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this is the smallest bodum pavina and the next size up. the small one holds about 2.5 oz and the next size up holds about 8oz. bodum also make a 13 and a 21(?) i think. A pair of 13's cost $20 and a pair of the largest ones are $30!

It's hard to justify but my .50 cent ikea cup glass has left a sizeable pool of water on my desk--so it's almost worth it to avoid ruining wood furniture in the summertime!

i'll post the little ones with coffee later, they are a good size for a single macchiato.

there is one thing about the bodum pavina cups that make them worth their price: temperature retention!

hot drinks like cappucino's (the cups are a little too small for a proper latte) stay hot longer then in a porcelain mug. actually they keep it so hot then you can easily burn your lips. the only minus is that they are so light that the cup does not have the proper 'heft' of a porcelain cup.

as expected cold drinks also stay cold longer. A drink, like a glass of lemonade, stays cold and also creates very little condensation. There is some condensation but it's just a light fog--like if you breath on a mirror. For ice cream, the ice cream stays cold for a long time. Once you get to the bottom instead of a pool of melted ice cream it almost tastes colder then when you started. The ice cream near the top melts much faster then the ice cream against the glass.

Now the minus is that it's always nice to have a little bit of melted ice cream at the bottom of the cup--it's like a bonus at the end. Ah, use a mug in those cases :)

here's your spooky bodum pavina shot of the day. the jello looks like it will float away.

the pavina's don't add much to jello. i guess they stay colder, they do jiggle inside the cup. And because the jello is floating, you can feel it almost oscilating in the cup.

sigh, i've really been struggling with my cappucino's lately. the foam is just too hard, right after i foam the milk the foam is pretty good in the pitcher but a few minutes after the pour it definately 'hardens.' It does look nice in the bodum pavinas though, and this is a nice depth of view shot. Even though my foam still needs work the drink itself is quite good, this Daterra blend really pops with the chocolate and vanilla when you add milk, a little bit of sugar also brings those flavors forward. I strongly believe that just a little bit of competence pulling the shot and fresh beans are all you need to make a decent espresso drink.

And talking about 'competence' in making an espresso drink. This morning I was in baltimore md for a business meeting and bought a latte at a coffe shop (for those wondering it's near the domino sugar factor in the inner harbor). Things looked great when i walked in, nice shop, looked like a two group Faema based machine.

Drink was 3.25 for a medium which is a little expensive for a single espressor latte--my first mistake. Second i see him dose without grinding--this is note a huge problem to me, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. If a cafe has good turnaround pregrinding is not neccessarily a bad thing. However the worse infraction was yet to come, no tamp (i forgive this after the next one) and finally i start timing the shot. He brewed into a steel pitcher but the volume looked ok for a 20-25 second single. However he kept pulling until the pitcher was full! I think it was a 4-5oz pitcher, the stream was yellow by that point. He poured about 1/3 of the pitcher into my milk which he already poured into the cup.

How'd it taste, very weak and the milk was burned. I discovered this after leaving, but i wouldn't have said anything. I don't know what I could've said tactfully that would help them improve. I think the biggest single thing is to pull the correct volume per drink. I should've asked for that or switched to a regular coffee.

Sigh, i've become spoiled now that i understand how to make an espresso drink. It's curious to me that people will accept ill prepared coffee drinks, but if you were at a bar and asked for a martini and they made it with rum or they add too much vermouth, would we accept it? I guess i've had pretty bad mixed drinks so maybe we do...

I've lived in DC for almost 5 years and only recently started eating at 5 guys. They've been in the DC area for about 10 years (?) now but they were in Springfield or Woodbridge so it was a pain to get there. Recently they started aggresive expansion, the first 5 guys burger I ate was actually at the location in Richmond VA where my parents live. They just opened a spot in Merrifield near me and another one in Clarendon so a lot more options.

The burger is like you expect, somewhere between a fast food hamburger and a restaurant hamburger. The taste and freshness are about the same as a restaurant burger (fresh beef not frozen, fresh cut potatoes for the fries), the biggest difference is how 'neat' the sandwich is when you get it. At a restaurant you get a nicely presented sandwich, not smooshed up like this one.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes a smooshed up sandwich is what you want, i love the burgers from In-N-Out on the west coast--which to me is the perfect fast food hamburger. That last sentence is not a denigration against In-N-Out, fast food is itself a food class and it does not have to be bad.

The other thing I want to talk about is how we look at food. Removed from the context of a meal and viewed with a measured eye most food is gross. I mean this is an exteme example (i did not feel good after eating this, i'm too old to consume this much food on a regular basis...) but even something more sophisticated can look not so appetizing afterwards. For example i just had a nice bowl of pan-seared shrimp with a butter-lemon-garlic-parsley sauce. It was very tasty, but as I looked at it afterwards things didn't look as appetizing as when i started!

