The greatest thing about America’s Test Kitchen is that they take every recipe and experiment with different techniques and ingredients, testing each one until they find the best recipe possible.   They say they will try a recipe 30, 40, or even 70 times before they publish it.  As a result, a number of the recipes have some very unique ingredients or techniques that can provide surprisingly good results.  For example, their Creamless Creamy Tomato Soup uses white bread blended into the soup instead of cream to provide a creamy and thick consistency.  I never would have thought to try bread in the soup, but it was quite good.

The Ultimate Cinnamon Buns are outstanding, although they were almost too rich.  They are made with a cream cheese glaze that is very good, and the filling uses brown sugar instead of regular sugar with lots of butter.   Since they freeze very well, we would eat them two at a time with a week or so in between.

The Baked Ziti uses cottage cheese instead of ricotta, fresh basil instead of dried, and fresh mozzarella cut into cubes instead of shredded.  All of these ingredient choices make a big difference over the usual recipe.  It is definitely the best Baked Ziti I have ever had, and they also solve the usual problem of soggy pasta by having you undercook the pasta before the baking portion of the recipe.

There are a few things I would like to see changed in the recipes.  First, they don’t give you a very good idea what the total prep and cook time is for the recipe.  I usually like to know how much time I’m going to have to set aside without having to read through the recipe and add up all the time periods.  This is especially annoying for bread recipes that have multiple rise times.  The second thing that is missing is nutritional information.  This can be added up pretty easily, but for the more complicated recipes with many ingredients, this is a hassle.

This magazine has been a great source of recipes.  I will have to think about whether the entire book is worth getting.  It appears that the full book is 352 pages with about 133 recipes and a number of pages of tips, techniques, and reviews, but the magazine is 64 pages with 64 recipes.   I think maybe an online membership might be the way to go, since it provides access to all their content, including historical recipes.

The usual meat share has several cuts of beef or pork, hamburger, 1 1/2 to 2 chickens, some pork products, and a dozen eggs. All the meat is delivered frozen, and is in a freezer bag that is returned in the next month. The local pickup is in downtown Evanston and is a quick and easy errand for us on a Saturday around noon.

We have received two shares so far, and the quality has been excellent. In February, we received 1/2 dozen eggs (the chickens were cold!), 1 1/2 chickens, two filet mignons, one large sirloin steak, 4 bratwursts, and a pound of ground beef. This seemed to be a light share, but the two cuts of grass fed beef were excellent and were a good size. We especially enjoyed the sirloin steak.

The January Meat Share

In February, we received a 1 1/2 dozen eggs this time, 2 1/2 chickens that were smaller than the previous month, 1 pound of italian sausage, 1 pound of ground beef, a package of beef patties, and a pork loin.

The February Meat Share

The eggs from Cedar Valley are quite different from what I’m used to. Their yolks are a bright orange, and the yolks are very round and firm. You can’t see this in the picture below, but the yolk in the Cedar Valley egg is probably twice as high as the Phil’s Fresh egg. I’ve had them scrambled and fried and they are very good.

A Cedar Valley egg (top) vs. a Phil's Fresh egg (bottom)

I especially enjoy getting a variety of cuts of meat and trying new recipes. We have been stuck in a ‘boneless skinless chicken breast’ rut for some time, and making meals with chicken parts or whole chickens is kind of fun. So far we have only had to supplement a pound or two of ground beef, eggs, and chicken breasts for a few larger meals we have made for larger groups.

I highly recommend Cedar Valley, and hope that Community Supported Agriculture continues to catch on and become available for more people. It feels good to support a local family farm and be more connected to our food and where it comes from.

So here’s my technique – derived from many others I’ve read about out on the net and lots of experimentation and discussion with others. I think I’ve probably made at least 1500 drinks with my machine, and have constantly fine tuned my technique over the years.

Along with a Silvia, you need a coffee grinder. I have a Rancilio Rocky doserless model. The doserless model allows you to just grind the coffee you need for the shots you are making so you have very fresh grounds. You will also need a steam pitcher, a latte sized coffee cup (probably about 6-8 ounces), and a tamp. And of course, get some really good coffee. I’ve been drinking Coffee Ambassador’s Guatemalan Huehuetenango for the last few years. This year’s crop is quite good.

A Silvia has a power switch and three action switches – one for activating the pump for brewing, one for activating the pump for water out the steam wand, and one for steam. It has one light that indicates when the heat element is turned on.

