PICNIC

The horizontal is seconds, the vertical is ounces. The steep slope is a shot with the brew water at 190˚. You can see it’s flowing much faster. The two on the right are shots with water at about 202˚. The graph is useful, I think, but is very tedious to produce. For instance, it’s interesting that the flow rates don’t curve gently upward, but rather have distinct moments of increased flow. On the 202˚ shots, at about 18-20 seconds you can see that the flow rate suddenly doubles. Why is this? (The bumps in the lines are from the fact that the espresso is flowing in big, goopy drops.)

I’m trying to find all the variables that go into producing a consistent shot. The big ones are temperature of the brew water and the amount of grounds in the puck. All 3 shots used 0.75 ounces of grounds. The only other variable, I believe, is the pressure used to tamp the puck. There is a device for this. It utilizes a mechanism similar to a torque wrench.

Kate is making matzo, cream cheese, and pickle breakfast sandwiches. I just had one as a snack. The cream cheese makes the matzo taste very alive, as normally it’s a cracker that absorbs flavors and hides them away.

The paint on the door of the cart was beginning to bubble and peel. Scraping off layers I discovered an old paintjob that attempted to replicate wood. There was a dark brown paint with light brown brushstrokes. Then in an attempt to really make it look like a wood door, they put a coat of polyurethane on top. Perhaps not such a bad idea, but then painting over that was not the most weatherproof choice. The door is made out of metal, it’s very tricky and all done to look like a paneled door, which it is, but each element is wrapped in zinc. I scraped off as much paint as I could and am now painting it dark green. I also need to make a little awning for the door so it doesn’t peel again.

Emily Scroggs, an anthropology student at Lewis and Clark, interviewed me about my food cart this evening. She’s already talked to the owners of Savor. In Oakland, which is where she’s from, she says that food carts do not really exist.

At Pastaworks today, Dave the butcher was telling me about a dish he had at 3 Doors Down, called ‘the crouton.’ It’s a thick slice of ciabatta sauteed in olive oil, covered with a mushroom/sherry/cream sauce.

After doing some analysis with my espresso machine, measuring out exact amounts of espresso, taking temperature readings of the water, weighing the espresso as it flowed out, I was able to answer, hesitantly, a question Joel put to me. Does the espresso come out quicker or slower at a higher temperature? It comes out slower at a higher temperature, I have observed. His Ethiopian is also very tasty.

I picked up a Japanese on demand water heater today. Installation will be difficult.