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Trieste Address Book

Trieste is located in the upper corner of Italy, located just at the border of Slovenia. It's a compact port city and in addition to Slovenian influences, you might be surprised to come across a shop carrying beer steins, since there are residual Hungarian and Austrian influences in the melange as well. But unlike other Italian cities, you'll find people drinking big glasses of beer, and dining on sauerkraut and dumplings...and I mean, big, hearty ones...not just gnocchi, although you'll find those too. Which I certainly did.

Along with perhaps a little gelato here and there...

Since my time was limited, I wasn't able to explore the areas far out of town, which I've been told were where the best food was to be found. The restaurants in the city were a bit uninspiring, although the bars filled up in the early evenings and were great places to have a Gingerino or my favorite aperitivo; an oversized wine glass (God bless the Italians...) with a shot of bitter orange aperitif, chilled prosecco, and a chunk of blood orange served with a handful of ice. I couldn't catch the name, but it sure tasted good with all the food the Italians pile up at the bars nightly to snack on. The first time I saw an enormous spread of food on a bar a few years back in Italy, free for the taking, I expressed my surprise to an Italian friend, who replied, "Well, it's so much nicer to have a little something to eat with your drink...don't you think?"

Why yes, since you asked.

Although I know it's not a trend that's going to cross the border into France. But it's a national custom I'm happy to partake of when in Italy.

After all, I don't want to be rude. Do I?

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Making Perfect Espresso at Illy

When I told a friend that I was going to Italy to learn hot to make coffee, she responded, "You just dump the coffee into a filter and pour water over it. What else do you need to do?"

Well, since you asked, plenty.

First of all, there's an important distinction between 'brewing coffee' and 'extracting espresso'.

Brewed coffee is steeping ground beans in hot water, which any fool like me can do, whereas making espresso involves a couple of crucial steps and the deft use of a high-pressured machine combined with several specific techniques. It's not easy to make the perfect espresso, but anyone can make a pretty decent one, even using an inexpensive home machine.

And how do you know what a good espresso is?

It's a very tiny cup of deep-brown liquid, just a couple of sips, not bitter-tasting, but rich, complex and lingering, which endures on your tastebuds for 10-15 minutes afterwards—one singular, perfectly-extracted shot of true Italian espresso.

I was really anxious to visit Illy, since I've been having trouble getting just the right little shot to taste good at home. Mine was either too watery, or bitter and virtually undrinkable, even though I was using a very powerful espresso maker. But I was also curious why the espresso in Italy tastes so much better than it does anywhere else, even in the humblest caffè. So when Illy invited me to come to their roasting plant and Università del Caffè in Trieste, I cleared my calendar and jumped on a plane.

So what did I learn at Illy?
I learned that anyone, even me, can pull a great cup of espresso at home.
Here's the 1, 2 and 3's of it...

1. Start with good coffee.

This seems like a no-brainer. But I have a friend who said his vinaigrettes never tasted as good as he'd like them to. When I pointed out that you can't make a good salad dressing with crappy olive oil from Trader Joe's, neither can you make a good cup of espresso unless you start with good coffee beans correctly roasted and packed.

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10 Things I Just Learned About Coffee

1. One espresso has 2 calories.

2. The word 'coffee' is pronounced almost the same in every language around the world.

3. After water, coffee is the second most widely-consumed beverage in the world. (Tea is a close third.)

4. When you drink coffee, your brain shrinks a little, which is why some advise drinking coffee if you have a headache.

5. When making an espresso, 65% of the caffeine is extracted from the beans, whereas the French-press method of making coffee extracts 98% of the caffeine.

6. There are two hundred flavors components present in raw (green) coffee beans, but roasted beans have over two thousand present.

7. The first steam-pressured espresso machine was invented by a Frenchman in 1901.

8. In Italy, 80% of the coffee consumed is espresso while the other 20% are milk-based coffee drinks like cappucino.

Outside of Italy, those numbers are reversed.

9. The espresso-pod of coffee was invented in 1973 by Illy coffee.

10. 52% of all coffee imported into Italy comes through Trieste, whose harbor is almost entirely dedicated to coffee importation.

Speaking of coffee, I just returned from a visit to Illy where I was their guest at their Università del Caffè where I learned the art of making espresso. I had hands-on lessons from their expert barista, Michele Pauletic and delved into the craft of extracting the perfect little cup of true Italian espresso. Excuse the little bit of hyperbole, but it was truly a life-changing experience. And although I merely scratched the surface of understanding this complex drink, I have a much better understanding of what coffee is and how to get the best cup possible.

As soon as I come down from the buzz I got from all that coffee (one day I counted I had 9 cups of espresso), I'll be focusing more on what I saw and learned...and I invite you to come along in the next few installments here, from my trip to Trieste.

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Real French Women

Real, live French women on why French women don't get fat.

