Re: How to make hot chocolate

1

Needs cream.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:47 PM
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2

I'm not opposed to a bit o' Schlag on my hot chocolate, but cream in it would be a bit over the top, don't you think?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:48 PM
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3

What's a "weather double boiler"?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:50 PM
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4

An extremely embarrassing homophono.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:51 PM
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5

2: cream over the top would be a bit in it by time of consumption anyhow.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:52 PM
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6

I'm expecting marshmallows.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:55 PM
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7

cream in it would be a bit over the top
It will congeal a bit if you're foolish enough to let it cool.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:56 PM
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8

How difficult are marshmallows to make? I used to love the jet-puffed ones, but now I find the corn syrup taste disgusting.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 9:59 PM
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9

Is that a balloon whisk carefully concealed within in your drawers, or...
I got hot chocolate at Burdicks a couple times last month (once dark, once white), totally worth $6. Not sure whether the single source is worth $1 more.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:03 PM
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10

How about cinnamon or nutmeg or hot pepper in that hot chocolate?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:08 PM
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11

I like the very thick Spanish hot chocolate, which is basically the same as the post, plus cornstarch and churros.

Eggplant, marshmallows are super easy to make. I've made them a couple times, because I thought I found the corn syrup taste of commercial marshmallows disgusting. I stopped making them because it turned out that the corn syrup taste masks the gelatin and egg white taste, which is even more disgusting.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:12 PM
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12

What if you used the powdered chocolate that comes in cans?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:13 PM
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13

What if you used the powdered chocolate that comes in cans?

Then you deserve your fate.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:13 PM
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14

I dunno, the marshmallows I used to get at Bittersweet before the SF location closed weren't disgusting at all.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:14 PM
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15

Eggplant, marshmallows are super easy to make.

Eggplant marshmallows are the worst.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:16 PM
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16

What if you used the powdered chocolate that comes in cans?

Then you'd be making hot cocoa, not hot chocolate, I believe.

I'm all for the powdered stuff that comes in a can, btw. I readily embrace my fate.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:17 PM
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17

Oh and as long as we're having a cooking thread, does anyone have advice on making lasagna? I recently had the best lasagna of my life, and now I need to figure out how to have it again. Its most striking feature was that the sheets were very very thin, and there were lots of layers. I'm mostly pretty lazy and am always looking for shortcuts when I cook. I assume no dried pasta producer makes the parchment-thin lasagna noodles I am looking for. I could maybe buy fresh noodles and then roll them out thinner? (I could also maybe acquire a pasta maker, although I hate buying large equipment, so this probably won't happen.) I sometimes skip preboiling dried noodles when I make baked pasta. Can I do this with fresh noodles, or will they get too mushy?


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:23 PM
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18

You could roll them out by hand without first having purchased fresh noodles, because you made the noodles yourself all the way. That's would be the really Leidenschaftlich Herangehensweise, and just think how much more you'd relish cutting down with your fork and teeth the pasta you had raised up with your own hand and rolling pin!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:27 PM
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19

You could also return to the place where you got the lasagna the first time, conceivably.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:27 PM
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20

Just the thought of that makes my arms ache.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:28 PM
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21

20 to 18. To 19, it was in Rome.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:29 PM
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They ache, yes, but it is not a dull, leaden ache; no, this ache is the ache of a life well lived, of sheets well rolled! A satisfying ache!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:30 PM
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23

They still have Rome.

Rome will outlast us all.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:30 PM
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24

It's funnier if 20 is to 19 in a "just got back from Rome and boy are my arms tired" way. Anyway, if you're worried about tired arms, you could use one of those hand-crank pasta makers, which are effective and can be had on Craigslist for a song.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 01- 2-13 10:38 PM
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25

nosflow speaks truth.
write a friend in Rome & ask them for the brand name of the lasagna noodles they use. There may be a workable dried version. I've been able to track down a surprising number of products by doing that, then using google to find a place to ship said products to my place of exile in U.S.


Posted by: backwardsinheels | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:07 AM
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26

Truly hot chocolate is born, not made.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:23 AM
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27

Walt believes in miracles.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:24 AM
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28

Some chocolate is born hot, some achieves hotness, and some has hotness thrust upon it.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:54 AM
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29

jms, if you would like to experiment with pasta making equipment, you are welcome to borrow my stand mixer, of which whose existence a recent trip to the garage reminded me. You would have to then procure the correct pasta making attachment. I had one once, but it left with Mrs K-sky One.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 2:35 AM
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30

29: be forewarned, JMS, that the pasta-making attachment for a Kitchen Aid standmixer costs as much as a standalone pasta maker.


Posted by: knecht ruprecht | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 5:28 AM
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31

I'm all for the powdered stuff that comes in a can, btw. I readily embrace my fate.