I didn't take a picture this time but I'll make it again this week, i'm adjusting the recipe.

terroir coffee

This is the blend i've used for the last 2 weeks. It's my first 'light' roast that i've used. If you're not familiar with Terroir, you can read more about it at www.terroircoffee.com

This blend was the one used by the winning barista at the World Barista Competition (yes there is one). But I'm sure the skill of the barista had something to do with it as well.

This roast is lighter then traditional, so it doesn't have the classic sharpness or bitterness from a dark roast. This allows more fruit and floral to come through. When it's mixed with milk (cappucino or latte) the caramel and especially the chocolate notes really come out.

I'm pretty happy with this blend but it's expensive for me to order since i have to get it mail order. The math for me is $11 per 12oz bag and about $5 shipping per order. So just one bag costs me close to $17, if i buy two it brings it down a little but still pretty expensive. If i lived in the Boston area then the $11 is a little more tolerable. This is a real problem for people looking for fresh roasted beans. Here in DC we have murky coffee who uses coffee from counter culture coffee. And through some political activism on my part through the coffee geek podcast (see podcast #12), murky now sells their espresso blend.

If you're not lucky enough to find fresh roasted beans locally mail order is viable if a little expensive. How is this for fresh? i placed my order on Sunday, my order was roasted on Monday and i had it in my hands by Wednesday! I had to wait a few days to let the beans completely degass before i could use them!

a double ristretto in the sweet maria's espresso monkey cup. obviously this is the Terroir Daterra blend.

i ordered some stuff from Sweet Maria's last week and ordered one of their "Espresso Monkey" cup sets. They're pretty decent, good weight, feel pretty sturdy and the handle is not too small. And they're cheap at only $4.25 a set--so cheap that they have a limit of 6 per order! Sweet Maria's is a great site if you're looking to roast your own coffe beans from green. They're pretty much the reference for home roasting.

I've been looking for these type of glasses for a few years. I remember using a shorter version in Germany a couple years ago and could never find them in the US. My sister brought these home for my parents from the UK, but they never used them so i borrowed them (don't tell my sister!).

They're a little impractical because they only hold about 6oz and they're a pain to wash. But they feel really good in your hand because they're heavy. All that space between the green and the bottom is solid glass.

Recently I've seen similiar glasses at Sur La Table, set of 4 for $20. But these feel a little heavier then those.

I like liquor from these because you tend to linger over those drinks so it's more of an event to use them. If i want to impress i'll use them for OJ too.

If it's not obvious by now i have a wierd thing about drinking glasses and cups. more pictures at my flickr site, link on right.

i'm sure this horrifies some espresso enthusiasts, but a little whipped cream with an espresso is a legitimate drink.

And unlike at Starbucks, it does not mean 1 shot of espresso + 8 oz of milk (minimum) and then 2-3 oz of whipped cream. The only espresso drink with whipped cream is espresso in a demi-tasse cup with a small dollop of whipped cream: an espresso con panna.

Ok, I cheaped out and used whip cream from a can, but it's a lot of work to make fresh whipped cream for a 1.5 oz drink!

well with the Duke's of Hazzard movie out (i have not seen it and it looks stupid), here's a picture of me with (the real) Cooter and his wife at his store/bbq place near the blue ridge mountains in VA. My MINI is the blue one in the background.

Ben's a really nice guy, I know people made him sound like a crackpot when he spoke out against the new movie but it is a little unfair that they did not include any of the original cast members.

I mean, what if they make a CHiPS movie and they don't involve Erik Estrada--he's the only reason the show is still on cable!

i love how cool these bodum pavina glasses look with liquid in them. this is orange juice and it's like the yolk of an egg suspended in midair.

i've also discovered that ice cream will not melt as fast in these glasses. actually ice cream is very slow to melt in these glasses--more later.

this is what happens when i go to bed late (working on the blog tonite). notice how my bed has been requisitioned into a dog bed. i have to kick him out before i can go to bed. he's a little upset about me bothering him. as always, more pictures at my flickr site (link on the right)

i took these pictures on my visit to Toronto in june. goto my flickr site to see the rest. before my trip i remember seeing a picture of this in a design magazine, i think it was dwell (dwellmag.com, great modern design magazine), and i really wanted to find it. I didn't remember the name, but the location was 'near' the CN Tower. This was my first mistake, I started by heading towards the CN Tower, wandering around a lot and never found it. I walked back to Chinatown where we were having dinner. There is a park a few blocks from Chinatown, as I sat down and looked up--there's the building.

As i took these pictures i heard people say either: "Wow, that's the coolest building!" or "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen!" It's polar for sure. I love how they built on top of the existing building instead of tearing it down or another building nearby.

Oh and it was freaking hot in Toronto that weekend, close to 100F, in Canada of all places, it was cooler in Virginia at the time!

new bodum pavina double-wall glasses (8 oz). very neat, keeps the drink cold and no condensation! this is diet dr. pepper.

afternoon espresso, slightly long ristretto.

picture of the old man.