Eating Chicago

My time in Chicago was spent (what else?) eating and checking out the various cool and interesting restaurants of the city. And what is a visit to Chicago without a taste of their ubiquitous hot dogs?

Initially, I was going to check out Hot Doug's again but as I pulled up to the restaurant around 2:30pm on Saturday, I spotted the line snaking around the building, and down the block, and decided to pass. Pressing onward but hungry, I ended up spotting a Mexican grocery store with a taqueria, cut off another driver and jammed into the parking lot. Inside, I loaded up on beverages, conchas and cookies and partook of a cecina taco and a chorizo taco with freshly squeezed orange juice.

To be honest, my Spanish comprehension is terrible. Everyone speaks natively (read: fast) and I'm at a disadvantage. Of course, this is compounded by the fact that I don't look terribly gringo so they speak to me normaly (fast and in Spanish). With a little mumbling and slight slurring, I manage to order the two tacos and the orange juice chico (small).

That's when the guy throws me a curve ball. Luckily, I hear the word "aqui" in the mix and guess that he's asking me if I want to eat it here (aqui) or "to go." Quickly, I drill out (with a heavy slurring of the words): "Si, aqui por favor" and hope that's enough to get me through. Luckily, it is and I'm treated to two very large and tasty tacos.

Compared to Baltimore, there's a very large population of Mexicans and Latinos in Chicago. This means that I'm sure to find some authentic and tasty eats here. In fact, I read reports that made the bold claim that the vendors at the New Maxwell Street Market are as good as in Mexico City. Woah, that's a bold claim indeed. Whatever the case, this grocery store taqueria has it going on.

But back to the hot dog...



The Superdawg resting on a bed of fries.

Over at the PolyScience booth at the NRA Show, Jason is telling me that I need to check out SuperDawg up in Niles. Since I'm staying way north of the city in the suburban enclave of Deerfield/Northwood, it's on the way and after an afternoon of touring the show, I'm feeling in the mood for an authentic Chicago dog.

SuperDawg is a real, bona-fide drive-in. The kind you either saw in Happy Days or American Grafitti. You pull up to one of the stalls, peruse the menu, hit the button, order your food and a female car hop delivers it to you on a tray that you hang off your car window. This is my one chance at a Chicago dawg and I go whole hawg: the eponymously named Superdawg is an all-beef hot dog on a poppy seed bun with tomatoes, pickles, onions, celery salt, neon green relish and some tasty goodness resting on a bed of crispy crinkle-cut french fries. Muy excelente!

Fearing that perhaps the bed of fries might be a bit small, I decide to err on the side of abundance (this is America, afterall) and order a side of fries. A mistake. A tasty mistake perhaps, but a mistake nonetheless. Not because they weren't an example of crispy fried potato goodness, but rather because I was now facing a mountain of fries. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son...

No visit to the drive-in would be complete with a proper malted. Chalk one up for the chocolate malt and a side of Coke. Yes, it's a lot, but I've got a long drive, I reason.



Bacon and Cheese Omelette with hash browns and pancakes at Georgie V's.

Sunday mornings are usually spent casually lolly gagging around the house. But since I'm on the road and on a schedule, I've got to get cracking and want to find a nice spot for brunch without having to battle the brunch crowd. This demands that one get going early while everyone else is either thinking about rousting themselves from bed or attending church services. Luckily, I attend the Church of Bacon and after a quick online search, I find a place nearby in Northwood called Georgie V's.

Georgie V's looks like your typical suburban pancake house. Simple walls, simple decor, nothing too fancy, just a light touch of classic Americana home with cream walls and lots of booths. I secure myself one and peruse the menu.

This is the area of Chicago that was home to some of America's most prominent teenagers. I'm comforted by the fact that not too far from here Mr. Vernon detained a bunch of unruly high schoolers in The Breakfast Club and Ferris took Cameron's dad's Ferrari for a ride in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Readers of this blog might be expecting some sort of fancy feast for brunch, but really, I prefer something a bit more simple and homey - even a bit downright pedestrian. I go with the three egg omelette with bacon and American cheese. Served with a side of hash browns and three dollar-sized pancakes, it's a simple winner. Whipped eggs, bacon and American cheese - slathered with Tabasco and a watered down piss water coffee. Ah, Americana.



Iriquois White Corn cornbread with goat ragu at Mado.

After a stint at Woodberry Kitchen, Thunder Dan Silo has taken up residence in the kitchen of Lula Cafe in Logan Square and is my inside guide to some of the newer places in town. Knowing my fondness for locally sourced ingredients, he's made reservations for us to attend the Stewards of the Land Family Dinner at mado restaurant in the now trendy Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood.

Once a month, chef owners Rob and Allie Levitt shut down their cozy restaurant to host the family dinners featuring products from certain producers. Tonight's guests are Marty and Kris Travis of Spence Farm - the oldest family farm in Livingston County, Illinois, established in 1830. At the outset, Rob tells us that 98% of the ingredients for the meal have come from Spence Farm and that the Iriquois White Corn used to make the cornbread is a very special heirloom corn that almost met total extinction just a couple of years ago and is now being cultivated (after an exhaustive search) by Marty and Kris.

The meal:

antipasti
- Grilled asparagus with pickled eggs
- Whitefish Bacala with cattail shoots and chilies
- Beef Carpaccio with Radish, Green Garlic and Cherokee Sweet Mint
second course
- Iriquios White Corn Cornbread with Goat Ragu
salad
- Spring Greens Salad with Pickled Ramp Vinaigrette
entree
- Nettle Gnudi with Butter and Parmesan
cheese
- Prairie Fruits Farm Cheese with Apple Mostarda
dessert
-Wheatberry Pastiera with Rhubarb Compote



Roasted Bone Marrow, ramp pickle, parsley and shallot jam at The Bristol.

The next night, Thunder Dan and I are off to the place Dan's been wanting to check out: The Bristol. A neighborhood eatery, The Bristol seems to have subscribed to what is starting to look like the Farm-To-Table restaurants' de rigueur interior decor uniform: exposed brick walls, wood tables, metal chairs, noisy environment and hip-looking servers.

Uniform interior or not, The Bristol is jamming on a Monday night and is packed. After a half-hour wait, we are seated at a two top by the blackboard wall filled with handwritten chalk specials. The nice thing is that there's lots of goodness to choose from and we're not afraid for a de facto tasting menu:

- Scotch Olives, Pork Sausage, Lemon
- Duck Fat Fries, House Ketchup, Garlic Aioli
- Heirloom Apple Salad, Hazelnuts, Marinated Manchego
- Raviolo, Ricotta, Egg Yolk, Brown Butter
- Roasted Bone Marrow, Ramp Pickle, Parsley, Shallot Jus
- Goat Loin Carpaccio, Farro Salad, Almonds, Goat's Feta
- Egg Sandwich, Grilled Fresh Pork Belly, Toast
- Peach Panna Cotta
- Chocolate Pot au Creme with Nutter Butter Cookie

It's a pretty darn good meal that started off with a seriously tasty cocktail or locally produced vodka, house made ginger beer and lime juice, in a copper cup. So darn good, I could've pounded them all night.



Tacos al Pastor at Tecalitlan

After such nice meals in the Windy City, it was time to gear down a bit on my last day and check out this al pastor place that Jason had been telling me. Happily, Tecalitlan has outdoor seats but no al pastor grill for a proper pastor. Instead, the meat is chopped, grilled and served on corn tortillas. The tortillas are good, the meat is tasty but this ain't no El Vipsito.

On the menu, I spot chilaquiles and I can't help myself. I must order one, just to taste. It's decent enough. The chips are slathered in a red salsa that has just a hint of chipotle bite but the rice and beans are just odd.



Inside the Cemitas Milanesa from Cemitas Puebla.

When asking for recommendations, Moveable Feast's Louisa Chu vociferously recommended a shop way west of the city. Cemitas Puebla is a small Mexican joint specializing in Pueblan fare. The neighborhood seems suitably sketchy but it's clean inside and food cooking on the griddle just looks delicious.

