for many years and they did have a pastry operation for awhile before their relocation (the kitchen at their new location was already well equipped - thus a few things fro the old location were sold off or discarded. It was dirty but after degreasing and a good scrub/rinse it looks very usable. The concern is some tiny pits - about a half dozen or so in different spots. These are small (5 cm or less in diameter) spots where the smooth slab surface appears to have been nicked or chipped and there's a very slight indentation ( 1 cm or less in depth at the center). In these "pits" the porous surface of the unpolished marble is visible. I won't be doing any work with liquids other than adding water to dough. Will this be an acceptable surface? I've been using a polished granite slab but the marble is larger and will make surface mixing easier for me. If I decide to do any work with chocolate that will be in direct contact with the surface does that change things? I realize that having the surface planed and refinished may be possible but I suspect the cost of that will negate the savings effected by having "free" marble.

Bingo. The outbreaks in Syracuse were traced not just to fast food workers but to those who had not properly washed their hands after bathroom use and were then handling food without gloves. When the crisis occurred here the second time there was a mass mandatory meeting and educational session held by the County Health Department. It was held in a local arena that seats 8,000 - those that did not attend the first meeting or the make-up session that was held a week later had their license to serve food pulled for thirty days. This was serious stuff. At that time Syracuse's non-English speaking immigrant population was extremely small (it still is although it has grown). The fast food workers who were pinpointed as the primary sources were relatively uneducated folks who simply didn't realize the implications of their actions. And although the glover law could be better enforced or more correctly implemented than it is - in this town it actually worked. Around here the typical restaurant employee does put on new gloves after a bathroom visit. They may break lots of other rules but I have to think that one is being observed because Hep A outbreaks have not occurred here since the law became enforced and education on the issue was promulgated - way back around 1992. The irony about DiFara's (granted - I'm sure this wasn't the only violation) is easy to see if one looks back at the picture up-thread. He's putting fresh basil onto a pizza after it's cooked but he's holding the bunch of leavers and snipping them. How tough would it be to put a glove on the hand that holds the basil? I admit that it might be awkward to tear fresh basil with a plastic glove on but he's cutting it with shears! At first glance it almost appeared that he was wearing a glove in the picture but on closer examination I think it's just flour on his arm.

If those are his practices it's no wonder they shut him down if he refused to comply. You're absolutely right - and that's why there are so many dictum in the law about when gloves need to be changed. The sad reality is that many places adhere to the law just enough to not get cited or shut down but don't adopt the practices as they are really meant to be followed. Correct again. The Hep A outbreaks that occurred here in the late 80's and early 90's were always traced back to fast food workers who transmitted it. As soon as the gloves came on.... Hep A went away.

In my area even many laymen (i.e. non food biz folks) know the NY State glove law because Onondaga County was the first part of the state to institute and enforce such a law rigidly. People can debate the validity of the practice endlessly but the fact remains that back in the 1980's this small county had 40% of the Hepatitis A cases reported in the state in a single year and enforcement of glove use for food service workers ended the problem. Think of that - a county with a population of about 500,000 or less had 40% of the cases in a state that had a population of roughly 19 million people. It was officially classified as an outbreak, a "no hands" law was instituted and enforced for six months - at which point the number of reported cases had dropped off to normal levels. Within a few short months of the law expiring the outbreak came back with a vengeance. The law was re-instituted and made permanent on a county-wide basis. Once again the number of Hep A cases dropped back to normal levels. Within a few short years the law became state-wide although enforcement outside of this county has often been lax until recently. But here's the kicker - it does not apply to food that will be cooked after it has been handled. That's right - you can form the pizza, spread the cheese, tear the basil etc. all by hand provided that the dish is cooked after preparation. I don't know the specifics about temperature and cooking time etc. but that's the gist of it. You can use tongs, scoops with handles etc. in place of gloves but bare hands may not touch food during preparation if there will be no additional cooking before it's served. NY State Health Department states: Here's the full FAQ on Hand Washing and Glove use for Food Service Workers Here's a comment that I find very interesting because when I tended bar and wore gloves (to squeeze fruit into drinks etc. people often insisted that handling money with the gloves on totally eliminated any safety factor and spread as many germs as using bare hands on the food would: If you see a bartender anywhere in NY state leave the ice scoop in the ice bin when they aren't using it - even if the handle is sticking out above the ice - they're in violation. And if they squeeze that lemon into your drink or drop a maraschino cherry in - you got it right again - they're in violation. Needless to say - enforcement is lax and wildly inconsistent. In the case of the DiFara's shutdown there must be some factors than touching basil with bare hands before it goes on a pie - unless he's putting it on after it's cooked and just prior to serving.