melkor

I'm happy with my cappa art, so now I'm playing with macchiato art - here's where I'm at now: 1% milk in an illy collection espresso cup. A few more of these and I think I'll have it down.

This thread has a few pics of the wine cabinet I got about a year ago. I'm still happy with it, I picked up a 50 bottle wine fridge that I keep in the kitchen with whites/sparklers at 45*F and the bigger unit is at 55*F. My only gripe with the unit is the shelving is too narrow for odd shaped bottles, which for me is only really a problem with some sparklers and the bottles of Turley. If you just want a link for what to buy and from where - west side wine cellars is where I bought my cellar from - I got the 400E.

I think everyone has Pizza to end passover, my family always has.

Uh... you can also make a latte that looks like that if you steam the milk in the glass your using, pull a shot into a shot pitcher and then pour the espresso slowly through the foam on top of the milk, if the milk is well textured and the espresso is thick enough then you'll get three layers, though there will be a crema mark on the top of the foam. I'll see about taking a pic of one in the morning.

The fries are amazing, they fry them in goose fat. I've had consistantly better bistro food at Bistro Jeanty than Bouchon, and they are only a block or two apart. That said, I think they were having an off night, I've never had a bad meal there.

I think the reason people find Bouchon to be disapointing is because they are expecting it to be something it isn't. Regardless of who owns the place, it's still a simple bistro style restaurant serving comfort food. I've never had an amazing meal there, it's a good place to have dinner any night of the week but it's nothing spectacular. The Bouchon Bakery is another story - almost everything I've had there has been excellent. Next time your in Yountville, be sure to eat at Pere Jeanty - at the moment it's my favorite place in the area at that level.

I'm with kitchenetc - white in the summer, red in the winter.

Thanks for all the advice. The roast is trimmed and tied, it'll go into a 200*F oven in a few hours (after it rests on the counter for a while to come up to room temp). 2 hours or so in the oven - out for a while to rest, into the broiler to crust up a little while before it's served. It's just got a little olive oil, salt, and pepper rubbed on it - there is the beginning of a bordelaise sauce simmering on the stove.

parsley (flat leaf) basil oregano (mexican and italian) chives bay rosemary thyme marjoram tarragon dill cilantro mint (in a pot) and catnip

We're roasting a whole strip loin for Passover (tomorrow) - It's 15lbs untrimmed, I'm expecting it to be around 12lbs trimmed. Anyone have any bright ideas on how long this thing is going to take to cook? We'll start it in a very hot oven to get a crust going, lower the heat to 250 or 275 and wait for the alarm on the thermometer to go off. We may set the alarm low and finish the roast in a hot oven - the goal is to end up with a medium-rare roast after it rests, 10*F of carry-over is expected. Looking online I've learned that this is likely to take between 2 and 7 hours which makes it hard to pick a time to toss it into the oven. Any advice is good, even if it comes from rancho-gordo!

SF Ferry Market this morning: Asparagus Leeks Broccoli Rabe Meyer Lemons Baby Artichokes Orange, Red, and White Carrots Medjule Dates Dried Figs, Apples, and Apricots Horseradish

The home roasted coffee in the Moka was better than the store bought beans in the espresso machine, so assuming that your not steaming milk roasting your own beans will make a bigger improvement in your daily drink than buying an espresso machine.

Seriously, one of the biggest shock in moving from Houston to the Bay Area was the cost of meat? That's like saying 'I was suprised to find when I moved from Saudi Arabia to England the cost of gas went up'. Texas cattle ranches have 15 million head on them at any one time, California ranches have 5 million. Texas bbq is all brisket, its cheap because lots of people are buying it so the stores sell it at a loss to get people in there. Here people shop at the farmers markets, buy fish that was swimming the day before, and eat a lot of poultry - there just isn't the consumer base to support cheap beef and the cost of renting a storefront here is far far higher than it is in Texas, nevermind the fact that the store is likely to pay it's staff twice what they would have to elsewhere in the country. Besides, you can get whole briskets at Cash and Carry for about $2 a pound - or you could buy a quarter cow from a local rancher like the Gales.