Here at Cemitas Puebla, the torta-like sandwiches are served on a sesame seed roll. I go for the milanesa, a pounded, breaded and fried pork cutlet, and a Taco Arabes. The owner is a friendly and very outgoing man who speaks in a happy Spanish. I apologize for my American ignorance and inability to speak more than one language and he doesn't skip a beat. Obviously, he's more than used to non-Spanish speaking people coming into his restaurant.

It's only been fifteen minutes since my meal at Tecalitlan, so it would be pure insanity for me to eat a second meal here. I ask for the food to-go and take it with me for the flight home.

Cocooned in darkness, with the lights of the world passing beneath me at 450 mph, the still slightly warm taco and cemitas goes down well with a cold Coke. Both are tasty. Perhaps not the best torta and taco I've ever had (could use a little salt), but the flavor is comforting and reassuing - and I'm confident that should United 766 take a nosedive into the ground, I would vaporize a happy, Mexican-fed, man.


Superdawg Drive-In
6363 North Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60646
773-763-0660
www.superdawg.com


Georgie V's Pancake House
1139 Church Street
Northbrook, Illinois 60062
847-753-9638
Georgie V's on Yelp


mado restaurant
1647 North Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60647
773-342-2340
www.madorestaurantchicago.com


The Bristol
2152 North Damen Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60647
773-862-5555
www.thebristolchicago.com


Tecalitlan Restaurant
1814 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60622
773-384-4285
Tecalitlan on Yelp


Cemitas Puebla
3619 West North Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60647
773-772-8435
www.cemitaspuebla.com

NRA

Interlopers be gone!

Over the years, I've been to a lot of trade shows: SCAA, NPPL, ShowBiz West, CoffeeFest, CES, and even though this years' NRA was smaller than ever, it was the most brutal trade show I have ever attended. Brutal not because of the vendors but the size really was a tough grind. Four days of non-stop walking the show and talking with vendors and it's still nearly impossible to see everything.

After four days, I was worked. By 7pm Tuesday, while shopping at the Target nearest to O'Hare, I hit the wall. Done. Finished. Spent. I just needed to trudge to the airport and hang on for the flight home.

As always, the National Restaurant Association Show was an experience. Just about everything and anything food and restaurants is on display. While the proliferation of the Internet has made researching easier, nothing beats seeing the goods face-to-face. Sure that chair looks nice on the website, but what is it like to sit in that chair? And, after days of walking and standing on thin-carpeted concrete, all you want to do is sit in a chair.


One man and his NRA harvest.

I've been to a lot of food shows and learned my lessons the hard way. At first, a food show seems like a veritable smorgasbord orgy and you go ballistic eating everything in sight - like your own personal buffet. Then you get ill. Too much eating. Too much food. Too much crap.

The other side of trade shows is that you want to grab everything in sight. All the free books, magazines, catalogs, brochures, pamphlets, product samples, promo items and sexy models that you can stuff into your bag. You then trudge all that stuff back home with you where it sits in a corner, undisturbed for how many months before you throw it away.

During shows like this, I let them scan my card and send me information at home where I can take the time to properly review the material. My goal is to acquire no more paper material than I can carry in one hand, without a bag. This limits my burden and forces me to choose only the most important pieces to review that night.

When it comes to eating, I don't know why anyone attending shows like this needs to visit a restaurant or snack bar in the center. Food is everywhere, and while they don't give you full servings, a little grazing along the way when you get hungry is an easy and cheap way to keep yourself full Of course, most of the food you're eating you really don't want to eat on a regular basis...


Sexy goodness from CookTek.

CookTek, my favored induction heat source, debuted their new eight burner range top. Requiring 208v 3Phase power, it's simply bad to the bone. I want one. Also got the chance to see their Apogee induction top up close and now understand why I must spend the additional three hundred dollars for one. But the coolest thing they had on display was their counter induction warmer. Pull the digital sensor pad away and all you have is your non-reactive countertop. Put the pad down and you've got induction. Promises that they're developing a full-powered version for cooking means that you can have your beautiful granite countertop and cook on it too.


Chris Cosentino prepares Porchetta di Testa.

One of the highlights of this show was watching Chris Cosentino prepare a porchetta di testa. Quite simply, you take a pig's head, debone it while maintaining the integrity of the skin, fill in the skin holes with the ears, roll the head with some herbs, seasoning and tongue - while keeping the snout intact. Wrap the roll in netting, vacuum-pack it in a bag, cook it for six hours in an immersion bath (a la sous vide), chille and slice. Delicious and I'm calling my butcher this week to secure myself a pig's head. Maybe I'll even give Chris' "Brain-naise" a try...


Fountain Coke versus Slurpee Coke.

Coca-Cola has to have one of my favorite booths at the show. For no other reason than they give out free Coke to anyone who asks. And they're not measly servings either. Twelve ounces of amber Coke goodness. Compare their approach to Pepsi and their comparatively anemic booth and it's no wonder why Coke is Number One.

One afternoon, I decided to give fountain Coke and Slupee Coke a head-to-head comparison - if only to satisfy my own curiosity. While fountain Coke is decidedly sweet, Slupee Coke is carbon-y (as in fizzy carbonation) and the sweetness is lessened. Actually, it really is like freezing Coke, which diminishes it's character and isn't very interesting.


Freshly sliced Jamon Iberico.

Since it is the national restaurant show, food is at the forefront. Unfortunately, most of that food is utter crap. If it's frozen, portioned, processed and prepackaged, it's on display here. Like I said above, you can eat for free at the show, but the food isn't very good. Sure, the Lamb-Weston fries are something you've tasted before, but are they really good? No. I found this show interesting because it reminded me of the coffee trade shows: lots of stuff on display, most of which do not compute for me or the company.

Luckily, there are a number of vendors whose products look applicable. Take Solex and their selection of Spanish products, like the Jamon Iberico they were handing out. At roughly one thousand dollars per leg, it's not cheap, but it is delicious. And while there were a number of regional producers at the show, it reinforced the notion in my mind that we ought to keep with our mission of sourcing the best local ingredients. Though, I have to say that while I'm a constant skeptic of American Wagyu, I did find a vendor whose product (if they can achieve their highest grade) looks as though it might rival the original Japanese.


MK's Erik Williams promoting Cornish Hen, Morels and French Asparagus .

Tuesday is the last day of the show and also one of the slowest. Most vendors have scaled back their sampling so foraging for lunch is slightly more difficult. While looking at ovens, Louis Petrozza snuck up on me to offer his advice on procuring ovens (a used Blodgett is a better buy than an inexpensive new oven). I can't say I disagree. But it's so much fun buying new!

Erik Williams, executive chef at Chicago's MK Restaurant was giving a demo that I wanted to check out. He's making a pan-seared cornish hen with morels and French asparagus. The asparagus looked so delicious, I just wanted to reach out and grab a handfull. Erik has a great demeanor and personality, and gave a great show. It's just a shame that he was scheduled on the last day so the crowd was much smaller.


Le piece de resistance- rotary evaporator with vacuum pump and circulator.

I was attending the NRA as the guest of Philip from PolyScience. Armed with my PolyScience Exhibitor badge, the show was a very different experience. Other vendors either eye you suspiciously (one came out and asked if I was a competitor spy) or ignore you altogether. Since I was here to find new products and buy them, it was a bit irritating to be outright ignored, but it was also a relief not to be constantly battered by the full court press that people with attendee badges were receiving. In that vein, I was able to browse in peace.

On the flip side of the coin, having a PolyScience badge afforded me a level of familiarity and, dare I say: "prestige" with certain individuals at the show. Did it make me cooler? Maybe. Did it separate me from the typical restauranteur who buys everything pre-portioned from Sysco? Possibly. Whatever the case, there were certainly a number of times when I was welcomed warmly because I was associated with such a great company - and for that, I am grateful. Thanks Philip.

