Tag: Food and drink

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The One True Way of Making Tea

I think that I know 95% of all there is to know about making an ideal espresso. I even know the only half-, nay, quarter-acceptable drink in Starbucks. “Cafe Americano” – espresso diluted with water. But I know next to nothing about making a good cup of tea.

I remember something I’ve read in Bros. Strugatskie’s novel about some really Zen way of boiling water for making tea, but I could not find any good references on the web. I did find two interesting links though:

A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell
and
Rec.food.drink.tea FAQ

Hmm. In Russia, a common method of making tea is to make a concentrated tea infusion in a small teapot and then dilute it with water. I still do this sometimes. But I think a better method is to take a big teapot and make tea of drinking concentration in it. I guess I’ll get a big teapot and try that.

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New York in a Cup

I was always addicted to coffee. In the Soviet Union, a country of tea drinkers, brewed coffee was a rarity. The most commonly available coffee was instant, and even that slop was very scarce. I still remember the time when our distant relative from Australia sent us a big parcel, which among other things contained a humongous can of Folgers instant coffee. I was able to beg my mom to share it with me from time to time. Among the things in the parcel was a pair of extremely thick Levis jeans, but that’s another story. Oh, and that relative was a mayor of a small town in Australia. Also another story.

In any case, the first time I tasted non-instant and non-Turkish coffee was probably in the US. I continued drinking instant, sometimes with lemon ( coffee with lemon is mostly unheard of in the US). Then I learned that coffee could easily be purchased in bodegas 24 hours a day.

My tastes were becoming more and more refined. I purchased a cheapo steam powered espresso maker for $50 and learned the art of making espresso with. Even with the crappy equipment I was able to make half decent espresso and cappuccino once in a while.

After I purchased a semi-decent pump machine for $150 I stopped drinking drip coffee altogether. Then I purchased a semi-professional pump machine for $650. It was very nice, but broke after a few years of service. It’s possible to get service for commercial machines of that firm, but not for the consumer products. The machine sits in a box in my bedroom, and every night Tilde the cat mutilates it’s cardboard box. That is the punishment of the espresso gods for failure. Yeah.

Meanwhile I rediscovered the bodega (deli) coffee. Most bodegas have commercial Bunn brewers and grinders. The coffee is fresh.

There are a few coffee customs that are very specific to New York.

The first is that the expression “coffee, regular” refers to a small cup with sugar (usually two spoons) and milk. The second is the cup in question. Most frequently the cup is either a Sherri Cup Company “Anthora” design or one of it’s clones or relatives. If you’ve seen a film or a show about New York, you’ve seen this cup. It’s very very distinct. It’s blue and white, it features a Greek pattern and the words “we are happy to serve you”. The official name “Anthora” is a misspelling of “amphora”.

From http://www.caffmag.com/caffmag/features/grk_cup.html
“The design has been around since 1963,” said Wayne Meadowcroft, Sherri’s vice president of sales and marketing. “At the time, most of the diners and delis were Greek-owned, so the design, which was by an employee, Leslie Buck, was a natural.”

While ownership of diners has expanded to include other ethnic groups, the cups are not unique to Greek-owned restaurants. At Italian pizza shops, in Indian diners and Jewish delis, the cup of choice is almost always the same and can be found stacked high in plastic covering near the coffee pots.

This Leslie Buck must have felt like that woman who designed the mac icons.

In any case, there are variations of the “Anthora” design floating around. See the clone gallery here (it’s really worth a look. Clicky.)

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Lunch notes

I’ve got mail!

Today’s arrivals: Ted Nelson’s(of Project Xanadu fame) “Literary Machines” and T. Edward Damer’s “Attacking Faulty Reasoning”.

I wanted to get “Literary Machines” for a long time. Ironically for a book about the future of books, it’s rather rare. I paid $35, which is a pretty good deal (I snapped the book up as soon as it came up in my abebooks.com notifications). It’s the second edition though. I’ll write more about Nelson when I have the time.

I am so happy that I can afford about 70% of all the books that I want :)

For lunch I had some shawarma from “Bread from Beirut“, a very nice middle eastern restaurant. I wonder if it’s possible to buy one of those shawarma slabs and keep it in a fridge. Shawarma is a great low carb food.

Lunch is over. Back to codin’.

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What I have seen on a half hour lunch break in NYC

New York Yacht Club building at 37 West 44th Street. I’ve never seen it before. It has these really cool bay windows. Here is what it looks like outside and here it is inside.

It’s located right next to the Harvard Club, where ‘s previous employer liked to give office parties before his company went bust.

Believe it or not, I can’t find a good outside picture. For having such a cool clubhouse they have a pretty crappy website. I guess I’ll have to take some pictures myself.

I don’t have a yacht (I have to ask how much it cost, so according to J. P. Morgan, I can’t afford it) and I have not gone to Harvard. And there is no Brooklyn College club. Or is there? I like the idea of a club. Clubs are cool. Be like a real gentelman. Have some steak. Read a book. Smoke a sigar. Have some scotch. Well, I do those things at home, but it must be much cooler in a club.

—

In Times Square, inside MTV studios, some show was shot live. I could see the host and the audience through the window.

—

Saw a middle aged cop with a citation bar for Medal For Valor. It’s kind of like Purple Heart.

—

Bought some lunch from and interesting street vendor, who apparently used to work as a chef in now closed Russian Tea Room. His name is M.D. Rahman. A few places wrote about him.

Well, the times are tough, but at least he is not Rahman, M.D.

