phaelon56

Call me a criminal. I enjoy a good French Toast bagel but I eat it specifically as a dense, chewy and sweet alternative to a donut. Hardly any fat grams and satisfies my morning sweet tooth if I happen to have one on a particular day. That said.... they are bagels in name only and not worthy of a discussion as a bagel per se - only as a low fat alternative to a donut. I revel in my criminality.

For some folks I think the two are indistinguishable from one another I like to stay active in... uhhhh... all parts of my life but virtual sex is just not my thing. Food porn is an entirely different story

My user name: a less interesting story than one might hope for but here goes. When I first became Internet active and established a Yahoo mail account, I was a bit frustrated to discover that every conceivable variation of "owen" and "oneill" had already been used by other people (many hundreds all used by one 12 year old boy in PA - that's the Internet for ya!). I wanted something easy and distinctive and chose what I believed at the time to be the Gaelic spelling of my name (this proved later to be incorrect - Phaelon is actually a character in ancient Egyptian mythology/cosmology). Even "Phaelon" proved to be already taken so I appended the year of my birth and finally had a user name. Since then, as more and more discussion forums and other sites required a user name and password for access, I got so sick of looking for different user names that were not already in use, that I began using Phaelon56 by default. Once can assume (for better or worse!), that if you see a Phaelon56 user name anywhere, anytime, on the Web - it's probably me. And the story behind Bloviatrix is?

You beat me to it I think it would lack pictorial interest. I should probably just wait and post a pic of the svelte new self once that process is complete. If those were lychees... I really like 'em - if they're not.... I like 'em anyway.

After a week of reasonably interesting and varied food.... I'm ready to shock everyone. Not only am I going to have Chinese at the second meeting of a cooking club that I'm attending tonight (yes I've evangelized for eGullet and none of them are interested!).... I went to a Chinese buffet for lunch! One of my co-workers often invites me to have lunch with him on Friday and it's a good break from an eating at the desk routine. Last night I had dinner with a new friend at Eva's, a Polish restaurant in nearby Solvay (food was great as usual - just potato pancakes and perogie but no pics or report to file). Last night's dining partner insisted that the new Chinese buffet on this end of town was good. It was not up to the standards of a really good Chinese restaurant but as buffet places go, it did prove to be far above average. Super King Buffet assortment: Here, in no particular order, are the plates I demolished: The casual observer might think that I overate but through a combination of deep concentration and special esoteric digestive techniques, I actually ate everything except a portion of the weird pancake sort of concoction with brown sauce. Remarkably.... I did not feel stuffed when finished. In the interest of aesthetic appeal (so important for Chinese buffet pictures), I removed the radioactivity warning label from that orange glow-in-the-dark dessert before I ate it. In case you're wondering.... those are chicken wings on the late with my dessert but I ate them first. Among the intriguing items that I don't normally see on buffets.... a decent cold squid salad very tasty steamed and seasoned mussels seaweed salad kim chee stuffed and baked mussels sauteed string beans weird little spherical white fruit that I can't identify but tasted familiar stuffed mushroom caps dessert that looked like a strip of peanut brittle but was less sweet - tasted of honey and little bits of green plant matter throughout

Finished up the roasting last night while my hometown team was getting spanked by Alabama. I've added a small fan that sits on the window sill (not pictured) to draw out the smoke. When the Alpenroast is put into the cooling cycle a huge gush of smoke emerges for a moment - it would be intolerable in an aprtment unless you had a very good vent hood over your stove and did the roasting there. EGulleteer Melkor gave me a very cool home-made roasting drum to use on my new gas grill - I'll play with that once the grill is assembled and its warm enough outside to begin outdoor roasting. The smoke: The roasted beans, spread out to cool. Notice the color variation? Yemeni beans tend to roast that way and also, the Robusta often take longer to roast than other types do. I'll blend differently next time but I only had to pick out a few under-roasted beans in this batch. Today's breakfast - real Irish oatmeal with maple syrup. I find regular oatmeal to be a bit too bland and lacking in the texture that I enjoy. The steel-cut has a nutty flavor and a bit of tooth. It's so easy - one cup oatmeal tossed into four cups boiling water with a dash of salt. Immediately remove from heat and then leave it overnight with the lid on. In the morning just simmer for ten minutes and it's ready.

