weinoo

Rancho Gordo "Yellow Indian Woman" bean soup. Warm shrimp salad with avocado and greens. I often use the avocado in lieu of adding any oil to the salad, by smashing some of it up as I toss the greens and citrus or vinegar. Works nicely. Shrimp were steam broiled in the Steam Girl. The Manzanilla En Rama went nicely with this stuff.

Has anyone seen or touched the new version - the CSO-300N? They've added a steam cleaning function at the touch of a button...

Good move. I agree with liuzhou.

I'll add that it is like preheating an oven with a heat sink in it (or, as in my case, a Baking Steel). I heat the oven for a good 45 minutes. Silvia can get heated up nicely in 30 - what I do is generally run it through a cycle or two as it's warming up without any coffee...I run through both the portafilter and steam wand...that will drop the temp so the boiler fires up again. And, it's only water.

No...I meant it more as Silvia is touchy, and LIKES Rocky. She might like something really expensive even more - that's how those women are. But really, Nick puts it well in the post above.

Yes, absolutely. And Silvia was always known for being a bit "touchy" about the grind. One click either way on the Rocky can make or break your espresso on any given day. As can your tamping. It's almost as annoying as making bread can be.

With that said, I've liked my Rocky a lot. Here's an interesting article on grinders from the Sweethome. http://thesweethome.com/reviews/the-best-coffee-grinder/#budget

Yes - the first additional "accessory" I bought was a naked/bottomless portafilter. Helped me learn a great deal about how to pull the god shot.

I did a dinner party for 6 the other night, themed from our recent trip to Madrid/Rome. Bottled Boulevardier which has absolutely nothing to do with either of the above. Tapas Cured Pork Products (Spanish) Anchovy, Pickle and Olive Banderillas White Anchovy & Pimento Toasts Sherry & Pimenton-d Mushrooms Toasted Marcona Almonds Garlic Shrimp One Bucatini all'Amatriciana Two New Zealand Grass-Fed Lamb Leg "Zikiro" - a riff on a Basque recipe from Gerald Hirigoyen, basically butterflied, marinaded and roasted Potatoes cooked in that same roasting pan Endive in lieu of Puntarelle and in the style of the classic Roman salad. Three Spanish Cheese Assortment Four Tarta de Naranja Saffron Vanilla Ice Cream Lots of sherry, some great wines, and digestifs. Notes: I like American lamb more.

I don't even think you'd need a French press for that experiment above. Just a quart jar - cold brew overnight, and then strain through a standard paper filter.

Right. It's much easier for a coffee shop that's selling a hundred shots a day or more to toss a few. I wonder, can the shitty shots be saved up for iced coffee?

I could see it at Grand Central. The good places in NYC get plenty busy in the AM.

It runs in the family... .

Let's put it this way - there were a fair number of sink shots! And a lot of jitters. But I'd say a pound or so in, and I was pulling quite drinkable stuff. I'm sure you have one - a scale is really, really helpful. As is a timer.

via johnder, this thing appears to be on the market... The Pour Steady. via my hipster niece, "We are seriously two innovations away from circling back to Mr. Coffee."

I'd say between $1,500 and $2,000. I don't have quite as many words as rotuts to add, but amortize it over the course of espresso drinks. Let's say you buy 1 drink a day at a real (i.e. not starbucks) 2nd or 3rd wave coffee shop. And let say that drinks costs, conservatively, $3 . Without figuring in the cost of the software, because I haven't done math in a long time (good beans probably run between $18 - $24/lb.) Pays off in less than a year and a half.

Hmmm. Hard to remember exactly, but (as an example) sable at retail is almost as expensive as sturgeon...somewhere around $50/lb. I think the wholesale price is around 40% less than that. I bought a variety of smoked fish and salads, and don't exactly recall the individual prices. When I head back, I'll make note of them.

Over in the breakfast forum, I posted a pic of our breakfast this morning. The lox (and indeed it was lox, not nova or smoked salmon) came from Acme Smoked Fish Corporation, a wholesaler of smoked fish to many of the great retail appetizing stores (or at least the few that are left in NYC, such as Russ & Daughters). On Friday mornings, from 8 AM until 1 PM, they open their warehouse to the public. Prices are astoundingly cheap when buying directly from the wholesaler. They're not hand slicing like they do at Russ & Daughter's, so the sable you buy may be in a chunk. But you know how to use a knife, right? So, I went. And I wrote this blog post called Acme Smoked Fish...Beep Beep

Lox, eggs, and onions with black bread and tomatoes.

This is from askabutcher.com... From certifiedangusbeef.com... Since this was grass-fed beef, I kept it nice and rare. Cooked in a stainless-lined, copper fry pan.

Grass-fed chuck eye steak, pan-cooked, rested, and and sliced because the suckers have a big tendon running through the middle, but this is a tasty cut just 1 rib from a rib eye (the vendor at the farmer's market was Sunfed Beef). Mushrooms and shallots used to deglaze pan, red wine and ramp butter to finish. Boiled, smashed, and roasted potatoes with garlic, olive oil, ancho chili powder and rosemary. Arugula salad on the side.

Seared, sous-vide and re-seared heritage pork rib chop. Pan jus. Assorted sweet potatoes - sous vide with duck fat, then quickly sautéed. CSG roasted Romanesco.

I've noticed our own Rafa was behind the stick last night at The Up & Up. Mace is doing their hugely fun Miracle on 9th Street again this year. Caffe Dante is lovely.

Watch them bury this brand, just like the Food Network has done, as has Chowhound.

The one-egg cheese omelet, with Hot Bread Kitchen's NY Style Rye toasted (CSG) and buttered. Organic grape tomatoes that suck.