melkor

Thanks for the report. I've got reservations for newyears and now I'm seriously excited about the truffle menu.

Maybe I should wrap a slice of turkey around the roasting drum next time I roast a batch.

Not sure I would trust a list that includes the heading "Cabernet Zauvignon"! And, um, sparkling cab? You guys are frightening me! I have missed this on the list, I guess (entirely possible -- I'm home sick with a fever and desperately trying to entertain myself here on eGullet). Can someone point me directly to this, so my suffering can be complete? It's not on any list, the spectator rated it a very generous 78 points.

I think it's hard to argue that a novice can benefit from an ordered list of best wines. It's all a matter of context, if your drinking wine with food the number one wine from whatever list is rarely at best going to be the ideal match. If your drinking it by itself it's equally unlikely that the number one wine will be drinking well when the list is printed. So I'm not entirely clear on the value of these lists, if your taste matches Parker or Tanzer or Laube or whoever then you should consider their reviews in your purchasing decisions, otherwise your more or less stuck tasting your way through your education. I'm not entirely clear what the value is in aggregating the major wine publications ratings, you've left out burghound, jancis robinson, and several others and the obvious output from the database is a push towards the center, blurring the ratings from whichever publication more closely matches your taste. Not to say that there is no value in having the data you've collected, it seems like it would be ideal to have it available if your reselling older bottles. I'm comfortable with my taste, I agree with Parker, Tanzer, and the Spectator from time to time but my tastes don't generally run with any of them. German, Austrian, Alsatian, Oregon, and Kiwi whites. Prosecco and Grower Champagne for sparkers. Cali Cab&Zin, Australian Shiraz, Argentine Malbec for reds. And I don't think I've met a dessert wine region I don't like . Based on that list, who should I follow? How would I get there without trying hundreds of different bottles? I think it's impossible to use a magazine (or several magazines) in place of personal tasting experience. I'll stand by my advice to try as many different wines as you have access to and you'll soon know what you like and don't like.

I tried the sparkling napa cab over the weekend at a tasting - it's a strange mixture of oak, yeast, and bell peppers. Really frightening.

10" chef's knife bread knife cutting board saute pan sauce pan fry pan stock pot w/steamer & pasta inserts bamix juicer silicone spatula wooden spoon french press corkscrew towl

The problem with lists is mostly that it's much easier to bitch about them than it is to make them. The SF Chronicle list is just what they liked from the wines they reviewed through the year, hardly groundbreaking and really it's not very useful if your outside of Northern California where the wineries they are sampling from have larger distribution. I think for the WS list, the main gripe is that the list seriously lacks consistancy, they have higher scoring wines ranked lower than lower scoring wines - they do silly things like giving 100 points to the 2000 vintage in Piedmont and their list of best wines has zero bottles of 2000 Barolo/Barbaresco. I'm absolutely certain that when anyone makes a list of things they like there will be a long line of people waiting to rant about how stupid the list is, the Spectator just makes it really easy for people to bitch. And as far as your question about what beginners should be looking for/doing, go to local tastings, go to wine bars and befrend a bartender and get samples of everything they are serving by the glass - try as many wines as you can and you'll form you'll learn what you like and dislike. One thing that may be helpful is to find wines that different reviewers have rated vastly differently, try them and see who you agree with - odds are you'll find a reviewer who your tastes agree with, then you can make purchases based on that persons/publications reviews. I happen to be a big fan of new world wines, Craig I think would rather drink draino than a bottle of Turley, it's all a matter of personal preference and to pretend that one view is the correct one is as laughable - but I suspect we can all agree that this is crap.

I've got a few of those bucket-sized mugs, but I only use them when I'm out of regular sized mugs - the coffee gets cold too quickly in them.

My trips to the grocery store are rarely anything other than a quick pass through all the isles (except frozen) to see if there is anything I absolutely need. Otherwise all food comes from farmers markets/produce stands/butcher/etc. I don't look forward to going, but I'm always happy to go.

Are swans mean? I've seen them hiss and stuff, but compared to geese they are well tempered. I once got chased down by a mother goose in a parking lot. That was scary. I had a swan bite my thumb when I was at a park feeding them as a kid. bastard swan.

I've got no idea - I'm still trying to figure out where to get great sushi around here.

Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Bevmo has a little bit more info on this wine here. google and wine-searcher are the two places I look for wines online.

When we were driving across the country a few years ago, at 4am in Iowa somewhere on I-80, we stopped at a budget motel lobby for some caffeine and ended up with a cup of thick, burned, rancid sludge. Even with a half-dozen sugar packets and a few tablespoons of nondairy creamer (which probably didn't help) it was the worst beverage ever encountered, better only than the alternative - falling asleep at the wheel and ending up in a ditch.

It's true that you can make pretty damn good coffee using home roasted decaf. The decaf I roast is Ethiopian Ghimbi (MC Decaf) - no one would guess it's decaf.

Congrats! Let us know how things go.

Nice, I haven't made it down to the Pleasanton market, how does it compare to the SF ferry market?

The mesh is powdercoated aluminum, I tried burning the coating off but it wasn't interested in coming off so my clearly questionable scientific conclusion is that it's safe. I've been using one of the cups for the past year or so and its in the same shape as the second cup I added six or so batches ago.

I suppose I could, but since my vacuum is a roomba and I don't own a blow dryer I'd have to buy something. I'm thinking I'll build a stand for a box fan so it blows air up, and a screen bottomed box that will sit on the fan to hold the beans. I just need to get around to buying the fan.

That is a most excellent price. What state/city was this Home Depot in? I have a 30 bottle Haier unit that is fine, but I paid $280 for it which was the best price I could find at the time. Honestly, try to get as big a unit as you are willing to get and can store. California

A pair of mesh pensil cups, some angle iron, a bunch of rivets, a hinge, and a clasp for something or other. The side burners on the grill are on high, the ones under the drum are on medium. This is a batch of Kenya Thunguri from Sweet Marias roasted this morning just a bit into second crack - 19 minutes or so. I'm cooling the beans by dumping them from one collander to another. The next coffee related project is to build a cooling system.

Over the weekend I finished up another version of my gas grill roaster. It's maybe $10 worth of parts tossed together and stuck on the rotisserie in the grill. The current version holds about 1 1/2 lbs of unroasted beans and it finally got a latch that is easy to open and close. I think I'm about out of ideas for this design, maybe it's time to work on a cooling system. I'll post some pics if anyone is interested.

A couple of days ago I picked up a 47 bottle wine fridge on sale for $149 at home depot. The plan is to store some whites/sparklers around 45*F so they don't need to be cooled after they come out of the larger storage unit. At the moment it's pretty much full with 39 bottles, the temp is fluctuating between 44 to 47 degrees, and it hasn't burst into flames.

Laptop + wireless ethernet. Other than one of the speakers being full of flour it's worked well for me.

We started with Paul Bara Brut Rose NV. Then had both 2001 Thanisch Goldkap Kabinet Riesling and 1997 Quintessa with our food. 1996 Phelps Eisrebe with dessert.