I think Ned has nailed it pretty succinctly. My Jamaican frieds have advised that in Jamaica it's both a preparation and cooking method. The dry rub and the slow smoking/grilling are crucial. There is a specific wood (not sure of it's the allspice wood mentioned) that is supposed to be used for both the fire itself and also green oieces of it to form the lattice that serves as the grilling surface to hold the meat. I imagine that whatever the native wood is, it may be in shorter supply these days. Here in the US, I find that jerk flavor varies from one restaurant to the next to a greater extent than curry flavor. I've had it be plain and unappealing like the jerk served at a takeout place in the food court at the Manhattan Mall in NYC - a piece of baked or grilled chicken with some jerk sauce poured over the top. I've also had jerk chicken at a small neighborhood place in Syracuse (no longer open) that blew my mind - the chicken meat was firm and had great texture, was not dry, yet was also totally permeated with the jerk flavor. Jerk chicken was always my favorite although I've tried goat and pork. The best yet was the jerk fish at Bongo's jerk Hut here in Syracuse. It's a whole crisopy fish served in the same manner as the brown stewed fish but seasoned with jerk. Very fiery and very good. I'll be making jerk chicken with rice 'n peas and cabbage at home next week - will try to report back on my success (or lack of same).

Those pics look great Jason - really, really good. I think I need to redirect one of my halogen spots to hit my peninsula more directly or better yet, add a few new ones. I'm still going to look into some sort of makeshift diffuser for the halogens - perhaps a framed sheet of frosted mylar that I can clip to the track and hang when needed. I like the results of the halogens but still find the hotspots annoying. Sometimes I can deal with them by using the clone stamp or burn-in tool in Photoshop but that's not always a good fix.

I appreciate the explanation of the depth of field issues with digital cameras- makes sense. I find that with a 128mb card I'm in pretty good shape for storage and the Compact Flash card my new canon is using is can be obtained in 256mb - plenty for me. I have tried using the telephoto setting as suggest and stepping back a bit but I run into camera movement issues when I do that. Witih my Nikon I could brace myself and shoot at speeds as slow as 1/30 second but rarely able to shoot slower without a tripod. My digital is dropping as slow as 1/8 for shutter speed and still able to deliver clear results. It's really the available light issues under restaurant conditions that I'm struggling wit the most. I think the tissue diffuser and a reduced power flash setting does sound like a good idea. I suppose the macro ring light (which appears to be what Jason used for the China46 pics) is okat but I don't want to get that close and I also perceive a flatness to the lighting from ringlights that is unappealing to me.

If I anticiate doing more pics at home, I will likely build a softbox from frosted drafting mylar. My primary interest at the moment is how best to imrove the results of pics taken sans flash in a retaurant under limited lighting. I've gotten some good suggestons - thanks to all!

