cdh

Just noticed that our get-together weekend coincides with an annual event out in the countryside by me. The http://goschenhoppen...k-festival.html is happening on the 10th and 11th. Folks up for an automotive expedition out into historical PA Dutch country could get a taste of a number of old fashioned PA Dutch foodways... they usually have somebody doing a 18thC and a 19thC butchering of pig/cow, tasty stuff like ground cherry pie, and plenty of other things of interest to food-loving folks. Our schedule seems to permit some time wandering the world, and those coming in might get a kick out of it. It would be about an hour's drive from Center City.

Time to get Pizza Club out of mothballs and venture to Phoenixville?

Have just found out that this is happening in my back yard... count me in for everything. (Why is this planning happening on the midwest board? I never read here, and there's been no mention on the PA board that has caught my attention...)

Wow... did not realize that.... guess that's what you get for not reading the midwest board. I'll definitely have to come out and play...

Heartland gathering? We're in Pennsylvania, not Chicagoland...

Let's plot and scheme after this godawful weather breaks. I can bring along my elderly FreshRoast. I'm in the middle of constructing a TurboCrazy roaster, so that project may be done as well, though I make no promises that I'll get it completed by any particular date. And perhaps various coffee prep methods would be useful to experiment with for you as well. I have a spare Gaggia espresso machine mothballed that could come along, as well as an Aeropress... those are my two primary methods of coffeemaking for myself... and it's an espresso 9 times out of 10 for me...

Thanks for the pointer, Greg. Will have to make sure I've got a loud countdown alarm too. You know, it seems there might be a local quorum of us to get together sometimg and help abooja out getting the feel of roasting... If our eG location strings are up to date, we're all within a half hour of Allentown, and all south of the Lehigh Valley proper... maybe a meetup might help get abooja's roasting and coffeemaking on track.

I'm still roasting my own... I've been playing with Ethiopians and Coast Ricans recently. Amazing range of flavors even within those general categories. Have been using the 10-year-old FreshRoast v1, but am thinking seriously about upgrading to the DIY convection oven/Stir Crazy popcorn popper system that a quick google for "TurboCrazy" will more fully explain. Seems a reasonable way to get much bigger batches done.

Wow. Just wow. Glad I'm on the other side of the continent from this coffee shop.

Dishwashing packets? Not on my radar, but if they work, who cares. Powder, goo or elsewise, whatever gets the dishes clean and doesn't etch the hell out of the glassware is fine. Self rising flour? There are recipes that call for it... so people buy it. Flour + baking powder + sufficiently accurate scale + sifter is more work than picking up a box of Bisquick.

Ahhh... I have made and quite enjoy crunchy omelets. Just fry some cheese in the pan before putting in the eggs... makes a very nice crispy crust.

We must be using very different definitions for the phrase "nothing like", since dosa are pretty widely defined as "a crepe" by people who make and sell them. Sure, they're crispy and made of rice and lentils... but they're still a thin batter-based crepe.

You might try a fermented dough like in south Indian dosas. They are pretty crepe-like and are vegan. No buckwheat in the traditional recipes, though.

Bibou?

Not a kitchen appliance. A work of stainless steel sculpture. Unfortunately a La Pavoni is equally artistic, makes better coffee, and is cheaper. This is meant to go in kitchens sporting the Starck steel spider citrus juicer.

When you say "professional", do you mean to say that your budget is ~$2000 or so? That seems to be the baseline for used commercial stuff... Do you have the plumbing in place for a permanent fixture type machine?

Something else to consider, now that Lepard's publisher is involved in using Lepard's name as a trademark for recipes and cookbooks, is the fact that the recipes as described were not, in fact, authored by Dan Lepard, but were using his name as a badge of quality/authenticity without any direct input by him. While the use is not commercial itself, there is an arguable commercial harm possible if the recipes attributed to him don't work right, or produce results of which he doesn't approve. I could see wanting to make such attributions stop, and without the nexus of commercial activity, using trademarks to do it would be difficult... so the overbroad and overpowered copyright claims would be the next tool in the drawer to use to get that result, and the burden of proof required to demand a website take down alleged infringement is minimal. PS: my apologies to Thermomix's German heritage and provenance... the phrase "Forum Thermomix" just sounds quite French to me...

Just be careful about condensation and other sources of water drops that might make your chocolate seize up.

The recipe rule is certainly true of US copyright law... European laws vary somewhat on the "moral rights" of authors to exercise control over their works... if "Forum Thermomix" is as French as it sounds, the law they might chose to apply may not be US copyright law.

Wow. Budget of less than 50 cents a head. That is seriously limiting. But then again a weeks worth of meals for less than $5 seems like quite a bargain. Do your members all eat there daily like clockwork... or is there a certain amount of attrition at every meal? How do you deal with leftovers? Is each meal a bit of a smorgasboard of what has been made in the past few days, or is it a no choice, eat what you're served system with a leftover day every few days?

What are the chances that the contents of the bottles and containers will remain the same, but just the labels are changing? Is Ikea totally revamping the selection, or just the branding? I'm going to need to take the trip down to Conshohocken and see for myself.

Best scotch-y gift I can think of is a membership in the Scotch Malt Whisky society... grants access to fantastic bottlings that will knock the socks off of somebody accustomed to retail bottlings.

I love the Castelvetranos and the Morrocan oil cured blacks.

Have we really gotten to the point where we think that Gaggia and Pavoni and are not good enough to recommend as starter machines? I'd certainly not call a recommendation to spend $1000 on a Silvia (+mods) and Rocky an "entry level" recommendation.

Agreed on the syrups idea as mentioned above. I've gotten very tasty results from making Thai Basil syrup and Purple Shiso syrup... easy to do, very interesting flavors, not something you're likely to find commercially. Actually, the Purple Shiso is as much a shrub as a syrup... it's a really neat effect... when you've muddled the hell out of the shiso leaves, and infuse that into hot simple syrup, the result is an ugly greenish brown... until you add enough acid back in, then it flips like a switch to magenta. I've been using cider vinegar as the acid, hence the shrubby-ness.