Do you have a gas grill? I've been making gas grill roasting drums for a while, they are another cheap option. edit: typo.

We're having somewhere between 10 and 20 people here for the first Seder, we haven't yet gotten around to planning the menu or doing any shopping, but at least we have a lot of wine in the house. The basic plan is a fairly traditional ashk. Seder without having to eat/cook the things that often taste like crap. I'll run out to Bodega Bay this weekend and pick up a reasonably large wild pacific salmon and some snapper or lingcod. We'll likely go into SF early Saturday morning to do some shopping at the farmers market. We've got a few artichokes ready to eat from the garden, but I don't think there are enough to use in a meal for this many people. Gefilte Fish - Salmon and whatever white fleshed fish looks good at the market, I'll get a bunch of bones/heads from the fishmonger and we'll make fish stock first. Matzoh Ball Soup - the basic deal, including the bucket of chicken fat. The egg - the freakin' egg... I hate the egg, MsMelkor hates the egg, and everyone should hate the egg. Eating a hardboiled egg is like chewing on a plastic bag so you can get to the chalk inside. I've got no idea what egg thing we'll replace it with, it should at least resemble the a hardboiled egg or a whole egg... Charoset - fruits, nuts, etc. For the real food, we've got nothing nailed down... Meat, Starch, Veg... We could braise a brisket, or roast a bunch of chickens, or make the Gefilte fish out of white fish and cook a whole salmon for dinner, or we could do something else. For a veg we'll cook whatever looks good at the farmers market. Mashed potatoes or waxy potatoes roasted in duck fat, or whatever - the starch needs almost no advance planning. Dessert - Apple Crisp (cake meal instead of flour in the topping), Meyer Lemon Tarte - nut flour for the crust, Macaroons (both the crappy kind and the french kind), and a flourless chocolate cake/torte thing. So that’s my stream of conscious plan(?) for Monday night... anyone have any ideas on the egg, entree, etc?

The pic I took of the beans came out kind of strange, the beans aren't quite as red or as uneven as they look here... but whatever - here's this weeks batch of Liquid Amber:

Sometime when you've got a little spare time, grab your Moka pot and some beans and stop by, we'll use your beans in both setups and my beans in both setups - maybe the ideal solution for you is home roasted beans in a Moka pot, since that a dirt cheap upgrade and it should make a huge difference.

I like Illy coffee, I prefer my home roasted coffee but Illy is better than what an awful lot of places serve.

Illy has a every-other-month option, it works out to $276 worth of illy coffee - which is still far too much if you don't like Illy, but it's a reasonable deal if you do.

I had a chance to use a F!F! X5 over the weekend with Illy pods - it's easy to use, it makes pretty good espresso. It takes a completely different technique than my Isomac machine - but it's fairly easy to produce good microfoam. It's by far the cheapest solution, the need for a grinder with a Silvia or any other machine will add a few hundred dollars to the cost.

The fish market in bodega bay has by far the best fish I've found in the area, it's also reasonably priced. For a butchers, I'll second marie-louise's recomendations on Enzo's and the Village Market.

It's a deal. What level do you roast to? How far into second crack? I may be doing it before next week. I go about 30 seconds or so into second crack

I roast a pound of Liquid Amber almost every week in a gas grill drum - how about we all post pics of our next batches of Liquid Amber? Alp, HGDB, and Grill Roaster... anyone roasting Liquid Amber in a HWP or other air roaster?

In that part of the state... spring through fall is artichoke season.

Auberge will get you a table at the french laundry if you give them enough notice, but so will most of the hotels/b&bs in the area. If your staying at Auberge, have dinner there - the spa menu is nice and light and you won't need to leave the property. It really is a spectacular place, and unfortunately the price tag reflects that