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Defective Detective Shops for a Pepper Mill

I am shopping for a really good pepper mill, and dammit, I can’t decide.

Right now I narrowed it down to two choices:

a) A pepper mill made by Peugeot. Supposedly Peugeot was making pepper mills even before cars. [Insert your own joke about wimpy French cars and their origins]
and
b) Turkish coffee grinder that was popularized as a pepper grinder by the Frugal Gourmet dude.

Ok, so let’s see what Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance taught me. Thinking romantically, it’s really cool that the grinder is made by an automobile company. It’s a great conversation starter (not that I need any of those). But thinking classically, a mechanism made for grinding Turkish coffee must be by it’s nature more robust, and have a much greater level of adjustment.

Like obsessive-compulsive detective Monk, I can’t decide.

Oooh, isn’t the salt pig adorable? Nah, I’m happy with the salt cellar that I have. Besides, it looks like a perfect place for roaches to camp out.

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Die Kunst der Rant : Contrapunctus 1

Like everybody else, I am frequently annoyed by waiters, clerks and salespeople. Like all geeks I am a little deficient in the communication department, which makes it harder.

After getting somewhat bad service from a waitress in Blue Note I even suggested to a friend of mine the following idea: a world where waiters are replaced by a computer interface. You study an interactive menu and your orders are transmitted directly to the chef.

Her argument against that was that some waiters are real characters and are really entertaining. And that’s entirely true! Howard Johnson’s in Times Square has a really unique staff of old timers, probably the most polite waiters I met. Waiters at Peter Luger’s are gruff steak experts. Without them the atmosphere would not be the same. On Dave Attel’s Insomniac I’ve seen a late night cheese steak joint where you are expected to curse out the servers and they are expected to answer in kind. It’s not a family restaurant, of course.

But on the other hand, I find ordering in fast food places somewhat tough. The dude in Coffee Connection (Dunkin’ Donuts rip-off) habitually adds milk to my coffee when I ask for cream. More than that, he lies when asked if that’s milk in the coffee. I carry special glucose detector sticks to check if the soda I get brought is really diet (because I am on a low carb diet). Sometimes it isn’t. Many ordering experiences go pretty much as described by J.S. Bach of the Rant, his coolness JWZ. (don’t be lazy, open the link. It’s short and hilarious).

Now, that I can understand. I worked at glorious Nathatns Famous at Coney Island, and I have a really bad short term memory. When you do mind numbing tasks all day remembering even the simplest instructions is very hard. Well, of course the menu was a bit more complex than popcorn and soda and I had to keep track of many more different things, but still…

All you need is a PDA. You get a menu beamed to it before you enter. You select your order. You beam the order to the waiter. When done, you beam the payment. Not a single word needs to be spoken. Ahh, future.

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The General Theory of Tso’s Chicken

Ok, here I am ranting again about food not allowed by my low carb diet.

General Tso’s chicken. Mmmmm. Deep fried chicken cubes in sweet and spicy sauce. Droool.

Ok, if I can’t have it, I can at least finally find out who is this general and why the dish is named after him. Luckily I am not the first one to ask myself that question. Well, trusty google gave me some answers, but very few things are completely clear.

Is it an ancient Szechuan dish called “ancestor meeting place chicken” or was it “It was invented in the mid-1970s, in NYC, by one Chef Peng”? Probably the second.

General Tso seems to have been a real military general. My theory was that it’s genral in the sense of “concerned with, applicable to, or affecting the whole or every member of a class or category”, as opposed to “special”. Anyways, his specialty (huh, huh I made a pun) was Chinese and Muslim rebellion crushing. But were his “.. operations were carried out while he suffered from recurring bouts of malaria and dysentery”? Has he “… flunked the official court exams three times, a terrible disgrace …” or did he have a ” ..successful career as a scholar-administrator”? Was the chicken named so because “…General Tso […] had the top leaders of the Nian Rebellion executed with the proverbial “death of 10,000 cuts”[…] ” or just in admiration?

And how many puns can be made by people writing articles about the good general and his dish? Try to count in the following articles (which I qoted in my post):
Tso What?
Who Was General Tso And Why Are We Eating His Chicken?

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Japanese Grocery

I’ve found a really nice Japanese grocery on 43d street between 6th and Broadway. It’s a bit on the expensive side, but the selection is really good. They have raw fish for sashimi, a dozen different types of umeboshi, huge selection of teas, condiments and many other things any japanophile can appreciate. They even have Japanese cigarettes. I’ve purchased the tastiest green tea ever, Kikkoman “extra fancy” soy souse ($3 for a tiny little bottle), some umeboshi, bonito flakes, bonito soup base and a few other things.

Sam Bok Groceries
127 West 43 Street
New York, NY 10036
212 221-0845
10am – 9pm Mon-Sun

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Untitled


Beanie Babies® are freaky. Unlike normal plush toys, they are not filled with stuffing completely, leaving them limp. Some people call them “roadkill” because of that. They are “born”, like the Cabbage Patch® dolls (which are also freaky) , but then they are “retired”. They brought their founder, H. Ty Warner billions of dollars. Really, billions. He bought fricking Four Seasons Hotel for 275 million. I bet, right now, like Howard Hughes, he is sitting in a penthouse there, his toenails 20 centimeters long, with minions swabbing everything with disinfectant. Ok, I don’t know if he is germophobic like Hughes, but he is definitely just as reclusive. And how in hell did he make so much money with those damn dolls? I know, I know – manipulating supply and demand. But billions??