SLB

I will never again ignite some rum, or any other flammable liquid, in a small metal container that is not actually a pan and, most importantly, does not have a handle. Also, I will never again light anything on fire without closing the kitchen window, nice breeze be damned. I may never again light anything on fire at all, actually. I may stick to reducing to get the alcohol out. Let's just say, I made sure to say grace before that meal, when it finally happened . . . .

I use a paper clip.

I just ordered it from the library, it sounds like what I need this summer.

"Where's the beef from?" This might be limited to foodies under 40 . . . .

It sounds like it was a great trip!

Possibly this is another problem, but the gaskets on my daily-use pot get to where they're kind of melted in or something, at which point they don't pull out so easily. It's hard to imagine cleaning the gasket and filter every single day. Especially since I don't really clean it at all. And I agree with ranchogordo on the kettle-hot water. I just can't do all that before I have coffee.

Fascinating. DiggingDogFarm, do you take the filter and gasket out and clean them too??? My everyday moka is the tiny one and it tastes great. It is rinsed daily, but under no theory could it be considered clean. My larger aluminum moka pot is used infrequently -- less than 100 times in the 20+ years I've owned it -- and the coffee it produces has only ever been half-drinkable. It's kept much cleaner since I'm not going to put away the pot with coffee residue in every crevice. I totally thought the taste problem was that it was too clean! Hence my query about the stainless option -- I'm considering getting one because I thought it could manage to taste good clean, since I thought the point with the seasoning on the aluminum pot had something to do with the metal.

Thanks for the info. The specific advantage I'm interested in is whether it can make good coffee without having to be used every day. With the Bialetti aluminum ones, I've found that the taste is not great if it's used infrequently.

Resurrecting this thread for a quick q: I've only owned an aluminum Bialetti moka pot, and am considering investing in a larger stainless steel moka pot. Do the stainless ones need to be used frequently in order to produce a good flavor? I get why this is true for the aluminum pots, but I think of stainless steel as totally inert and thus not subject to improvement over time. Any thoughts on this?

I wouldn't mind, either, shew. My bean this week is RG bayo chocolate. I made the first half of the bag some time ago,and didn't love them, and I'm not totally loving these either. Kinda bland. But I've been curing that problem with some pickled onions added in as served. Which certainly works.

Yes, I mean to, but was kind of swamped yesterday. Will do. It's insane.

Yes. There are some on the other truck, also. .

Just yesterday I observed some seriously incompetent delivery dudes doing a horrible job with something like a thousand boxes, which I guess were scheduled for delivery to addresses near my office building. One hand-truck was piled high with amazon and Blue Ribbon (meal-kit) deliveries. mean piled and re-piled because everything kept falling over onto the ground until they finally took the job seriously of stacking strategically. The boxes were piled so foolishly, and fell over so frequently, I figured that everybody was overly stoned. It was ridiculous. But the real problem? Those boxes sat in the sunshine for at least 90 minutes while the delivery dudes figured out what they were going to do to get their actual job done. I kid you not, they were all over the ground when I arrived at my office at high noon, and I just kept staring at the catastrophe for the next hour and a half. In the photos, the Blue-Ribbon boxes have cooking tools as decoration on them. A poor novice-cook is gonna think s/he got sick from something they did.

I'm not worried about offspring either, but I don't have a lot of neurons to spare; all my surplus neuro-functioning has been allocated to alcohol. I'm not too sure about this lupini experiment. In fact, I think I might violate the first rule of my upbringing, and throw these things away. Which is a whole different thread, I know, I know . . . .

Folks, I bought some lupini beans some time back without realizing what I was getting myself into. What drew me to them was the reported high-protein content. I only accidentally looked at the strange directions on the package, which indicate five days of soaking with regular water changes. Then I googled, only to discover the lethal risk of not going through alla that. Sigh. So, given that I'm about to begin a multi-day prep for some dang beans; does anybody have a delicious lupini recipe that will make feel rewarded??? Also, any tried and true shortcuts on the prep would be totally appreciated.

Oh, I didn't even think of that (foolishly); I thought it was some twee thing. Perhaps this Fairway has a particular market need it's meeting, which of course I've got no problem with. I do wish the prices were more reasonable.

The goose prices are wild, but at least it seems like an adventure (of a sort). Admitting that I do not purchase food in this format ever, this photo (taken in good ole NYC Fairway) is the kind of food-form that makes me think the apocalypse is upon us: I mean. It's not like I haven't made a meal out of stir-fried onions and mushrooms. But. But. I mean . . . for five bucks???

This week's bean is RG "San Franciscanos". They are not 100% done, but they are 90% done and they are good!

I love that you found that mystery tool in your own garage, tho.

Well, if that doesn't inspire me to dig that book out from under the pile. Mmm.

I've used them in dashes (like say 3-5) for pies. I agree that it adds some positive oomph to the flavors. Substituting it for vanilla seems like it would be too much, but I'd be willing to try it. Here's a "Splendid Table" segment on it that I happened to hear not too long ago: http://www.splendidtable.org/story/use-bitters-to-add-flavor-complexity-to-food-not-just-cocktails

So, I recently heard an episode of "The Moth Radio Hour" featuring a testimony from Chef Chris Fischer from The Beach Plum on Martha's Vineyard. The episode was from the night the Obamas showed up. There is a really very touching discussion of a salad that was prepped and served to the Obamas, and it noted that the dressing was composed of blended salad greens along with the vinaigrette basics. Using blended salad greens in the dressing is a new one for me. But as soon as things get springy and fresh around here, I'm going to try it. It sounds perfect! [Obvs Chef Fischer could easily be an egulleter; if so, hi! Loved your tender Moth segment.]

Here are the Ayocote Morado enfrijolada-like things in my Mama's Corningware, with a fair amount of cheese baked on top and about a fourth-cup dressing of a whole additional sauce made with chipotles and sherry vinegar that I use for something else but had in the freezer. A touch dry, but ultimately not underflavored. Echoing what RanchoGordo noted upthread about a different Ayocote bean, the Morado is really very starchy.

One other faint memory comes to mind re bleaching, from something I read somewhere: bleaching was habitual with soft wheats (winter wheat, maybe?), that were typical of southern wheat crops. You can't get the kind of rise (or maybe it's the chew?) from soft wheat that is customary for northern breads without bleaching the flour. Bleaching subsequently became associated with a coincident preference for paler-colored flour, and thus paler resultant baked goods. This was just aesthetic though (although not insignificant); the original purpose was to get the lower-protein southern wheat to somewhat function in northern-style yeast breads. Like I said, I'm not an expert. I think I may have read this in one of the KAF manuals? Other southern wheat breads, like classic southern biscuits and some of the cakes, are only really attainable with bleached soft wheat. Like good ole' White Lily. The cliche is that if you try to make a southern biscuit (in my family, this was known as just a "biscuit") with non-southern flour, you will get a hockey puck. I do recall my Mississippi father finding my Chicago mother's biscuits intolerable. He would pull out the dense interiors, and just eat buttered hot crust. At the time, I believe the family conclusion was that it was the altitude we were living in at the time (Colorado).

I did not realize that KAF had discontinued the Queen Guinevere! I have a bit left from over a year ago, and actually made the RLB chocolate bread with it earlier today. It's a gift for a friend who is mourning; but I really wish I'd gone ahead and made two of 'em. That was just dumb. You can see I used a bit too large of a loaf pan. But it should taste alright. We're talking chocolate here.