That liquor post made me thirsty enough to invent a new drink. I’m calling it “The Loft” in honor of, well, the loft we sleep on. We’ve been spending a (VERY RARE) lazy Saturday at home, cooking, eating, making music, taking photographs. Life is inexorably tough.

Anyhow, without further ado,

(make this!)
(more…)

Filed under: Technique, Recipes, Cocktail Hour
4 Comments

Once you’ve regained conciousness after that last one (I’m still a little floaty myself), I’d just like to take a second to let you know that making really damn good drip coffee is easy. I have a $40-dollar coffee maker from Presto that does a proper job, and even my age-old crap Braun blade grinder doesn’t hinder things too much.

In San Francisco, CA, USA, we are blessed with many, many superlative coffee roasters. Topping the marquee this week is Capricorn Coffees, which I like because they share my zodiac sign, and, well, they make good ish, as they also say in the trade.

I love a good coffeeshop as much as the next guy, and I doubt I’ll ever make as good a cup of espresso as Caffe Trieste (my favorite North Beach haunt), but for drip, jesus, take care of yourself.

For a good cheap easy home setup, I suggest a tabletop drip unit like this or this, or a capable coffee machine like the one mentioned above. There are other methods for making drip, but hell, who has time to talk about that? Someday I’ll go into the cool little device one makes vietnamese coffee with, but today isn’t that day.

If you’re using a device which you need to pour boiling water into, a decent kettle will help you keep from scalding the piss out of yourself, true (says the person who’s tried to do this with a saucepan one too many times).

The only thing is, your water has to be HOT. One-nine-eight-far-en-heit-de-grees, say the experts. A little kitchen thermometer will come in handy for making sure your water is right on. 198 degrees, baybee!

Grind your beans until they are just larger than powder- there should be some graininess but not chunks like a french press grind. Pour the coffee into your filter cone, and shake it a little settle the coffee (don’t overdo it!). Some old italian gents in shadowy alleyways tell me that making a little indentation in the center of the coffee will help optimize the water’s flow and help the flavor, especially with a machine. Makes sense to me..
(more…)

Filed under: Technique, Recipes, Cocktail Hour
1 Comment

Wow, finally back to updating this crazy thing! I bow and scrape for forgiveness for my absence. Anyhow, in the meantime I’ve been working my arse off on 4 albums and a few singles, I’ve become one hell of an obsessed bike geek and, well, I’ve continued to cook and make awesome drinks and brew up interesting things to write about (we hope).

Anyhow, there was this dish I made about a month ago that was so good, so overwhelmingly awesome and tasty, that I completely forgot to take any pictures of it. It was gone in about 3 milliseconds. Today, at the behest of my image consultant, I made it again.

The local Trader Joes has really great deals on frozen fish (and, er, what’s been stocking our liquor cabinet of late). I usually don’t go for frozen stuff, but fish is one of those spur-of-the-moment things for me- for some reason I don’t often plan big splashy gala dinners around it. It just happens. So, it’s nice to be able to look in the freezer and say, “Crikey, wouldn’t a bit of tuna go down wonderfully right aboot now?” and be able to spring into action!
(more…)

Filed under: Recipes
No Comments