While there will always be a longing in my heart for a nice chamber vacuum, my show lust was driven by the introduction of the PolyScience rotary evaporator with vacuum pump and chill circulator. Just look at the picture above. It was destined to be part of my arsenal. Of course, I hope my banker won't see this otherwise my letter of credit may disappear.

Not Suitable For Nieces

Uncle Jay as Ghengis Khan.

The other night I was talking to my cousin's cousin (not my cousin) who was surprised to find out that I write a blog. After quickly looking it up, she asks if my cousin (her cousin) knows that I write a blog and do my nieces also read this blog.

NO, I certainly hope not.

Not that I have anything to hide or am harboring dark family secrets (though I might), but after writing this blog, I certainly do not think that some of the content on here is quite suitable for young readers - especially with my occasional rants and sporadic use of profanity to make a point. None of which I would consider appropriate for my nieces.

So, if you happen to be one of my nieces reading this: GET OFF THE COMPUTER!!! Watch Dora or iCarly. Go outside and play. Stop wasting time indoors and eating hot pockets (they are evil).

Let's Get Brutal

It's Tuesday morning and I'm reluctant to leave the security of my hotel room in Northbrook, Illinois for the thirty minute commute to Chicago.

I've been in Chicago since Saturday attending the National Restaurant Association trade show - a four day festival of all things restaurant and hospitality. As far as food trade shows go, it's immense, though not as big as before as the falling economy has caused many vendors to pull out from the show and the organizers to scale back to two halls instead of three. Regardless, seeing everything is brutal on the body.

The NRA Show for me, is like the Specialty Coffee Association's trade show. Lot's of stuff that do not apply. Instead of the syrups and powdered mixes of the SCAA, here it's battered, frozen, portioned and fried foods. Out of the many vendors, maybe three percent apply. The positive thing is that you don't have to buy food so long as you're willing to eat whatever is available and graze.

A couple of celebrity sightings: ran into Rick Bayless at the Cambro booth and wanted to ask him about the finer points of mole but he looked pretty engrossed in shelving. Attended a session with Incanto's Chris Cosentino that was really quite exciting - making a porchetta from a pigs head - most excellent. But the true celebrity moment was while walking along an aisle and spotting someone who I swore I knew from Baltimore. So much so that I started to approach and greet him. Only then did I realize that I didn't know him personally and only knew him from television. For a number of my friends, Hell's Kitchen is our secret indulgence and here was our favorite chef from Season Four, Louis Petrozza - who is as nice in person as his persona on the show.

Today is the last day and I'm heading back for one more round before flying home tonight. The goal: a thorough exploration of a Spanish importer, olives and their jamon iberico.

The Knowledge Seeker

As I've, once again, decided to hurtle myself towards reckless financial ruin, I figured I would at least try to understand what I did wrong when I do it.

The local Border's and Barnes & Noble bookstores have a plethora of food and cookbooks but a dearth of material covering the actual operation of foodservice businesses, leaving the general public in the dark and contributing to the continual shuttering of foodservice businesses every year. With that in mind, I decided to venture into the heart of the city to visit the Baltimore International College's Bookstore.

I went there once years ago and found some helpful books and figured it was time for an update. Nestled in the basement of their business center, the bookstore is hard to find and difficult to access (I had to request a security badge at reception to buzz my way through the doors). As I made my way down and through the labyrinthine passageways and stairwells, I hoped that all this effort would be worth it. Upon reaching the bookstore and perusing its' contents, I was reminded of the one truism that has remained since my college days.

Crickey, textbooks are expensive.

Amidst the choices, I found what I was looking for: Design and Layout of Foodservice Facilities and Food and Beverage Cost Control, two of what looked like excellent texts to bolster my knowledge. Ten minutes later, and a long trudge up a steep staircase, I was back on the street with the sun in my face and the horror of spending over two hundred dollars on two books in the pit of my stomach. For that much money, you bet your ass I'm gonna put these principles to work. So much for that dinner this weekend at Charlie Trotter's...

I'll report more as things progress.

From Yesterday to Today

At home with Tapsilog and Tabasco

Yesterday's beef tapa yielded todays' Tapsilog: pan fried beef tapa with fried eggs over garlic fried rice. All fresh and all local ingredients. Add to that a marathon of Jack Bauer and Season Six of 24, and it's a rollicking good time.

Happy Mother's Day!

The family gathers for Mother's Day Brunch.


It's Mother's Day and happy wishes to all the mothers out there in the world. Decided to prepare Mother's Day Brunch for my mom and my aunts. Here's our menu:

- Beef Tapa
- Pork Tocino
- Scrambled Eggs
- Pancit Bihon
- Applewood Smoked Bacon
- Steamed Rice
- Blueberry Muffins
- Steamed Asparagus
- Mixed Fruit
- Buko Pie
- Oven Shrimp
- Blood Orange Juice
- Aida's Grand Reserve from Stumptown


Blueberry muffins hot from the oven.

Originally, my plan was to do a traditional American-style brunch but as I got into planning things yesterday, I realized that while I enjoy pancakes and such, why not focus more on our traditions and go with a Filipino-style brunch. Suddenly, more items started dancing in my notebook: ensaymada, ukoy, fire-baked bibingka, sinangag and dried fried fish.

It's so easy to drive over the Filipino grocery store and buy the packaged tocino and tapa, but why? With such great ingredients at my disposal, why choose commercially processed meats over the great local meats? So, I drove out to Springfield Farm to load up. With pounds of bacon, flank steak and pork butt (not to mention a few pounds of chicken backs for stock, and a couple rib eyes) in tow, it was back home to get things rolling.


Sliced flank steak and some Shaoxing wine for marinade.

Truth be told, I'd never made either tocino or tapa before. I looked up some recipes and started mixing. The tocino is a pretty simple mixture of salt, sugar and achiote powder. Slice the pork butt into thin planks, sprinkle the dry mix, top with sliced garlic and let marinate overnight. Of course, I didn't start until the morning so I needed to speed things up by bagging and vacuum packing the seasoned meat.

Tapa was equally simple. Slice the meat into thin planks and marinade in a mix of Aloha Shoyu, Shiaoxing rice wine, coconut vinegar maasim (hot), sugar and lime juice. This needs to marinated for at least an hour, better overnight, and then air dried for 12 hours. Of course, it's the morning and I'm under the gun. Vacuum pack the meat and marinade to speed the process for an hour, lay the planks on a drying rack in a 175F oven for awhile, finish drying in the hot sun and then pan fry.


Marinated beef tapa basking in the sunshine.

Happily, I still have some of the fresh blueberries I froze from last summer. My supply is now dwindling but the flavor is still bright, sweet and intense. The perfect specimens for muffins. Taking a cue from the current issue of Cook's Illustrated, I whipped up their recipe of flour, sugar, baking powder, butter and oil with a cup of frozen blueberries and some of the blueberry jam I have from last summer. Coat with a liberal application of lemon accented sugar and bake at 425F for twenty minutes. Beautiful.


Everyone works the line...

Wii Bii Bored

Was out the other day and found the Wii Sports package and Wii Fit contraption at Target. I decided to buy them. My cousin told me they had them at Target, the guy at the counter told me I could probably sell them on eBay for a profit. I figured it might be a way for me to do something active while at home. Profiteering be damned.

Never in my life have I ever owned more than one gaming console at a time. My brother and I had the Atari 2600 when it was still just called the "Atari" - we never owned Intellivision. When Colecovision came out, we got that. I think my brother had the Nintendo but I didn't. He also got the PlayStation.

Years later, the PlayStation 2 came out and I got one. For six weeks, I was Snake Plissken. Then, when the stresses of business close in around me, I took to the streets of Liberty City and, with the help of cheat codes, proceeded to gun down the masses in a ball of fury, flame and a hail of gunfire.