I got inspired enough by doing the foodblog this week to dig out my trusty coffee roaster and get back into roasting. In all fairness, the primary reason I have not roasted since last summer is due to being in transitional living quarters from July '03 to January '04, before moving into my new house. The house has a great roasting spot on the counter in an inside corner with two windows. Perfect cross ventilation for that pesky smoke. I have quite a backlog of beans to work with and will test out some different blends over the upcoming month or two but my current goal is to establish a "half-caf" or even "quarter-caf" blend that wil have reduced caffiene yet still deliver the flavor and crema I seek. I love having a good cappa or latte after dinner in the evening but my need to sleep at night is usually in conflict with the caffiene. I went home at luchtime today and roasted the first half of a batch of espresso blend for use this weekend. Most beans, when intended for use in espresso coffee, will require about a 24 - 48 hour resting time after roasting. This is best done in a container with the lid cracked slightly open. It can be consumed sooner but really hits its sweet spot in about two days and stays good for about a week after that if stored in an airtight container ina cool or room temperature place, out of direct light. I have loads of green beans right now - was going to use Jim Schulman's WTC recipe (Way Too Complicated) but forgot to bring it home with me. Jim is legendary over in alt.coffee and Coffeegeek forums. He's a regular coffee guru and a real gentleman. I decided to wing it and do a "semi-decaf" blend. Decaf beans tend to deliver a bit less flavor and less crema than regular beans when used for espresso. When preparing a blend of regular beans for espresso, most blenders use a "base bean" - something relatively neutral in terms of flavor notes and relatively mild. Many Brazilian beans meet this requirement - it's common to use about 30 - 40% base bean and then a blend of others to achieve different flavor notes. Decaf changes things - its more subdued flavor profile dictates a different matching of beans and a mellower base bean is not as approproiate. Here's what I'm doing: 1 part Sumatra WP decaf (water process) 1 part African Highland Blend WP decaf 1 part Uganda Nanga Farms Robusta* 2 parts Indian Monsooned Malabar Coelho's Gold 1 part Yemen Moka Haimi This blend may be a bit too much - five bean types is pushing it but I'll see if it works. I'm testing to see how far I can push up the ratio of decaf before I lose the cream and big flavor notes that I'm seeking. There should be a good balance of fruit and chocolate notes in here. * Robusta is famous for being the crap commodity coffee that makes its way into canned supermarket coffee all over the world. It tends to grow more abundantly and more easily in greater volume at lower altitudes but by most serious coffee drinkers standards often has undesirable characteristics . It does add a certain type of bitterness that some Italian blenders find desirable as a balance but more important, it produces abundant crema. My hope is to offset the bitterness by including a larger proportion of of the Monosooned Malabar and have the Robusta counteract the reduced crema output caused by use of decaf. Nanga Farms is one of the few well known high quality robustas available readily here in the US and is close to the same price as Arabica beans. The beans at weighing time: The Alpenroast ready to go to work before the lid is closed: It's a drum roaster, a bit smaller than a bread machine, and sells for about $280. I got mine used for $175 and contrary to reports about many earlier units that were finicky and unreliable, mine has worked great. The manufacturers claim that this is a "set it and forget it" unit like bread machines but to get good results, one must start listening to the sound and pace of the cracking beans starting at about 13 minutes and also make note of how the smoke smells. I usually shoot for a roast best described as Full City + - darker than a medium roast but not to the French Roast level. Some people use temperature probes and spreadsheet software, carefully documenting their roasts so they can achieve repeatable results with particular beans types and blends. I'm just not that geeky (maybe I am but I'm just too lazy!). I just listen, smell and stop when I think it's done. Seems to work okay for me. Typical roasting time is about 15 - 17 minutes. The beans are close to cooled off but not quite when the roaster spits them into the collection bin. I spread them out on cookie sheets and stir to finish the cooling process. Fluid bed (hot air) roasters of the consumer variety start at about $100 but many folks use old popcorn poppers. Unregulated air roasting takes beans to the final roast level very quickly - about 4 to 6 minutes. This tends to yield a brighter finish to the roast - good for some people but not to the liking of many, especially for espresso blends. Voltage regulators (known as Variacs) can control this process and allow consumer hot air roasters to roast more slowly by varying temperatures at different points in the roasting cycle, thus achieving results more akin to a drum roasters. Commercial fluid bed roasters such as Sivetz are an entirely different beast and not really relevant to this discussion. Our own eGulleteer Mike Lloyd is a big proponent of the benefits of low tech roasting with simple tools. Here's a very extensive Coffeegeek discussion on Heat Gun / Dog Bowl coffee roasting