Ditto. I don't like the texture of hot chocolate. Actually, I find it okay with Mexican hot chocolate, which I think must have less fat in it? Because it doesn't give me that gross, coating mouthfeel when it's in hot chocolate. But for eating straight I can't stand how grainy it is.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 5:45 AM
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32

I don't think of guzzling as something done to hot chocolate. Too slow-flowing and, needing to be hot or at least warm, not as easy to loll in the gutter with along one's mug of pencils for sale and hobo bindle.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 6:04 AM
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33

I love hot cocoa. I make mine with vanilla and just a pinch of salt. I mostly use sugar, but I generally substitute a little splenda for some of the sugar. Trader Joe's used to have the greatest "Tahitian Vanilla." Their current one is good too, but I don't love it as much.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 6:05 AM
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34

Was it not really tahitian vanilla?

I find hot cocoa wan and insipid.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 8:42 AM
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35

20: Where was it in Rome? I will be there next week


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 10:30 AM
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36

Sorry. Pure greed


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 10:30 AM
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37

I assumed jms was referring to New Rome, a tiny speed trap in Ohio, but I suppose I could be wrong.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 10:40 AM
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38

Rome, Wisconsin. Don Cheadle used to be the DA.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:09 AM
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39

re: 35

Off to meet Pope B? I was there for work a few weeks ago, at the nacitaV yrarbiL. I was very pleased to discover it (the yrarbiL) has a bar, hidden behind a Roman fountain.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:12 AM
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40

39: No - Family holiday. Daughter is in her last year of a classics degree and anyway we all love the city and haven't been as a group for about ten years.
I will look very hard for the bar you mention.


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:21 AM
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41

If you're making lasagna with fresh noodles, you don't want to boil them ahead of time, or they'll go completely to mush when they're baked in the sauce.'

30: I want one of those so much. We broke our hand-crank pasta roller recently (they're not meant to be used, I think, just to be looked at) and I'm trying to justify the expense of the attachments to myself.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:24 AM
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42

If you go into the courtyard at the yrarbiL, not the carpark, but the internal courtyard, it's at one side. With a little staircase and a narrow door behind the fountain type thing. It's open to readers, it's not a secret secret thing. It's just not that obvious when looking around.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:25 AM
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43

I highly recommend Colline Emiliane for lasagne and Bolognese food in general, and have emailed additional Rome dining advice in case it's useful.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:31 AM
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44

The room where they have the nightly feast of he chestnuts is next door.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:32 AM
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45

42: It's called the Spanish Inn Position, because no one expects it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:33 AM
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46

Also, it turns out I've gotten things backwards for most of my life. I thought cocoa was the thing with milk (which I don't like much) and hot chocolate was the lighter, more watery drink.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:35 AM
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47

41.2: I don't have one myself, but have used it when the rep came and thought it brilliant. They seem like the best of the KitchenAid attachments - it genuinely made making pasta easier, especially if you're not the most adept at wrangling with one hand and turning the crank with the other. Or if you perish at the thought of all that rolling, as I do.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:36 AM
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48

No, bad attachment! I have one and the motor had some problem handling the load, oil/grease leaked out through the axle that attaches it and I had oil laced pasta dough.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:38 AM
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49

46. Lots of people make cocoa with hot milk. Posh chocolate with water hasn't been in fashion since the 1670s though.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:40 AM
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50

I long for a world in which the stand mixer generally, and the pasta-making attachment specifically, is viewed as an archaic, horrifying symbol of the death cult of gluttony that ruined the rich world in the late 20th century. Though the purest symbol of the horror is the cupcake.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:43 AM
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51

Stand mixers have meat-grinder attachments for making sausage.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:46 AM
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52

Hot chocolate made only with water and 100% cacao chocolate would probably be pretty good, and I guess close to the original 17h century drink.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:46 AM
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53

Samoan style cocoa -- roasted cocoa beans, ground like coarse coffee, and then boiled for a couple of minutes in water with sugar -- is very good, and more like coffee than it is like other kinds of cocoa; bitterer in a good way. I've tried getting my hands on cocoa beans here a couple of times, though, and it's been too much trouble to bother with.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:51 AM
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54

And if you like black coffee, it'd probably be good without sugar, although I've never tried it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:52 AM
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55

You could even pretend that it's palaeo if you stretch a point for the Olmec being whatever Americanists call the local equivalent of epipalaeolithic. Nobody would believe you though.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:53 AM
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56

55 to 52


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:54 AM
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57

Unsweetened chocolate is on most paleo diet people's list of nondeadly goods, though we're sort of in NorCal margarita territory here.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 11:58 AM
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58

Vanilla and salt can cut a lot of the bitterness; I use vanishingly small amounts of sugar and unsweetened chocolate.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:07 PM
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59

Also, my fondness for dark chocolate and hydrocodone has increased my tolerance of bitter foods.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:09 PM
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60

Posh chocolate with water hasn't been in fashion since the 1670s though.