Fast forward to 2006 and I'm unexpectedly the owner of a PlayStation 3, which turned out to be more of a Blu-Ray Disc player than anything else - except for the one week period where I was launching a Blitzkrieg of 155mm tracer shells on unsuspecting bad guys from my C-130 Hercules gun ship.

Now, I've got the old PS2, the PS3 and the new Wii. I finally opened and set it up today and gave Wii Sports a go. After a rather successful game of bowling and a relatively decent round of golf (which is much better than my real world average), I'm now bored with the machine and couldn't stand playing another round.

The Good News

I have just received good news from the coast.

I think I will smoke a cigar in honor of this news.

My Entire Life

It took me awhile to figure it out, but when I was back in college, I took an economics course and our textbook was McConnell & Brue's Principles of Microeconomics. It was there that I found a favored passage that I refer to from time to time:

Human capital is the accumulation of outcomes of prior investments in education, training and other factors that increase productivity and earnings. It is the stock of knowledge, know-how, and skills that enables individuals to be productive and thus earn income. A valuable stock of human capital, together with a strong demand for one's services, can add up to a large capacity to earn income. For some people, high earnings have little to do with actual hours of work and much to do with their tremendous skill, which reflects their accumulated stock of human capital.

The point is demonstrated in the following story: It is said that a tourist once spotted the famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) in a Paris cafe. The tourist asked Picasso if he would do a sketch of his wife for pay. Picasso sketched the wife in a matter of minutes and said, "That will be 10,000 Francs." Hearing the high price, the tourist became irritated, saying "But that took you only a few minutes."

"No," replied Picasso, "it took me my entire life!"

New York Swag

Few things are as excruciating in life as getting up at 4:30am (after having gone to bed at 1:30am) to catch the 5:30am train to Nueva York.

I was in New York today to attend the New York Coffee Summit being held at the International Culinary Center and hosted by Edible Magazines. While I won't go into heavy detail about what we discussed today (I'll save that for another time), I will say that it was fun, informative and offered the perspective from the hardcore retail barista and roaster to the mass market segment that helped underscore the true challenge to those of us interested in pursuing coffee at the vanguard.

But enough of that talk. What you want to know about was the swag, and this summit was Swag-A-Licious:

- Brazil Serra Do Bone from the happily still operating Ecco Caffe
- Insulated press cup from Bodum
- Finca Mauritania from Counter Culture Coffee
- Aida's Grand Reserve El Salvador from Stumptown
- Colombia La Mirada from Stumptown
- Hair Bender Espresso from Stumptown
- Colombia Finca Piendamo from Stumptown
- Kurimi Ethiopia Yirgacheffe from Intelligentsia
- Rwanda Epiphanie from gimme! coffee
- Amedei Tuscany chocolate from Chuao
- Brieto peeling knife and Japanese oyster knife from Korin
- Drew Estate cigars from Bronwen Serna
- Yemen Mokha from Oren's Daily Roast
- Cafe Colombia from the Colombian Coffee Federation
- Illy ground espresso
- Edible Manhattan

The selection is pretty exciting and we had the chance to sample many of these coffees throughout the day. The Intelligentsia Yirgacheffe had a really nice light and fruity flavor while Stumptown's Finca Piendamo rocked it with notes of honey. Later, at the closing reception, USBC Champ Mike Phillips and WBC Champ Stephen Morrissey worked the Ecco Serra do Bone producing sweet macchiatos to lead us into the evening.

I should note that the knives from Korin came from a shopping trip with Bronwen after the summit, then a quick trip midtown to my favorite Ipanema Restaurant for vatapa before the train back to Baltimore.

The Good Earth

I've been back from Atlanta for well over a week now and while we had quite a number of adventures in the South, I guess I'll get to writing about it sometime in the non-committal future. Meanwhile, it's back to work at The Spro, reviewing leases, developing new standards, training new baristas and writing an article for Barista Magazine.

Instead, I thought I would share with you some of the swag I brought back from Hotlanta:

- Brazil Daterra from our friends at Ogawa Coffee in Tokyo
- La Marzocco demitasse
- a gorgeous Reg Barber Knockbox
- an assortment of coffee pins from World Champion Gwilym Davies, Reg Barber, Oswaldo Acevedo, Barista Exchange and Brewed Behavior
- custom Le Spro tampers for The Spro baristas by Reg Barber
- Dorman's full length apron from John and Claire in Kenya
- Spring Espresso from Square Mile Coffee Roasters
- Reg Barber t-shirts
- Green sample from Franklin Madrid, Honduras
- Colonia San Juan 8 Estrellas from Square Mile Coffee Roasters
- Ed's Roasted Peanuts from the Counter Culture Party
- SCAA Press Pass and Turner Broadcasting Pass
- Glass Coke from World of Coca-Cola
- Sethurama Estates cap

Yellow Milk

Sometimes I just don't understand where my peers are coming from.

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who shares a similar passion for cuisine and the beauty of ingredients and he was relating to me a story about milk. A barista he knew asked him to source some milk for a competition. Being the lover of great ingredients that my friend is, he went to a local farmer who's producing some truly stellar milk - a farmer who laughed at him when he told the farmer that he would like the farmer to supply him with 40 gallons of milk per week to supply his coffee house.

Laughed at him because the farmer just didn't produce that volume of milk. He produced high quality milk but on a small scale and at serious prices. The average gallon of commercial milk is roughly $2.50. The milk I use is $5.50. The milk this farmer produces is $10.00 per gallon and, from what I'm told, is just exquisite. Rich, sweet, creamy and made from the best ingredients (i.e. pastured on grass). It's the kind of milk we dream about.

As any passionate individual, my friend packs the milk on ice and drives it to the competition. He's excited to share the milk and, from what I've been told, that's where things went awry. That's when this barista's "team" got involved.

They tasted the milk but found it "too weird" and "too different" than the commercial milk they were used to. They fretted that the judges would find the milk to be "too different" and very unlike what they were used to and expecting. Not to mention the fact that the milk looked yellow.

I realize that for most people yellow milk is an odd sight to behold. Commercial milk is alpine white and alpine white it shall be. Therefore, there must be something wrong with yellow milk.

As I listened to the story, I couldn't help but wonder if this barista and the "team" had any real exposure to this level of ingredient? Had they only been exposed to commercial ingredients? Was I expecting too much to expect that these baristas know that the "yellow" tint was due to the diet of the cows and the sweet, rich cream in the milk?

This was the point where I want to look for a concrete wall to bash my head against. Isn't the point of competition presenting judges with something they haven't tasted before? Isn't the notion of a milk that's sweet, rich and vastly different than commercial a good thing?

Which Is Worse?

I'm trying to decide which of these two events is worse:

- dumping the girl you've been seeing off and on for the past four and a half years,

OR

- finding out that the hot, fun, interesting and quirky girl you've recently met is married... with kids.









I'm leaning towards the latter...

Under The Gun

One would think that with all the travel that I manage in the course of a year that I would have it down by now.

The night before a trip is always the worst. So many things to do, so many details to settle. Inevitably, I still have a laundry list (and actual laundry) of things to complete and sit around wishing I had another week to do it all.

I leave for Atlanta in the morning to attend yet another SCAA Conference, Trade Show and World Barista Championship. Until just a few days ago, this was going to be my first SCAA since 2003 that I would be attending with nothing in particular to do. For the past six years, I've done some sort of volunteer work instructing espresso classes, calibrating espresso machines, recording podcasts, organizing a booth, competing and all sorts of miscellany. This year, I had nothing planned except to be a simple attendee wanting to see the show from a regular persons' point of view. I was excited.

That was until just the other day when Sarah Allen from Barista Magazine called me up to see if I would be a sort of roving reporter with pen in hand and ready to write about the conference from my perspective. Didn't she know that my confidence in the SCAA has been all but destroyed? Now I'm no longer just another attendee - I'm an attendee with a mission.