I have found that on my machine, if I wait to wipe the steam arm until after I finish frothing and building the drink, there is crud, especially on the back side, that doesn't come completely off. A wet rag helps but I've taken to doing what I recently saw done in a cafe in Scranton PA. Notice the 16 oz mixing glass at the left side of my machine? I leave it about 3/4 full of water and as soon as I'm done steaming, I immediately slide it up to envelp the steam arm. the arm rotates inward and I can park the glass on top of the drain tray screen, sitting to the left of the portafilter. I do a quick blast of steam into the water and then wipe it before the next shot or when I'm done with that session. Warning: this does allow a bit of water to be drwn up inside the steam arm. Always use fresh water in the glass and purge the wand throughly when finished wiping to ensure that the water has been removed. This has been workign really well for me and I no longer have to get my Dobie scrub pad busy on the steam arm periodically to remove small build-up.

Well I am having a great time doing it. It's actually given me ideas for some other threads I'll post in the future and the food's been (mostly) great. Here's a very extensive Coffeegeek discussion on Heat Gun / Dog Bowl coffee roasting

I wipe up the loose grounds at the end of any given session but things generally stay fairly neat and tidy. I used to tend bar part time at an enertainment venue, often for a huge volume of customers in a very short time. Some of my fellow bartenders at adjacent stations had incredibly messy stations. I always took time, even when we were totally swamped, to clean up and keep things tidy as I went along - it seemed to make everything operate more efficiently. Ultimately, I served just as many drinks as they did (or more). I have carried the same philosophy and practices over to my home espresso bar - with little more than a quick wipe of the sponge it always looks like this:

The other thing I did at lunch was roast the first half of a batch of espresso blend for use this weekend. Most beans, when intended for use in espresso coffee, will require about a 24 - 48 hour resting time after roasting. This is best done in a container with the lid cracked slightly open. It can be consumed sooner but really hits its sweet spot in about two days and stays really good for about a week after that. I have loads of green beans right now and have not roasted since the summer. I was going to use Jim Schulman's WTC recipe (Way Too Complicated) but forgot to bring it home with me. Jim is legendary over in alt.coffee and Coffeegeek forums. He's a regular coffee guru and a real gentleman. I decided to wing it and do a "semi-decaf" blend. Decaf beans tend to deliver a bit less flavor and less crema than regular beans when used for espresso. When preparing a blend of regular beans for espresso, most blenders use a "base bean" - something relatively neutral in terms of flavor notes and relatively mild. Many Brazilian beans meet this requirement - it's common to use about 30 - 40% base bean and then a blend of others to achieve different flavor notes. Decaf changes things - its more subdued flavor profile dictates a different matching of beans and a mellower base bean is not as approproiate. Here's what I'm doing: 1 part Sumatra WP decaf (water process) 1 part African Highland Blend WP decaf 1 part Uganda Nanga Farms Robusta* 2 parts Indian Monsooned Malabar Coelho's Gold 1 part Yemen Moka Haimi This blend may be a bit too much - five bean types is pushing it but I'll see if it works. I'm testing to see how far I can push up the ratio of decaf before I lose the cream and big flavor notes that I'm seeking. There should be a good balance of fruit and chocolate notes in here. * Robusta is famous for being the crap commodity coffee that makes its way into canned supermarket coffee all over the world. It tends to grow more abundantly and more easily in greater volume at lower altitudes but by most serious coffee drinkers standards often has undesirable characteristics . It does add a certain type of bitterness that some Italian blenders find desirable as a balance but more important, it produces abundant crema. My hope is to offset the bitterness by including a larger proportion of of the Monosooned Malabar and have the Robusta counteract the reduced crema output caused by use of decaf. Nanga Farms is one of the few well known high quality robustas available readily here in the US and is close to the same price as Arabica beans. The beans at weighing time: The Alpenroast ready to go to work before the lid is closed: It's a drum roaster, a bit smaller than a bread machine, and it sells for about $280. I got mine used for $175 and contrary to reports about many earlier units that were finicky and unreliable, mine has worked great. The manufacturers claim that this is a "set it and forget it" unit like bread machines but to get good results, one must start listening to the sound and pace of the cracking beans starting at about 13 minutes and also make note of how the smoke smells. I usually shoot for a roast best described as Full City + - darker than a medium roast but not to the French Roast level. Some people use temperature probes and spreadsheet software, carefully documenting their roasts so they can achieve repeatable results with particular beans types and blends. I'm just not that geeky (maybe I am but I'm just too lazy!). I just listen, smell and stop when I think it's done. Seems to work okay for me. Typical roasting time is about 15 - 17 minutes. The beans are close to cooled off but not quite when the roaster spits them into the collection bin. I spread them out on cookie sheets and stir to finish the cooling process. Fluid bed (hot air) roasters of the consumer variety start at about $100 but many folks use old popcorn poppers. Unregulated air roasting takes beans to the final roast level very quickly - about 4 to 6 minutes. This tends to yield a brighter finish to the roast - good for some people but not to the liking of many, especially for espresso blends. Voltage regulators (known as Variacs) can control this process and allow consumer hot air roasters to roast more slowly by varying temperatures at different points in the roasting cycle, thus achieving results more akin to a drum roasters. Commercial fluid bed roasters such as Sivetz are an entirely different beast and not really relevant to this discussion. There's a thread in the Coffee & Tea forum with some info that eGulleteer MGLloyd posted about "dog bowl roasting". It's a great low tech and inexpensive way to try home roasting - requires nothing more than a large stainless steel dog food bowl and a cheap heat gun. I'll see if I can dig up a link to that info.

