last fall a great Italian friend of mine was hired by the Met and i took a trip out there to show him—a babe in the woods as far as having never left the Florentine motherland—the glories of Bed Bath and Beyond & Ikea and to argue the necessity of spending the money for a waterproof North Face jacket at EMS.
throw down the money, i told my friend, and POOF, not more than a month later, i was sent a warm and remote hug from the Met’s icy rooftop terrace.

NY being NY, taking a trip to EMS meant a trip to Soho, which meant stopping first at Grand Central Station for espresso in the form of a cloud at Joe’s, then on to Kee’s Chocolates and Sullivan Street Bakery.

Jim Lahey, the owner of Sullivan Street Bakery, is on my list of “Why Can’t Los Angeles Make Bread Like These Guys” and is known for his No Knead Bread. sadly he had a split with his partner so we discovered that the Soho store was no longer called SSB but Grandaisy, owned by his ex-partner (and still good!)

today i found out Joe’s has switched its bean source from Barrington to Ecco and there was some hubbub online that i must have missed. the wonderful folks at Barrington will still sell you its Gold beans online, but it’s a telling sign of impending suckiness at Joe’s.

LA being LA, the only way to get good bread and a real espresso is to make it yourself. today, being a watch-the-convalescing-pup-devour-a-bone day, i made a loaf of bread (two actually, the rectangular one is gluten-free)

and thought about what my Italian friend would say to the argument of whether to spend the money on a Behmor roaster?

notice the shipping discount and the 8 lbs free green beans.