Back into the darkroom to dig up my old and trusty Domke F2 bag loaded with lots of photo goodies. Toss out the ginormous Canon EOS 1N body and suddenly my bag is feeling pretty lightweight.

If you happen to be in Atlanta, look for me and my camera bag roving the floors of the Georgia World Congress Center, but if you don't see me there, you can look for me at Watershed and some of the other fine eateries in Atlanta.

Pissed Off Over Ego

A couple of years ago, when LA Mill Coffee opened their Silver Lake store in Los Angeles, a discussion ensued amongst a number of us in the barista community. Turns out that LA Mill had co-opted some of our signature drinks and placed it on their menu. People wanted to know if I was pissed about it.

Quite frankly: no. It didn't bother me at all. However, some of my friends weren't as pleased. Some were upset that they didn't ask permission to use the idea for the drinks or recognize the source of the material. Some wanted their names on the menu. I didn't care.

I didn't care because I knew that there's truly very little real originality left in the world. That all of us create drinks and dishes based on our prior influences and we generate our ideas from others. To stand around an be petulant over whether or not I was given credit would demand that I list on my own menu the line of inspiration for each of my items - and that would just be ridiculous.

I'm reminded of this today as I was reading at article on Marco Pierre White on Salon.com where Marco is commenting on Marcel Vigneron's use of a Wylie Dufresne method:
"We live in a world of refinement, not invention. It's the greatest compliment he can be given, this guy. If someone takes one of your dishes and does it, it's flattery. For you to get pissed off because he didn't acknowledge you is ego. It's all too political really, isn't it? I mean, we're fucking chefs."

When I think back on all of the dishes I work on and drinks I've created, all of them fall back on inspiration and interpretation from someone else. They're springboards for, hopefully, something interesting and tasty.

Honestly, the reason I do what I do (and inevitably write at length about it) is to share the experience. To encourage others to explore for themselves. Maybe start out by recreating the recipes and then use that experience as the springboard to try something different. To create an interpretation that is their own.

On the egotistical side of things, do I really want another place to use my recipes and give me credit by blazing my name on the menu? What if they screw it up and/or present it poorly? Suddenly, a whole group of consumers never exposed to my work is left thinking that it's crap and the name is tarnished. Perhaps it's simply better for me to tarnish my reputation in person rather than a drink on a menu in some distant coffee house somewhere in the world...

Designing Kitchen

For many years now, I've been a big fan of traditional style coffee bars. Very linear designs that incorporate everything (including the kitchen sink) into them and now that it looks as though we might embark on another journey, I've been seriously thinking about them again.

Until just the other morning.

In a perfect world, you'd have cheap rent (sub $8/sq ft), lots of space (2,000+ sq ft) and the kind of volume you'd find on Main Street in Disney World's Magic Kingdom. But in the real world, you have real rent ($20+/sq ft), small spaces (600sq ft) and varying volumes. Add the downturn of the local economy and Hell has been delivered in a Hand Basket.

While sensible minds reduce their spending and shore up their defenses, the smart minds have been going to the US Congress and asking for "bailout money." And luckily for them, they've spent the last 25 years generously making campaign contributions and supporting both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Sad to say that I'm not in the "smart minds" group. Nor am I in the "sensible minds" group. Which means that I'm stuck in the ether somewhere in-between on the road to grand riches or financial ruin. Good thing I passed on that Ferrari last year...

As I was sitting around the house the other morning drinking a quite delicious french pressed Ethiopia Bonko "Black Sun" from Cafe D'Bolla and an "I am in Paris" almond croissant from Patisserie Poupon, it hit me: why am I so focused on linear coffee bars? Why? Is the linear design really that conducive to hospitality? Is that how we welcome people into our homes and our lives - by separating them with a 33" deep bar?

What I (and I think many people) enjoy is sitting around the kitchen with friends and family. Talking story, cooking, eating, drinking and even working. Kitchens are warm spaces filled with conviviality and sharing. Bars are places were creepy, cheesy guys hit on drunk women.

My home kitchen is quite spacious. It's bright and airy and tends to be the social center whenever people are gathered. The kitchen is the ideal place to welcome friends and hang out. The dining room is too formal. The living room is too detached. In the kitchen, everyone just spills out all over the place. By the stove, buy the fridge, in the breakfast nook - it's organic, it's relaxed. More importantly: it's comfortable.

Within just a fleeting moment, the question became not how to cram a linear espresso bar into the space, but rather: "how do we design and build a kitchen into a coffee environment while still meeting all of the foodservice standards and regulations imposed by the city?" Part of the reason for such a linear design is to separate the customer (public) from the work area but we want to welcome them into the work area - just as you would in your home kitchen. We want to eliminate the walls and barriers to make it open and friendly.

Oooh, it's one thing to merely design and build a great kitchen. But how does one achieve that same level of comfort and family while adhering to the regulations of the government? That's the tough proposition, and over the next few weeks, I'm going to be exploring just that conundrum.

Thinking In A Vacuum

Getting close to the action.

Now that I've returned from my trip to the Pacific Northwest for the United States Barista Championship, it's back to work. Back to doing the things we do best and part of that is getting ready to push new levels of coffee service.

For the past couple of years, while the trend of American Third Wave Coffee Shops has been to embrace automated technology (a la Clover) or low tech versions of brewing methods we've been moving away from (pour over), I've been seriously pondering the implementation of the vacuum pot brewers or "syphon" as many call them.

Wildly popular in Japan, vacuum brewing is relatively unknown in America - even though the technology itself is about 100 years old. Truth be told, it's a cumbersome, messy and somewhat lengthy method of brewing coffee. Compared to Clover's push-button simplicity and the pour over ease of use, vac pots are downright lunacy in a commercial setting - I've never said I was smart.

What I like about vac pot is the drama. The theatrics. The visual stimulation of brewing coffee. It's interactive. It's entertaing. It's educational. Instead of being a button pusher or just some knob pouring water into a paper filter, the barista is working alchemy and creating magic for the customer. There's a bit of mysticism in the whole glass contraption and boiling water thing. Best of all, the flavor in the cup can be quite stellar indeed.

But there's a downside.

Achieving that miraculous cup is elusive at best. Evidently minor variations in dose, grind and stirring technique can bring a brilliant cup of coffee crashing down around you - leaving you with a customer wondering what kind of hocus-pocus you're trying to pull on them with this dreck you call coffee.

When the time came to build a new coffee experience, I knew that we had to take our concept at The Spro and push it even further. Replicating The Spro would just be boring and wouldn't push us to grow. We needed to build something new and different and while some of my friends pushed the pour over pretty hard, I knew vac pot was the way to go.

Don't get me wrong, pour overs can make some very nice coffee. But, quite frankly, it's just boring. How much of a tool does it take for some schelp to stand in front of a cone filter and pour hot water over coffee? Yes, it's to order. But is it theatrical? Is there any drama? Does it really take that much skill? Is it even exciting? Well, it was for me back in 2005 when I saw them doing it at Royal Coffee in Berkeley. But today, in 2009, as a "new" brew method? Not so much.

Listening to the pour over pundits and you'd think pour over is the Second Coming of Christ Almighty (well, now that Clover has become their Judas). For my money, I might as well go out and buy a Fetco Extractor brewer because it delivers the same thing and faster.


A variety of tests at The Spro.

Over the past few months (and especially the last couple of days), I've been testing different vac pot brew methods and I've heard the gamut of approaches. From the seriously technical who insist that the coffee must be stirred X amount of times, to the Japanese who don't really care about the number of times stirred - just that a stirring and mixing occurs. I've tasted very light, tea-like coffees and extremely heavy, over-extracted coffees. I've read lots of online resources about technique and listened to quite a few baristas waxing poetic about their methods.

Quite frankly, it's bewildering.

Instead, I've taken the old-fashioned approach. Coming up with a baseline of standards and then running test variations from there. A little more coffee, a little less coffee. A little finer grind, a little coarser grind. Stir here, stir there. Crisscross here, make an "X" there. Some were good, some were bad - some were really bad. In the end, I decided to call up a friend.