Went home for lunch today and got so caught up in things that I forgot to accomplish what I went home for! (to take some some medication). Lunch was simple. I'll eat an orange at my desk later but at home I microwaved some scalloped potatoes and ham casserole. I made this a few weeks ago and as usual, put about 1/3 into a smaller casserole dish and froze it after cooking. It's enough for two dinner portions or three lunches - handy to have around. I didn't get too elaborate - sauteed some sliced scallions in a bit of butter and olive oil, added more butter and flour to make a golden roux, some 2% milk to complete a bechamel and seasoned with adobo, a bit of sea salt and some white pepper. The potatoes were thinly sliced - about 1/8" - but perhaps I should have made them a bit thinner. There were a bit toothy the first night I ate it but better the second and perfect on the thawed and reheated stiff from the freezer. Added in some grated asiago and parmesan that was getting past its prime and topped with breadcrumbs before baking. Not bad - I grew up eating food like this and still really enjoy it, most especially during our bitterly cold and long winters.

The way my mind works.... if I saw the word CUISINE on my camera's menu, I'd think it was telling me that it's time to eat! I apreciate the tips and I will look at trying the fully manual settings. My Olympus D-520 died and was just replaced with a Canon A70. I often did intentional under or overexposure or bracketin with the Olympus and used the spot meter feature but I hvae yet to break out the owner's manual for the canon (I know.... I know.... RTFM!!!). It does have more options than the Olympus as well as an extra megapixel. I did all the pics on my blog with it this week and it's doing a serviceable job but could be better. I forgot about the lack of TTL flash metering but that's a good point. As a test I'm usually doing pics both with and without flash and the natural light always wins but with shots like the ones I did at Dinosaur BBQ - can't use anything but flash. When the weather improves and we have more evening light it will be easier but Syracuse has five months of winter with heavy overcast conditions much of that time - natural light is often in short supply or fleeting. I will try backin up a bit and using the flash with a telephoto setting. Gordon - I'm an old F2A Photomic guy. I ilked the red expsoure indicators on the F2AS for use in low light but gosh they were touchy! I think I even considered purchase of an exposure illuminator for the F2A when I was doing live music pics but decided to just tough it out. I still have the extra non-metered head, three lenses and a few screens but it gathers dust while the digital comes in and out of my shirt pocket.