A Latte Art Rosetta

1. Turn on the machine. Warmup is essential, and I usually try to give it at least a 1/2 hour before making coffee.
2. When the machine is warmed up and the heater light is off, place the empty portafilter in the machine and place your cup under the portafilter and turn on the brew switch. Your cup will fill with hot water. When the heater light turns on, immediately turn off the brew switch and leave the water in the cup.
3. Remove the portafilter from the machine, pour out any excess water in the cup and immediately grind your coffee into the portafilter.
4. When your portafilter is full of grounds, run your finger along the portafilter even with the top. Do this in two swipes, perpendicular to one another, ensuring the coffee is as level as possible in the portafilter. It should come up to the top.
5. Now, you need to tamp it. I usually tamp once with about 30 pounds of pressure, turn the tamp over and use the handle to gently knock the side of the portafilter to knock any grounds off the side. Then, I tamp once more and do a quick spin or two lightly to knock any grounds off the tamp.
6. While grinding and tamping the coffee, the Silvia is heating up. If you time it just right, you will be ready to put the portafilter in just as the heat light goes off. Now, turn on the steam switch, insert the portfilter into the brew head, place the cup under the portafilter and then turn on the brew switch. It is important to turn on the steam switch first – this causes your machine to immediately turn on the heater and keeps the water temperature high while the shot is being pulled. It also ensures you have the quickest turnaround possible when you steam milk. The longer your shot sits there waiting for you to steam milk, the more flavor it loses. From the time the pump is turned on to the time your shot is complete should be about 25 seconds. Getting this right is really a fine art, and there is a lot of information available, such as the CoffeeKid mini FAQ.
7. Once the shot is complete, you should turn off the pump, remove the portafilter, eject your espresso puck (great for your compost pile!), and run the water switch for a few seconds to clean the brewhead. Then open the steam valve for a few seconds to clear the water from the boiler and allow some steam to build up for about 20-30 seconds. I let the hot water go into my steam pitcher, then rinse it in cold water so it doesn’t warm the milk in the next step.
8. While the machine is building steam, pour your milk in the cold frothing pitcher and let a tiny bit of steam escape from the steam wand before inserting it into the milk. Frothing is also a fine art, and takes much practice. You want the foam to be as fine as possible, with no big bubbles. I used to use a thermometer, but now just use my hand to measure temperature. When I can no longer tolerate holding a finger to the bottom of the pitcher, then I know it’s done. I alternate two fingers touching the bottom and when I can’t hold one for a full second it’s hot enough. I start with the wand all the way in the pitcher, then move it to the top until it just slurps, then move it just a bit below the surface. The key is to get very good rotation of the milk in the pitcher, so it is best to aim the wand so the steam pushes the milk along the side of the pitcher. If the Silvia has enough steam built up, this will take about 20-30 seconds.
9. Last comes the pour. Swirl the milk in the pitcher to help release any larger bubbles. It also is good to tap the pitcher on the counter a few times between swirls. Now pour the milk out into the mug. This is where you can do some latte art, which is another entire subject. Sit down and enjoy!

This entire process might seem a bit crazy. But once you have some practice and a good rhythm, you can do this (minus warmup time) in less than five minutes. In fact, I have used this method to make a nice latte every morning for years. When you consider that a Starbucks latte would cost me about 4 clams each plus time standing in line downtown, I’m sure doing this myself is thousands of dollars cheaper and I think the quality is far better. Finally, I think the ritual of making the drink adds to the experience, and it’s even better when you can share drinks with others.

They just don’t make restaurants like this anymore.

The girls at the Choo Choo

• Dada (of course)
• Mama
• Baby
• Bye-bye
• Kitty
• Audrey (pronounced adi, her sister)
• Woof-woof
• Night-night
• Cookie
• Bubbles
• Nana (banana)
• Elmo (Sometimes pronounced Elmot)
• Shoes
• Apple
• Moo
• Bobby (Belly)
• Bott (belly button)
• Cow
• Ducky
• No no no
• Doggy
• Poopoo
• Pumpkin
• Fish
• Grandpa
• Nose
• Owl
• Ernie
• Bath
• Blanket
• Yes
• Nice
• Butterfly
• Meat
• Applesauce
• Coffee
• All done, all gone
• Coat
• Toast
• Potty
• Bag
• Airplane
• Oval
• Heart
• Tractor
• Diaper

And now this: I saw the bad news this morning, Mint.com was selling out to Intuit. You have to read the comments, it seems like half of the people are really upset.  I really hope this ends well, but it’s hard to say.  I think it will be very hard for the Mint team to move over to Intuit and keep innovating.   Quicken has their own online version,  but obviously it must suck or they wouldn’t spend $170M to buy another company.  I imagine this experience will be a little bit like the past 15 bank mergers I have had the privilege of living through.

Some Mint users are deleting their accounts immediately.   I think I might want to stick things out for a while and hope for the best.

John Hodgman Autograph

I have always enjoyed John’s appearances on “The Daily Show”, and as PC in the Apple commercials.  After reading this book, I can say he is quite a strange man with a very good imagination.  The book is a rambling continuation of his first book, “The Areas Of My Expertise”, which I haven’t read, but from what I can tell from the many references in “More Information Than You Require”  is very similar. This book is quite funny.  I read part of it on the train, and more than once cracked up laughing, probably causing my fellow passengers to wonder about me.

The book is broken down into several sections, such as “The Presidents of the United States: Are they the new hoboes?”, and “How to be famous”.  He also has a section where he offers advice on a number of issues, including technology and protecting yourself from identity theft that is hilarious.

The book is laid out in a reference book format.  Each page, including the title page, contains a little fact from a date in history, starting with October 21 – the date the book is published.  The facts have no relation to the rest of the content, so you end up having to switch contexts on every page, which can be quite annoying, but some of them are pretty funny.  There are also a number of tables, sidebars, and strange pictures to support the content.  Hodgman has managed to do many other creative things with the book.  For example, the page numbering starts at 237, a continuation from his previous book.

After a few hundred pages of random “facts” and humor, there is a large section of the book devoted to describing mole-men (some sort of human that lives underground) and their interactions with humans throughout recent history.  In this section, Hodgman lists 700 mole-man names (ex. 611. Mr Drew Danglemites, a gem swallower).   I think the mole-men chapter was about the time when I just wanted to finish the book.

If you’re a John Hodgman fan, I highly recommend this book.  It’s filled with his unique sense of humor, and is a good change of pace for you to add to your reading list.