For a long time, I knew that vac pots were the way to go. I wanted the new place to offer only vac pots. Gone would be The Spro's method of French Press coffee service. I envisioned a multi-unit vac pot station with many pots brewing simultaneously to service the morning rush. It would be immense. People would line up hungry for a cup of beautifully handcrafted coffee. Angels would trumpet our arrival and women would throw themselves at my feet and tear at my shirt.

But that location and a few others fell through and we've been in a holding pattern ever since (and I have a case of new shirts waiting to be torn).


John Piquet prepares to attack.

Fast forward to the waning hours of 2008 at the end of December when I flew out to Salt Lake City to check out what John and Yiching Piquet were doing at Cafe D'Bolla. It was there that I formed a new vision for what vac pot service could be. For Cafe D'Bolla, vac pot coffee meant you sat at the syphon bar and your coffee was made to order just for you. You sat there and conversed with John about the coffee. A dialogue ensued with one of the most hardcore operators in America.

At the D'Bolla bar, your coffee was exquisitely prepared and served in estate Noritake china cups of a very specific shape, size and porcelain density. It was specific because John had spent untold years researching and testing the proper vessel to carry your coffee and deliver maximum flavor. This was thinking about coffee beyond how I thought about coffee. This guy was operating on a wholly different level.

And when I say that John is the most hardcore operator in America, I mean it. Lots of people in this "Third Wave" of coffee position themselves as being "hardcore" - only to find out that their cafes look like hell, offer commercial syrups and 20z cup sizes just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry in the coffee business.

Piquet isn't like that. He's so focused on quality in the cup that he runs the place by himself: to control quality. Sure, you can have one of the finest brewed cups in America at Cafe D'Bolla but if you're expecting to add milk and sugar, think again. This guy has gone toe-to-toe with customers over that kind of breach. Never mind that the guy with the latte can pull some sugar and cream from the condiment bar, the vac pot customer is expected to be there for the full sensory experience of the coffee.

There are times when I know my business partners (or proposed business partners) must think I'm absolutely insane. Vac pot service has got to be one of them. Why make it more difficult? Why not just go out and get a drip brewer? Or stay with what you know and have proven (french press)?

Well, why not? Are we not striving to be the best at our craft? Are we not striving to offer the highest quality? Then why would I spend $11K on a push-button automatic machine and not a similar amount on a push-button Franke super-automatic espresso machine?

We make it harder because we strive for excellence.

I'll admit though, there is something alluring about the simplicity of pour over. Just bang, bang, bang and you've got four filters filled with a slurry of coffee and water, and a few minutes later, you've got four cups of coffee walking out the door. It's nice. It's fresh. But God, is it mind-numbingly boring to do and to watch. At least when you watch a Fetco Extractor brewer there are blinking lights to entertain you.


Jay Egami rocks the bar at SCAA Minneapolis.

Rewind a bit to early December 2008 when I took a trip out to San Francisco solely for the purpose of meeting with UCC's Jay Egami and to see the vac pot bar heating system he is currently importing into the United States. It's a very sexy-looking multi-gang halogen light heating bar that can brew three or five vac pots simultaneously. Honestly, there is no vac pot heater that looks better or dazzles people more. It is true Coffee Porn. It's Coffee Sex on Cocaine. I would love to have one, but at $20,000 for the five group, one must consider ones' money market account.

Watching a true syphon barista work one of these bars (like the Japanese Syphon Champion at last years SCAA Trade Show) is simply amazing artistry. The stirring, the motions, the pouring. It's like Coffee Kabuki. It's the kind of interaction I want to bring to the next coffee experience.

At The Spro, I'm starting to get a bit fizzy with all the coffees I'm tasting. Seven tests and counting. Soon the count will escalate to eleven and beyond, but for now, I'm feeling a bit stuck. Minor variations in grind setting and dosage are yielding wildly differing results. One notch here on the Mahlkonig Kenya and that delicate balance we might have been approaching in the last test has been lost. I'm feeling wonky and decide that I need a little help.

When one thinks of Florida one doesn't think "coffee." Gainesville has more to do with Gators than Gethwumbini but not too far off the freeway is the lair of Anthony Rue and Volta Coffee. It's about 10:30 in the morning, I give Anthony a ring and he answers on the fourth ring. Hmmm, he answers his own phone, nice touch.

Of all the people I know in the coffee business, Anthony is the only one who seems to actually "get it" when it comes to bringing together coffee and cuisine. His depth and understanding of cuisine and ingredients never fails to surprise me - and he's the only one to get that As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade is from Mark Stewart.

While in Portland for the USBC, we had some great discussions about cuisine (and sometimes about coffee). One of the most interesting discussions was the grasp of baristas over how coffee goes with cuisine and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not the judges themselves understand coffee and cuisine (and how it goes together) to accurately assess a signature drink.

One of the popular routes this year with competition baristas was to discard that familiar chocolate and cardamom with coffee routine and go for something "culinary" - which typically meant identifying certain flavor components in the espresso, like blueberries, and then adding actual blueberries to some sort of infusion to boost that aspect of the flavor. Interesting? Well, it's cute. Compelling? Hardly. Challenging? Not at all.

After a few minutes of discussion (in the middle of Volta's service), I'm off and ready to blaze new trails in vac pot refinement. Armed with Volta's brewing standards in hand, I give it a try. Not bad. Actually, it's pretty darn good and the best results I've had all morning. A finer grind and restraint in stirring is yielding some tasty results. Not exactly the body and flavor I'd like to present but we're getting closer.


Brewing coffee at Blue Bottle in San Francisco.

Later, I'm on the email horn with John Piquet asking for his syphon wisdom. Again, the approach is a bit different but I'm starting to narrow down even further what and how we're going to do things: 3 cup vacuum pot, hot water from the water tower, boil, connect both halves, allow the water to rise, add coffee, stir to saturate, brew for 35 seconds, stir at the end of brew to create a vortex and pull from heat.

The testing continues over a couple of weeks and untold servings of coffee. During this period, I've reached a level of comfort where it's time to start getting customer feedback and start serving the actual brew to customers using whatever our pressed coffee of the day happens to be.

I've spent a lot of time in other peoples' coffeeshops over the years just hanging out or checking out what they do and no brew method captures the attention and minds of the average consumer like the halogen heated vacuum pot. "It's alchemy," they say. Or they might ask: "Is that a bong?" That, or an over-glorified crack pipe. But since there's no inlet hole, sucking any sort of burning substance out of it is an exercise in futility.

Whatever they might think it is, the important point is that it grabs their attention and they ask. The Spro is located in a public library where hundreds of non-coffee drinkers pass on a daily basis, but one look at the vac pot in action and they want to stop and ask questions It starts the conversation about coffee and what coffee can be.

Once they see the lights and the boiling water, they're fascinated. They get closer. They're ready to chat. From "is it a bong" we can go as deep as necessary to engage the public about coffee and what we do. For most people, coffee is something commercial and anonymous. It's something housed in a black and silver airpot. The brewing of coffee is typically hidden from view but with vac pot, it's front and center - and ready to mingle.

They ask. They prod. It looks cool. It stimulates an interest in the regular person that only the hardcore coffee geek would find in a Clover. And compare it to pour over where the customer has the great pleasure of watching a wet slurry of coffee and water slowly drip its' way into the cup below? Watching the blinking lights on a Fetco is more fun than that.

The attention garnered by the vac pot encourages engagement and generates questions. Suddenly, we've stumbled upon a way to talk enthusiastically about coffee with a segment of the population that had little interest in our product and our craft and now they can see it in a very visceral way. They can see for themselves that this method requires mastery of craft without us having to verbalize it (and thus cheapen its' meaning).