I can't seem to find a good definition of broken rice on the Web. apart from an indication that both long and short grain rice may contain up to a certain percentage of broken grains, depending on how the grade is classified. The broken grains are a fucntion of the milling process but I think 100% broken rice is popular in some areas, including Vietnam. It appears to consist, literally, of broken rice grains. I think it may be rinsed a bit more than regular rice dues to the inherent stickiness that comes form more surface area. The flavor is deifferent in s subtle way and the texture, due to the small grain size, almost reminds me of a cous-cous. I like it. It may be labeled as "rice bits" in some Asian markets but when cooked it its typically described as broken rice. The menu at new Century is actually divided into House Specialties, Noodle Dishes and Rice Dishes. The brokene rice dishes are a subcategory and I believe this is know as a Khmer style preparation - broken rice with multiple other ingredients, one of them usually being a fried egg.

I wish I could say that I'm so conscientious about breakfast every day but quite often it consists of a quad shot latte and a banana at my desk. One of the benefits of doing this blog has been that I'm a bit more motivated to come up with something interesting to discuss and photograph. Several realizations have occurred.... If I do a bit of prep early in the morning I can have a much better dinner Breakfast can be much faster and easier than I thought When I eat better at meals I eat less junk These are all good things. I did have a Three Musketeers bar yesterday afternoon but left plenty of space for dinner. First.... working in reverse order... today's breakfast: I had some left-over roasted sweet red peppers in the fridge and some tomato/basil seasoned feta cheese crumbles. I love this feta product for salads and omelettes. It's remarkable how quick and easy an omelete can be in the mornign but I need to change things up if I plan to keep making breakfast at home regularly - I rarely eat more than two eggs per week. This omelet had ingredients that cut through the egg much better than the one I had on hte weekend. In the pan: On the plate. Some toasted bread with Polaner fruit spread on the side. The fruit spread is good stuff - plenty sweet enough with no added sugar. The stretch bread is now too tough to eat as is but is still great for toast or croutons. Dinner last night at: New Century Traditional Vietnamese restaurant. It's in a space on the city's North side. This area was once home to the Germans who ran the salt works and made the barrels (the Irish did the grunt work). The German influence also resulted in several ecclesiatical candle companies sprouting up (church candles). Syracuse is still the place where the bulk of church candles in the US are produced. The North side became heavily Italian over the years and this location was home to several Italian restaurants. As happens in many cities, there is economic and upward mobility that prompts dispersion towards the suburbs and a new immigrant group moves in. We now have a Vietnamese population in this neighborhood, many of whom are originally from the Hmong region. There are three Viet restaurants on the North side but this one is my favorite. Iced coffee with condensed milk in the brewing stage: Ready to drink - I usually take just a few sips and save it for dessert: Fresh spring rolls - mmmmm! They have good fresh shrimp, a generous amount of thin sliced pork and a sprig of lemongrass along with the noodels and herbs: My dinner came with choice of soup and rice for $1 more than the regular entree price. I got the small bowl of beef meatball - it's really just a mini-bowl of Pho without the extra stuff on the side - very tasty: My friend's entree (another great thing about the blog - I'm finding people to share most of the meals!). She had the broken rice assortment. Broken rice, egg loaf, shredded pork skin and grilled pork chop: My dinner - "fried chicken" with broken rice - nice presentation:

Ahh yes..... Hungry Charlie's. I pounded down a few drafts there back in the day but don't recall ever trying their food. It was closed for awhile and then reopened as "Chuck's" (which is what many people always called it anyway). The wings at the Varsity are still reknowned - I rarely get over that way due to the parking issues. I do still visit Cosmo's on Marshall Street on occasion because IMHO they have the best pizza in the city. They're one of the only places still using quality whole milk mozzarella instead of that crappy "grande" cheese mix that Wisconsin seems to have foisted off on the neighborhood pizza shop universe. In yet another small world scenario... the Varsity is operated by Mr. & Mrs. Dellas - their son Tom was one of my school classmates and I think they still go into the restaurant to work every day (they must be close to 80 or possibly older). The bakery on Burnet? That would be Columbus bakery - best Italian bread in the city that's baked by Greeks! They are open 24 hours per day and are now on Pearl Street just north of downtown, where they've been for years. If I had stepped back a few feet further when I took the pictures of the exterior of Freedom of Espresso, you would have seen them - they're about 50 - 75 feet north on the same street. Columbus has very good bread, especially the "twice baked", which has an incredibly thick crust. It remains very popular but I think the stretch bread at Pasta's just blows away anything that Columbus bakes. It is a cool place to visit - just a straight bread operation non-stop every day.

