Cooking
- Whole Bean Coffee
If I got your attention then you are probably a coffee drinker. I consider myself to be a heavy coffee drinker. Well I should say I was a heavy coffee drinker, because now I am drinking only a cup or two per week. I try to drink more green tea now. But...
- The Elements Of Cooking
One of my biggest complaints about recipes is that they may inspire but they rarely teach. Just like any other craft, cooking requires core skills, and few cookbooks explain them to the novice. There are counterexamples. In Judy Rodgers’ Zuni Cafe...
- Wine Gadgets The World Needs
Lore Sjöberg, who often writes humorous pieces for Wired, has put his satirical pen to paper and pondered the wine gadgets missing from the world. An automatic wine twirler? A tooth-mounted flavor sensor? A temporal acceleration device to age your...
- Barrel Alternatives In Today's Chronicle
Last week, one of my students asked me about a practice he had heard of where winemakers add chips to wine instead of putting it in barrel. I replied, “I’m pretty sure that the Chronicle will run a lead story about that topic next week.”...
- The Rebirth Of Zocalo
Photo by melissa nicole. My dear friend Tim Holmes recently reopened Zocalo Coffeehouse in San Leandro after a four-month renovation (see my description of the original here). The results (according to Melissa, who went to the reopening festivities)...
Cooking
The French Laundry's Mediocre Coffee?
I know nothing about coffee except that I don’t like it. But my friend Tim does: He owns a popular coffeehouse in San Leandro that does its own roasting and blending. He forwarded an amusing post arguing that The French Laundry is trying to cover for mediocre coffee by impressing guests with its price. Or as the author writes:
Yes, the man behind America’s most esteemed of restaurants … has proudly announced to his customers that they[sic] will now offer Panama Esmeralda Geisha coffee roasted by the consistently underwhelming Equator Estate Coffees. … rather than get educated, train staff, and elevate the craft (if not also chuck their superautomatic Schaerer espresso machine for something less suited for an assembly line), they take the lazy short cut of espousing the merits of “the most expensive coffee in the world” on their menus
Any thoughts on this from you all? (Other than the misuse of the word “compliment” in the original press release?)
- Whole Bean Coffee
If I got your attention then you are probably a coffee drinker. I consider myself to be a heavy coffee drinker. Well I should say I was a heavy coffee drinker, because now I am drinking only a cup or two per week. I try to drink more green tea now. But...
- The Elements Of Cooking
One of my biggest complaints about recipes is that they may inspire but they rarely teach. Just like any other craft, cooking requires core skills, and few cookbooks explain them to the novice. There are counterexamples. In Judy Rodgers’ Zuni Cafe...
- Wine Gadgets The World Needs
Lore Sjöberg, who often writes humorous pieces for Wired, has put his satirical pen to paper and pondered the wine gadgets missing from the world. An automatic wine twirler? A tooth-mounted flavor sensor? A temporal acceleration device to age your...
- Barrel Alternatives In Today's Chronicle
Last week, one of my students asked me about a practice he had heard of where winemakers add chips to wine instead of putting it in barrel. I replied, “I’m pretty sure that the Chronicle will run a lead story about that topic next week.”...
- The Rebirth Of Zocalo
Photo by melissa nicole. My dear friend Tim Holmes recently reopened Zocalo Coffeehouse in San Leandro after a four-month renovation (see my description of the original here). The results (according to Melissa, who went to the reopening festivities)...