Even the simple and perhaps condemning "why?" is a question that can be used to bring the customer around. Why go to all this trouble? Why use this device? Now, we can discuss how different brewing methods diminish or heighten certain aspects of a coffee's flavor and how some coffees taste "better" with certain brewing methods. Now, we've just entered into a level of geekdom that most people would never have allowed us to engage - and all because its' the theatrics of the method that introduced us to them.

Sometimes as I sit around pondering the future of The Spro, our approach to craft and where we want the company to go into the future, I wonder if vac pot is just batty. It just looks difficult. It's difficult to master. It's quite expensive and I expect the on-going cost to be quite high as well. Worse: it could be absolute hell during the morning rush. And it's going to require a whole new way of thinking to approach vac pot brewing in a production environment.

A number of operators still use other brewing methods as their primary brew, and use the vac pot to augment their production and/or highlight "special" coffees. I like that approach and, if we took that path, would allow us to maintain our french press cup service while offering vac pot. But to my mind, that seems the easy way out for us. The goal is to find the way towards making vac pot service our primary method of cup brewing. That means it has to be efficient and as quick as we can do it without sacrificing quality while still allowing us to engage the customer in a manner that is meaningful to them.

It's still a long road towards that end but we're moving towards it everyday.

Fruity Pebbles Cappuccino

Fred Flintstone insisting this isn't just another faddish trend.

When I'm in town, I spend most of my days at home. Not because I'm lounging around drinking Chateau du Siroc but because I no longer have a real office somewhere else to work. Now my office is at home and I work from home. Oh, how I miss my old office for those late evening cigars while crunching numbers...

But I digress.

I'm sitting at home working a couple of weeks ago when my phone rings. It's Alex Talbot calling to check up on me and see how things are in the Land of Pleasant Living.

What are you doing? he asks.
Just doing some paperwork, what's up?
I know you've been working on a soft serve ice cream recipe but...

That's when he drops the bomb on me.

Have you seen what David [Chang] is doing?
No, why?
Look it up.

David Chang is the owner and chef of the Momofuku chain of restaurants in New York City. He's known for doing tasty and innovative foods and his pistachio soft serve ice cream is just amazing.

I pull up Google and punch in David's name and voila! I'm pissed.

I'm not mad at David. Or Alex. I'm mad at myself. For my lack of vision. For my inability to see what's been staring us in the face for the past thirty five years. I'm mad because I'm lame.

For next half an hour or so, I'm ranting about my house, cursing my existence. Why had I not been able to see this before? After eating it innumerable times?

David is making something called "cereal milk ice cream."

Just what is this cereal milk ice cream? It's milk infused with the flavor of your favorite cereal. Essentially, it's the milk left in your bowl after you've finished your cereal. It's simple. It's obvious. And I've been blind from the start.

Fast forward a few weeks, after I've recovered from the crushing blow to my food ego, and I've been playing around with how to incorporate cereal milks with coffee. Breakfast in a cup, right? It's a no-brainer.

Two weeks (or so) ago, I was at the United States Barista Championship in Portland, Oregon where they've installed a "fourth machine" for attendees and the general public to come and have a taste of great coffees roasted by some of the nations' top coffee roasting companies and prepared by the some of the nations' best baristas.

In an odd twist of events, I was asked to come and prepare coffee drinks on the fourth machine during the USBC Finals with 2004 USBC Champion Bronwen Serna. Since she's the champ and I'm not, I was relegated to steaming and pouring milk.

Quite simply, working the fourth machine is brutal. First off, you're working with a machine you're not all that familiar with and in a portable situation so you're not at your home machine and everything is just a bit out of whack. The line is at least 50 people deep and never abating - all day long. It's intense and if you screw up, the cascade effect is terrible. You've got to keep up with the flow and pace at all times unless you want to fall so far deep into the weeds that the only way to describe it is: Royally Screwed.

Most barista teams on the fourth machines offer a similar menu: espresso, macchiato, cappuccino and latte. That's it. Just those four drinks. Want something else? Sorry. Been watching all these cool signature drinks and want to try something different? Ain't gonna happen.

Which is why I was determined to offer our guests an alternative to the traditional drinks. Let them have something fun. Something interesting. Something whimsical. Fruity Pebbles Cappuccino seemed like a good idea.

It is what it sounds like, steamed milk infused with Fruity Pebbles, free poured with latte art and a sprinkling of Fruity Pebbles as a garnish. There's actually a picture of it here.

People seemed to enjoy it so I thought "why not bring it to The Spro?" Yesterday, after a couple days of testing to get the ratios correct, Fruity Pebble Cappuccino made it to the specials menu where it will run through the rest of spring.

Making the milk infusion is relatively simple, just mix milk with Fruity Pebbles in a bowl and wait. The concern is that in a production environment, how do you achieve consistent results if everyone is pouring different ratios of Fruity Pebbles to their milk? I had to develop a standard:

Fruity Pebble Milk
Yield: one half gallon

300g Fruity Pebbles
80z Whole Milk (Trickling Springs Creamery)

- Stir cereal and milk together
- Infuse and refrigerate for 20 minutes
- Strain and serve.
- Use in the same manner as regular milk

Why twenty minutes? I figured that was the average time it would take a young child to eat a normal bowl of cereal. The ratio offered by Post in their nutritional figures gave us milk that was too sweet and too powerful. It needed to be toned down with a greater ratio of milk.

Maybe in the fall we'll give the Cocoa Puff-A-Chino a try...

Can't Sleep

It's nearly 3:30 in the morning and I can't sleep.

Not because I'm an insomniac or high or drunk or pumped up on caffeine (or taurine, for that matter). I can't sleep because I'm just generally pumped up tonight. The creative juices are running full bore and I'm raring to go.

I've been sitting around writing project proposals, staff schedules, flight reservations and reviewing images from Amy Ferraris movie The Perfect Cappuccino from which I'm trying to glean design ideas from the Italian cafes featured in her movie.

My mind is racing and I can't keep up with it. So much is occupying my thoughts but I can't jot them all down.

I'm wondering just what time I'll wind down and get some sleep. I've got a bunch of meetings starting in the morning.

Buying Books at the Library

One of the great advantages of having an espresso bar located inside a library is the incredible amount of resources just a few steps away. Need to research current law or look up words in Croatian? They've got the texts. Maybe the plumbing has been getting wonky and you need to know how to re-plumb the espresso machine? No problem. Getting sued for inappropriate conduct and need to work up a defense? Check that too.

The best part for is the library's sizable collection of food-related books and cookbooks. Need to reference Diana Kennedy? She's in there. Want to peruse Robouchon? He's hanging out in aisle nine. From the simple (Rachael Ray) to the fancy (Jacques Pepin) to the classic (Julia Child) to the mundane (Padma Lakshmi), the library has got it.

Even when I need to reference some of my own cherished tomes, like Thomas Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook or Grant Achatz's Alinea, they've got those too.

But, every once in a while, the library goes through its' collection and weeds out the books that aren't circulating enough. And while this can be a boon to the collector, it also means that my reference material is constantly at some level of jeopardy. To combat this, I routinely check out and return my favorite tomes just to keep them circulating and off the chopping block.

Then there's days like today when the library has gone through its' stacks, chopped a number of books, withdrawn them from the collection and put them up for public sale. Hopefully I'm there to swoop in on the deals and just go crazy. Good thing I scheduled myself to close and was able to obtain the following:

In Pursuit of Flavor - Edna Lewis
I Love Crab Cakes! - Tom Douglas
Burgers - Rebecca Bent
Cooking with Faith - Faith Ford
Uncle Bubba's Savannah Seafood - Earl "Bubba" Hiers
Cheese, Glorious Cheese! - Paula Lambert
In a Vermont Kitchen - Lyon & Andreen
A Great American Cook - Jonathan Waxman
The New American Cooking - Joan Nathan
Liquid Mexico - Youman & Estep
Race Day Grub - Angela Skinner
The Palm Restaurant Cookbook - Legere Binns
The Perfect Recipe - Pam Anderson
American Home Cooking - Cheryl & Bill Jamison
Cooking One On One - John Ash
Rosa's New Mexican Table - Robert Santibanez
Emeril's Delmonico - Emeril Lagasse
The New California Cook - Diane Worthington

While perhaps not all of them are classic tomes like The French Laundry Cookbook, there's definitely some solid cookery going on in a number of them. I'm especially looking forward to reading more Edna Lewis and Jonathan Waxman.