I have a long standing interest in photography as a minor hobby and even spent seven years selling cameras back in the dark ages when one had to know how to focus, set the f-stop and set the shutter speed. My trusty old Nikon has seen minimal usage during more recent years as I traveled more and had fewer family pictures to take. So.... now that the age of the digital camera is upon us, my interest in food and dining has been escalated (thanks to eGullet!) and I'm starting to take plenty of food pics.... I find it challenging. Apart from the obvious issue of composition, have some of you developed techniques that delivered improved results? I'm not talking about using professional level equipment - just your typical 2 to 4 megapixel consumer grade camera. My biggest challenge thus far and the one I'm specifically trying to resolve, is the lighting issue. The softness and more natural appearance of pics taken without flash is appealing but I often find that the colors of the food are far more representative when I use the flash. Problem is, the flash often creates issues with hotspots and reflections on the food surface - this being exacerbated by my inclination to use white plates. I do the best I can in Photoshop to tweak the color fo the natural light photos but often I'm unabel to get it to where it should be, especially with pics taken in restaurants where the light is dim. A piece of tissue as a diffuser, perhaps? Maybe using the fill-flash feature that's intended just to knock out shadows in outdoor shots? Any ideas?

I like that idea.... definitely.... I think that should be my next feature in our Coffee & Tea forum! One of the lattes I made last night after dinner had a nice smiley face - at least that's what it looked like to us. By the way - I like your tag line. Just last night when I first tried the bouillabaise I made the comment that it tasted so good it was making my toes curl (which is what sometimes happens after I roll around on the floor naked... but only if it's one of those lucky evenings where the stars align and I did very well on the meal )

I suppose I'll have to push this lonely blog back up by adding the rather inconsequential food activity of the day. After my guest left last night, I sampled the chocolate treat she had brought from The Patisserie, a bakery in the nearby suburb of Baldwinsville (neither of us had the room or the appetite to try it after dinner). I like the presentation with the pyramidal shape and it had a rich, dark chocolatey taste without an excess of sweetness but it's very, very dense. There are two textures inside - I keep the house rather cool at night - it had been on the counter for awhile and may have needed to be warmer to be fully appreciated - I'll revisit it tomorrow. Wednesday's dessert - tested belatedly, long after the wonderful bouillabaise Breakfast today was an uncomplicated affair. Orange chunks, toasted stretch bread with maple cream and a great latte. I continue to improve on my milk foaming techniques and get the occasional heart shape when I pour but those beautiful rosetta shapes that the real latte artists create continue to elude me. Went with a co-worker to Las Delicias for Dominican food at lunch - had the stewed beef with yellow rice - excellent as usual. PLanning to head there this weekend and try the seafood rice btu there's a thirty minute prep time. We'll just call ahead and they'll start the dinner cooking before we arrive (yet another benefit of living in a small town!). Tonight is Vietnamese food at New Century - yum!!!

Just curious to know if aynone here has tried the roti truck that's usually down near Maiden lane and Old Slip in the Financial District. It's an aluminum stepvan with a sign for roti and West Indian food. There are dozens of aphorisms and adages, mostly of the inspirational but admonishing variety, painted all over the truck. Is the food any good? On the rare occasions that I'm there I'm always going to lunch with one person or another and haven't had a chance to try it.

Aaaaah - that makes much more sense! I think it's my tendency to read and interpret things in a very literal way that is the crux of the problem I had no idea that Buzzroasters was up here in my neck of the wods. I was actually in Rochester on Saturday and had a much better than average latte at the Spin Cafe on Park Ave (provided that you request it with extra shots or less milk to achieve the right balance of espresso/milk).