There was a place in Vancouver (now closed) which did that very well. Mmmmm.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:17 PM
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61

57. Margaritas as palaeo!? Puhleeze, triple sec was invented in the 19th century. Even tequila only goes back to the colonial period.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:19 PM
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62

I had a very good drink made with nothing more, I believe, than chocolate blended with ice at a subterranean cafe in Berlin once.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:19 PM
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63

61: It is desperation, isn't it. They should really be limited to the occasional found fermented fruit or psychedelic mushrooms.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:23 PM
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64

In Modica in Sicily there is a tradition of chocolate making going back to the conquest of Mexico (Sicily being then part of the Bourbon kingdom). The results are extremely strange - gritty, to modern tastes, and both more bitter and more sweet than the standard results. I'm not sure that I like them, but it would have been fascinating to make a drink from the results.

Also it's a lovely town, worth visiting for other reasons


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:44 PM
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48: I find that surprising! But then again, as I'm about to say with regards to 51, the attachments can be easily overloaded and you do have to be careful with it. The grinder is notorious for it. I've never heard of the pasta attachment being a problem, though.

50: Just because it stands for everything you hate doesn't make it a bad thing.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:44 PM
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66

43: whither did you email?


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:45 PM
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67

Well, the paleo margaritas are without triple sec, and as I've said here a billion times (but which spoils the fun, which is why no one pays attention to it, including me) the paleo diet, whatever its attributes or faults, is not at all an attempt to recreate the diet of any actually-existing paleolithic human group, even assuming that this could be possible (which it isnt). It's about making mild adjustments to the modern diet based on an evolutionary-based theory that specific, commonly available modern foods (mostly grains and refined sugar) fuck with people's insulin levels and bodies in harmful ways that make them overweight and/or more generally unhealthy.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:46 PM
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68

(And subsequent to 65.1.last, I have heard just about everything that can go wrong by now.)


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:46 PM
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69

67 would be more convincing if we didn't all know you were picking muskrat out of your teeth at the time.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:50 PM
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70

66: The address linked from your name. Just tried again.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:51 PM
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71

That's true, but it's not for diet-related reasons.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:53 PM
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72

66: bizarre, because that is indeed my personal and proper address. It may be that I am hoiking it out into a gmail account.
Thank you for your trouble


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:54 PM
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73

59: House, is that you?


Posted by: Annelid Gustator | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 12:59 PM
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74

Aaand now I'm browsing through KitchenAid mixers and attachments online. I hope you all are happy.

Werdna, I don't remember the name of the place. It was an unfancy cafe on I think Cavour, on the way back from Santa Maria Maggiore, where despite the revelatory lasagna, the service was incompetent and the coffee indifferent.

41.1: Thanks Cala! That's exactly the advice I was looking for.
41.2: They appear to be on sale on Amazon. Still super expensive though!


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:01 PM
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75

Lots of people make cocoa with hot milk.

I think this is standard. You'd only use water if you were using one of those mixes that has powdered milk in it already.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:02 PM
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76

Maybe don't mention those around neb.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:03 PM
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77

53 sounds fantastic. Is it like Turkish coffee, in that you can arbitrarily reduce the amount of sugar? Did you succeed in finding cocoa beans, and was the prospect of roasting them yourself the thing that made you give up?


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:05 PM
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78

When J' and I were in Rome a few years ago, we had a meal near the Piazza Navona, in a place that looked like a tourist-trap cheapo hell-hole. Plastic tables with vinyl covers, lots of menus with photos. Too many things in the menu. And yet, best octopus I've ever had in my life. And the bucatini was delicious, albeit a bit salty.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:19 PM
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77: Well, you could arbitrarily reduce the amount of sugar -- I don't think Samoans do, but you could. And roasting them yourself isn't that bad once you get the hang of it, you just do it in a dry frying pan until the outer coating flakes off and the beans get oily looking. But it's still a bit of a production, no one else in the household liked the results, and it just never seemed really worth it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 1:23 PM
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80

I'll second Colline Emiliane too. It has been a few years (and boy can restaurants change quickly, as I have found to my disappointment), but it was quite good.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 3:29 PM
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81

When we were in Pisa, back when we only had 3 children, we (the 5 of us, C's dad and grandpa and stepmother) ended up in a shitty little cheap cafe in a back street, because my inlaws didn't want to sit in one of the tourist traps with a view of the tower, and had one of the worst pizzas I've ever had in my life. And my inlaws still reminisce fondly about it.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 01- 3-13 6:37 PM
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82

My roommate has made vanilla coffee for the second day in a row, and it's starting to give me a headache. It's not sweetened, but it still has the effect of something cloyingly sweet. Maybe it's whatever chemical processes/satanic rituals they do to the coffee to make it vanilla flavored? Anyways, I am now incentivized to get up before my roommate to make normal coffee.

I had very good lasagne this summer in Northern Italy, which was made with layers of bechamel and ragu and no cheese.


Posted by: Britta | Link to this comment | 01- 5-13 1:34 PM
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83

Needs muddled mint leaves


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 01- 6-13 5:46 PM
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