Friends often ask me why I have such a large collection of books. How can I possibly cook my way through all of them. Truth be told, I hardly cook the recipes in any of them. I use the books as springboards for ideas and utilize their thoughts to help shape my own. There's lots to learn about flavors from any of these books - even the ones that seem quite pedestrian (like Race Day Grub) offer insight in the flavor palates of the average consumer who, in turn, tend to be our largest clientele base. The quest lies in how to offer top quality and interesting ingredients to these people without completely jumping the shark in terms of their palates.

And all of those books for merely eighteen dollars...

I'll report later as I discover more.

Lobster and the USBC

It's way late at night here in Portland and I'm still awake after partying at the American Barista and Coffee School, dinner with Eton Tsuno and a drink with Duane, Aleco and Kyle from Stumptown, Drew from Ecco Caffe and Sarah from Barista Magazine. Tomorrow is my time to perform at the USBC (that's United States Barista Championship, not United States Bowling Congress) and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do.

I have decided one thing: it's gonna be lobster all the way.

Lobster. Homarus Americanus. North Atlantic cold lobster, a.k.a. Maine Lobster. I spent Wednesday afternoon in Glenn and Beta's kitchen cooking it all up. Celeriac base and cold-infused lobster cream. It takes 48 hours to make this drink correctly and it's still evolving.

Tuesday afternoon, my first stop from the airport was The Meadow where I spied on the Taha'a Vanilla Salt. I'll take a vial of that, please. Add a bar of Askinosie San Jose Del Tambo White Chocolate and I'm good to go.

This morning, I made a jaunt out the New Seasons Market in Concordia because I heard they had a stash of fresh Oregon Black Truffles. Grabbed a couple of knobs.

All of this will go together in a drink that is basically the craziest, most off-kilter drink I've ever developed. It's wild. It's weird. It's intriguing. It's complex and confusing. It, without a doubt, pushes the limits of what we think goes with coffee: the balance between the lobster and coffee is compelling with the white chocolate subtly smoothening out the blend, but is it "good"? Is it "delicious"?

I don't know if even I can say that it's "delicious".

Oddly compelling, yes - but delicious?

Hmmm, that's a tough one.

The drink is meant to be an amuse bouche to a larger body of work. A larger tasting menu that will someday hit The Spro. It's a drink that announces that this isn't going to be your typical coffee with chocolate, cardamom, sugar and cream kind of experience. It's gonna be different. It's going to push, prod and challenge you and your preconceptions about coffee and how it fits in the world. The judges are gonna taste it and may not know how to react. It's distinctly savory with a cloying sweetness undercurrent. Shocking? Perhaps. Appalling? Maybe...

Whatever the case may be, it's going to be celeriac, lobster and coffee with chopped cold lobster tail meat and garnished with freshly grated Oregon Black Truffles. Come down to the Oregon Convention Center and maybe taste it yourself, or tune into www.usbc2009.com and check out the live feed. I'm scheduled to go on around 4pm Pacific Daylight Time.

Musique de USBC

Once again, the United States Barista Championship is upon us. On Tuesday, I'll fly to Portland to compete in what may be my last barista competition. I've got some fun things in mind for my presentation Friday afternoon and I thought I would share my playlist for Friday. The final mix uses tracks or elements from the music listed below. I'll let you guess what made it into the final mix and maybe I'll even post an mp3 of it later. But for now, chew on this:


Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Im Nin'Alu - Ofra Haza
Cities In Dust - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) - Crystal Waters
I Know You Got Soul - Eric B. and Rakim
L'Autre Valse D'Amelie - Yann Tiersen
Electric Kingdom - Twilight 22
Break Dance - Electric Boogie - West Street Mob
Still D.R.E. - Dr. Dre
World Destruction - Time Zone
Fuck The Police - N.W.A.
Age Of Consent - New Order
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Life Is Life - Laibach
A Deadly Catch - Paul Hepker
Heroes Theme - Wendy and Lisa
Paid In Full - Eric B. and Rakim
Set Adrift On Memory Bliss - P.M. Dawn

Chicago: Smoque

A nice layout and presentation at Smoque.

Two years ago, when I was last in Chicago, I had heard much hoopla about a barbecue joint called Smoque. So much so that I went out of my way to visit - on the one day of the week they were closed (Mondays). Disappointed, I flew home without having so much as a taste.

Fast forward to present day and after I had secured my trusty Chevy HHT from Alamo, I was on my way once again to visit Smoque. One would think that traffic should be smooth at 1:30pm but no, traffic along the highway into the city was hellish. Backup upon backup. Not fun.

Once inside, Smoque is a nice little place that serves their barbecue on those silver mini baking trays. It's a nice touch and they actually lay out the bbq pretty nicely. Since it was my first time, I had to order a sampling of their wares. A few careful questions of the cashier led me to order a 1/2 rack of their St. Louis ribs with cole slaw, mac n cheese and french fries. Smoque has a great idea by offering "tastes" of their meats for three dollars each. Add on a "taste" of both the brisket and pulled pork with that and I've got a representative sample of their offerings.


Ribs, fries, mac and slaw.

Smoque is highly touted here in Chicago but I'm sad to report that it wasn't superb. Both the pulled pork and brisket were overcooked. The pulled pork was mushy and mealy and lacked distinct flavor, and the brisket was dry. Whether this issue was due to merely being overcooked in the smoker or held too long, I can't say. It just wasn't a great example of either.

The ribs were decent. Nice flavor, a little bit of spice and a good amount of bite to the meat. However, I have to say that it was slightly on the not quite finished side of cooking. What do I mean by this? Many people think that ribs should be falling off the bone, not true. We want to see a nice bite to the meat that requires some amount of effort to pull away from the bone. These ribs required a bit more than some amount of effort.

On the plus side, the french fries were perfectly done. Crisp on the outside, fluffy and tender on the inside. The Mac and Cheese was decent enough but lacked seasoning to make the flavor really shine. The interesting side was the cole slaw. Typical, as far as the shredded cabbage and sliced red onions go, but it's the dressing that really makes it. Light, citrus, acidic - just delightfully surprising without the heaviness that mayonnaise brings to cole slaw. It was the highlight of the meal.


Pulled pork and beef brisket.

The space is nicely decorated and you share table space with other diners. Drinks are a simple affair: just one size cup and drink all you want. Coke, Diet Coke and the usual Coke offerings plus a non-stop dispenser of sweet tea and unsweetened tea. I couldn't help myself.


Smoque BBQ
3800 North Pulaski Road
Chicago, IL 60641
773-545-7427
www.smoquebbq.com

If Only Summers Were Like This

The pretty quiet D Pier at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

After a month relatively relaxing at home, I'm back on the road again. First, a road trip to Pittsburgh earlier this month and now it's back on United for the short jaunt to Chicago.

I'm in Chicago and Milwaukee for the weekend to visit with friends, take factory tours, hang out with industry buddies, become a certified judge and taste all kinds of wonderful goodies.

I'll report back soon.

Hario In A Box

Good things come in big boxes.

The joys of going to work are highlighted when boxes filled with goodies are waiting for me. Yesterday, that which was awaiting me was a new Hario halogen beam heater and Tokio vacuum pot from our friends at Cafe D'Bolla in Salt Lake City.

In due time I'll be firing up the unit and brewing coffee at home in a very high tech fashion. Then, once we figure out our brewing standards for the devices and train our baristas, I plan on bringing vacuum brewed coffee to order at The Spro!

Of course, there's a kink in the plans. The power converter for the heater doesn't arrive until Tuesday...