(via The Food Section)

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Chocolate Tasting

The problem around here is that I buy chocolate in 5 kilo, about 11#, boxes and every afternoon, and sometimes (ok...make that 'often'...) first thing in the morning, I dig my hand deep in the box and pull out a few pistols every time I walk by. People have the impression that I eat chocolate all the time, every day. And although I usually deny it, I would have to admit it's definitely true.

Except last night when I was flossing, part of one of my teeth flew out and plinked onto the floor. So today it's like eating and talking with a thumb tack in my mouth, and I'm having a rare, chocolate-free day.

Who knew it was possible to floss to hard? Does that make me a 'power-flosser'?

(When I called my dentist, I was stumped trying to figure out the verb 'to floss' in French. Ça existe?)

Anyhow, in addition to the little palets of dark chocolate I'm always dipping into, I also have tons of unusual chocolate bars around here I've been amassing over the past few months.

Many I pick up when traveling, and some I get sent by companies wanting me to try them out. I happily sample them all and love to find something new or especially unusual. Often I taste them systematically by sitting down, snapping off a corner and savoring the flavors. As I roll and chew the chocolate around in my mouth, I ponder the different characteristics, noting origin and the various flavors: Sweet, fruity, acidic, roasty, bitter, citrusy, woodsy—all the various tastes we find in chocolate.

And other times, I'm not so good and I rip off the covering and start gnawing away at the chocolate until it's nothing but an empty wrapper with a few crumbs of chocolate left. I never did well in science since I'm lacking in patience.

So during the next few weeks, it's your turn to be patient.

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5 Things You Don't Know About Me

1. I love when people on roller-blades fall.

2. I don't care all that much who wins in 2008, or what party they're from.

I just want everyone to like and respect us again.

3. Once a woman came into a restaurant where I worked and had dinner all by herself.

At the end of her meal, she asked the waiter to put a birthday candle on her dessert.

Fifteen years later, I still feel really sad about it.

4. I think it should be illegal for men to get their eyebrows arched.

5. I live in Paris and I've never gone up the Eiffel Tower.

And I don't really want to!

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Think Links

With friends like this...

Just $15.95 ?

Dorie Greenspan reveals her secret addresses in Paris...

...and Linda Dannenberg uncovers the best boulangeries à Paris aussi.

I hate voice mail mazes.

Get an earful (ayor)

Three more weeks...

...but the wait's over for this one!

(Congratulations Heidi...)

Food blogging do's and don'ts from the experts.

Is this the coolest Flickr page—or what.

C'est possible to go back?

Not links...but did you know some of the top search words for my site this week were:

"Bridget Bardot, cottage cheese, Tucker Carlson (55 people), bunnies, Charo, pickles, choxie bar, Nancy Grace (44 people), curds."

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15%

Rarely do things get marked down in Paris, except twice a year when stores have les soldes during dates specified by the govenment. But they do sometimes reduce the price of something by offering a promotion.

The difference is that during a sale, they mark something down.

A promotion is different: it's when they reduce the price of something.

Got it?

Commonly, I find, that when something's on promotion, when you get to the register it never rings up at the sale, um...or I mean, the promotion price.

For you coupon-clippers out there— sorry, there's no coupons here.
But the supermarkets do send out fliers advertising specials on certain items. But very rarely is the item actually in stock. My beloved Powerball went on sale, or was it on promotion?...this week at Franprix supermarket.

Don't bother clicking on the link. Their site's been non-functional depuis 2002. It advises "Patience!!!"

(You think? Anyone who's willing to wait 5 years for a major business in one of the top cities in the world to put up a web site certainly needs un peu de patience.)

When I went, there my Powerballs sat on the shelf but with no special price was attached. (I'm sure there's a joke there, but after the last post, I'm not touching it.) The other four items, which were advertised on sale in the flier, which were on my list, weren't in stock at all. Still, with my odds, it was my lucky day that there was at least one of them.

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Don't Try This At Home

Day #2:

Just in case you live in a top-floor Parisian apartment with feeble water pressure, if you're testing recipes involving baked meringues, I don't recommend disposing of them here.

I hope by tomorrow they'll finally be gone.

UPDATE: March 8 (the next day)—they're still not gone!

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Kig Ha Farz

For as much as I write about Brittany, I suppose if I spelled it a bit differently and somehow connected it to 'shaved' or 'Grey Goose', I'd probably get a lot more Google searchers. And who would have thought that Kevin Federline was going to be the one now seen as the most 'normal' of the lot?

And curiously, a friend of mine actually described him recently as "kinda hot".

