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Q: Which flavor of coffee do you prefer? A: The kind with the most caffeine.
When it comes to coffee, the caffeine is the key. Drinking decaf is like drinking non-alcoholic beer. What's the point? With this in mind, the best coffee is the strongest coffee. And right now, the French Roast wins hands-down. It does not matter the brand; it does not matter if it's beans or ground. The French Roast is consistently the strongest that I've come across.
The Kirkland house blend we tried before didn't cut it. So, we moved on to the Safeway Select French Roast beans. It's good, it gets the job done, it's not great. We are moving on once again...
In the cabinet, we have a Costco-sized bag of San Francisco coffee. I'm looking forward to it. The SFWeekly wrote it up in their Best-of series: Best Coffee Bean Roasters. The article does not appear to be dated (which I believe is a huge Ooops, kind of like putting your pants on your head, even toddlers know that's an Ooops), so who knows if the article is recent or not. I'll let you know how that coffee is in future posts. Stay tuned.
The daily routine of grinding beans has lead my wife to refine her technique. Where I like to put six tbls into the grinder all at once, she likes to do three and three. She claims the beans grind finer that way with less beans in the grinder. That's fine in theory, so that's how we do it. And plus, the toddlers really like the Whrrr, Whrrr, Whrrr, noise. They like to put their hand on the dome while the beans are ground up. It's great fun.
Picked the wrong day. Yeah, it is the wrong day to not have a jacket in the car. Usually, the car has two or three jackets thrown in the back seat. You never know when it's going to be cold, hot, windy, or all of the above. Or none of the above. You just never know. You just never know when my office is going to be freezing, or steaming; it's never "just right." No, it's never just right. It's either freezing or steaming. And today was the wrong day to have cleaned out the car. It was the wrong day to bring the jackets into the house. It was the wrong day to not have the fleece, or the vest, or even a wind breaker. It is plain and simple: it was the wrong day to not have an extra layer to put on. My fingers are cold. My nose is cold. My feet are cold. It's cold. I could leave my sandwich on my desk and it would stay cold. Did I mention it is cold in here?
You can't go through life being afraid of alfredo sauce—or looking at pictures of food that contain alfredo sauce—even if that food consists of beans and potatoes. You just have to endure. Look at the picture, contemplate it, and then decide: did I really need to look at that? The answer is probably No, I didn't really need to look at it.
Alfredo sauce is darn good. It's creamy, it's rich, and when you pour it on pasta, it's great. After dinner, after the sauce pan has been sitting on the stove for awhile and the sauce has started to thicken, that's the best time to lick the spoon that was left in the pan. If the sauce is good, it's like licking semi-melted butter. It's like eating warm gooey cheese. It's like heaven on a spoon. It's as if you can feel your arteries harden as you go for a second taste.
I must say however, that alfredo sauce has it's time and place. Mixing it with beans and potatoes, maybe not, on a pizza instead of the traditional red sauce, yes and no, you just can't call it pizza, you have to call it baked bread with sauce and toppings. How about we keep the alfredo sauce where it belongs: on a heaping plate of pasta; and the spoon that was left in the pan.
If you want to listen to some of the best music ever recorded, and you only want to pay 49 cents for it, then click the image.
If there is anything I strive for, it's creating a unique taste sensation. That is what I live for. That is what it is all about. Something new. Something unique. Something that hasn't been done before. Something that tastes good and is not necessarily good for you. The Unique Taste Sensation: that's what it's all about.
And it turns out I am not the first person to mix mashed potatoes with refried beans (although I probably am the first person to mix those two items along with a hamburger patty, cheese, and BBQ sauce). While searching for an image of mashed potatoes and refried beans, I found home-and-garden.webshots. It looks like some vegan person mixed mashed potatoes, refried beans, and spinach with black bean gravy (see the photo).
On Picasa, I found a group of friends who, "mixed together four eggs, two Morningstar sausages, mashed potatoes, salsa, refried beans, and a bit of alfredo sauce. It was surprisingly tasty, though next time we might leave out the potatoes." Leaving out the potatoes is a big mistake if you ask me... I'll spare you the picture of that one.
Fair warning: Do Not Attempt This at Home. The following was performed by a professional. Amateurs may suffer severe consequences.
I repeat, do not try this yourself. If you ever feel the need to try the following, I advise against it. Do not, under any circumstances combine the following:
- mashed potatoes
- black refried beans
- hamburger patty (seasoned with Worcestershire)
- shredded cheese
- barbecue sauce
If you do combine these items, you may find it simply delicious. Leftovers for lunch can be fun, and filling, and tasty.
Not all breakfast sandwiches are created equal. Most breakfast sandwiches consist of some kind of bread (I prefer a croissant), eggs, cheese, and either bacon or ham. It does not sound like a hard sandwich to mess up. However, after doing a taste test between two different cafeterias, which are separated only by a parking lot, I realized the differences can be dramatic.
Let's start with the cafeteria that's in my office building. The owner's are nice enough, they smile and say hello, but they give you attitude if all you buy is a Snickers and no lunch. "Oh? Ju
st chocolate today?" And it's said in not such a nice way. The food has a reputation for being Costco-on-a-bun. That right there should tell you something. For the breakfast sandwich, they do offer your choice of bread, but no croissant, I opt for the english muffin. The eggs come scrambled and taste like salt and pepper, but otherwise, nothing remarkable. The cheese is a slice of Kraft American Singles, which is fine if you're 5 years old and your mom is packing your lunch. The bacon tastes like it just came out of the microwave and is a little limp and chewy. All-in-all though, it's still tasty in a generic kind of way, and I really don't mind it because it fills me up on those days I just don't have time to eat at home.
Now let's jump across the parking lot. I just tried this other cafeteria for the first time today. And let me tell you, I'll have a hard time going back to that first cafeteria. The owner here is very friendly, with a smile, and a down-home look about her. The menu offered peroshkies and I detected a slight accent from the owner, so who knows, maybe they offer some authentic home cooking here? She also offered a choice of bread, just about anything I wanted except the croissant (woe-is-me). As before, I opted for the english muffin. I also opted for the bacon instead of the ham. I was also prompted for my choice in cheese, which was a pleasant surprise, I went for swiss just to mix things up a bit. I then sat down and grabbed a paper and read a headline about how home prices in the SF Bay Area have dropped. They still haven't dropped far enough for my liking, with the median price now over $500k (as compared to $800k in the city).
With my sandwich ready and boxed to go I headed to a table to dive in. My first surprise was that the eggs were over medium. I thought to myself, This is different. I thought it was a given that all breakfast sandwiches had scrambled eggs and that fried eggs were reserved for pancake sandwiches. I shrugged my shoulders, picked up the sandwich, and took the first bite. Butter. Sweet delicious butter. Oh, how I love thee. Everything is better with a bit o' butter. The cheese was real swiss cheese with nothing processed about it. The english muffin was toasted to perfection. The bacon was piled high and was crisp and bacony. Like bacon should be. I ate half the sandwich and felt full. I ate the other half cause it was so darn good and felt like I overate.
I can't wait to go back and try the peroshkies. I am hoping for more of that butter. Sweet, sweet, butter.
In the cabinet, we have a Costco-sized bag of San Francisco coffee. I'm looking forward to it. The SFWeekly wrote it up in their Best-of series: Best Coffee Bean Roasters. The article does not appear to be dated (which I believe is a huge Ooops, kind of like putting your pants on your head, even toddlers know that's an Ooops), so who knows if the article is recent or not. I'll let you know how that coffee is in future posts. Stay tuned.