But I'll let you draw your own conclusions, as I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

After that, if I haven't I scared the few of you still remaining here, there's another thing hardly anyone's searching for: Kig Ha Farz, a homely but delicious Breton specialty that even few French people know about. It's highly-unlikely that you'll ever find it served in a restaurant although I've heard reports of one Breton crêperie near Montmarte which makes it one day a week, but I haven't investigated further. But if you travel through Brittany, some old-fashioned stores sell the simple sacks which are used to cook the kig ha farz, which means 'meat' and 'stuffing' in the Breton language, and you can make it yourself at home, like I do.

When we rented a house by the north coast of France last summer, the retired owners who lived next door offered to make us a stack of galettes au sarrasin, the buckwheat crêpes the region is well-known for, as a nice welcoming gesture.

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Ce weekend à Paris

Taillevant & Le Cave Taillevant

Last month I had a fabulous lunch at Taillevent, the recently-demoted three-star restaurant, courtesy of some good friends from the states. But if our lunch was any indication, I don't know who's plucking the stars. And at 70€ it's the deal of the decade: Three courses and lots of little extras. Plus they were very pleased to substitute any of the desserts which didn't appear on the fixed menu for the selection offered. And to make the lunch even more special, another recent guest kindly bought me a bottle of lovely champagne...what's not to get all starry-eyed over?

But whether or not you can make it to Taillevent, the restaurant, you should definitely visit their wine shop in the main Printemps department store. Run by Alison Vollenwider, with the help of Stéphanie (aka la petite), this wine cave is one of the most interesting in Paris.

Alison trained as a sommelier at Windows On The World with famed wine expert Andrea Immer, then worked in Bordeaux as a sommelier before settling here in Paris. Stop by and say hi—you'll find plenty of reasonably-priced wines, starting at less than 10€, and lots of good advice from Alison. She's friendly and knowledgeable...what more could you want from a caviste?

What's that? You do want more?
Then visit Alison's blog on the Taillevent web site.

Silly Illy

Ever since I got my new espresso machine, I've been trying to learn as much about the complex art of making espresso as possible.

Continue reading "Ce weekend à Paris" »

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A Quiz: How French Are You?

I found this quiz by Mireille Gulliano, written to promote her latest book . Her previous one was "French Women Don't Get Fat."

(I hate to tell her, but yes, they apparently do.)

According to Mireille, "French women stay slim while relishing life to the fullest" and her tips include setting a nice table when dining alone or drinking a half a glass of Champagne. When I'm alone, I eat in bed while watching Larry King debate the future of Anna Nicole Smith's remains.

And who the heck drinks half a glass of Champagne?

Presumably if you answer 'd' to any of the questions, you're very French. So I guess I'm not very French, since I had to add my own category: 'e'.

Why not take the test yourself, and see how you fare?

1. Your idea of the ultimate chocolate fix is?

a. A chocolate Entenmann's donut.
b. A Hershey bar.
c. Godiva truffles.
d. One or two pieces of high-quality dark chocolate.

Answer: e.
My idea of the ultimate chocolate fix is an entire bar of dark chocolate interspersed with heaping spoonfuls of salted-butter caramel.

2. How do you take your coffee?

a. I don't drink coffee.
b. Can't stand it without cream and three sugars.
c. I add Equal and skim milk for low-cal pleasure.
d. A small cup of freshly brewed coffee needs no lightening or sweetening.

Answer: e.
I start my day with a big café au lait in the morning that's so strong it'd put hair even on Mireille's petite poitrine. Then I switch to shots of dark café express throughout the day until I'm so wired I have to start in on the wine by mid-afternoon, drinking enough the rest of the evening to wind down enough so I'm able to sleep that night. That is, if I manage to find my way home that evening. Otherwise I just sleep it off wherever I wind up.

Then I begin the process all over again the next day.

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Should You Go To Culinary School?

This is undoubtably the oldest entry I've ever posted.
It began in 1998 (or was is 1999?) when I first launched my site and almost from the get-go, I was inundated with requests from people inquiring whether or not they should go to cooking school, and more specifically, how to become a pastry chef.

So I gathered my thoughts to help the undecided. Over the years, I've added a bit (namely including some links to blogs) and although I've added bits of advice that I've considered over the years, I'm finally posting it on the site.

If you're thinking about becoming a professional cook, whether or not to go to shool may be the ultimate question for you to ponder. There are some very good culinary schools, but in general, I think it's worth getting some experience either in a restaurant kitchen or bakery before you decide to invest a lot of money in education. Perhaps the work is far more challenging than expected or the pay is going to be far (very far) lower than what you're making as, say, an anesthesiologist.

Should You Go To Cooking School?

Over the years, I've gotten number of inquiries for people thinking they're like to cook professionally. Perhaps much of the interest began when the 'celebrity chef' craze took hold in the 80's and people began thinking it was exciting to work in a restaurant kitchen. I know, since I was one of those people. I loved restaurant work (well, most of the time) and it can be lots of fun depending on where you are. I've had some of the most fun times of my life working in restaurant kitchens, but it can also be a living hell.

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