Morisy.com

My old roommate was a master foodie. Cooking was his passion and, by God, he was good at it. He would eat some of the weirdest things (peanut butter and curry sandwiches were not unusual), but in his generous experimentation, I never tasted anything that wasn't two miles past delicious.

But cooking around him was intimidating: To use his knife and pan set required an afternoon tutorial going through the various blades, special cleaning instructions for each type of metal, and learning the correct order to apply salt, water and oil to to All-Clad pan (I'm still not 100% on that one). The end result was while he loved and embraced teaching cooking, his lessons almost invariably made the whole process terrifying, despite his best intentions.

I'm not alone in my intimidation, as Michael Ruhlman noted in his post "America: Too Stupid to Cook":

Diesel Sweeties is, as usual, prescient:

Of course, that comes right on top of me finding a reason to be addicted to caffeine all over again.

6 shots enter, one drink leaves

When it comes to coffee, I've never been a huge Starbucks fan. Why pay $4 a drink when you can pay $15 bucks, cut the sugar, and brew your own for a month? When I do go to Starbucks, dragged along with a friend, I try and make my order as quick and painless as possible. I guess I'm just a Dunkin' Donuts kinda guy in that respect. But I do love a good caffeine fix, and when I heard talk of the Hoffachino, I had to at least give it a try. Here's the recipe from inventor Christopher Hoff's website (some Starbuckese removed, my personal preference):

• Venti Starbucks Doubleshot on ice
• 6 shots
• 3 Splenda
• No syrup
• 1/2 and 1/2

The first time I ordered, it took about 6 confirmations with the barista and I was worried the order would still be messed up, but my fears were for naught. Six shots of espresso have never gone down so easy, and within about two minutes I'd polished that $3.68 (tax included!) worth of heaven off. I also had a minor stroke, but the fact I only slept 30 minutes the night before had become irrelevant, so all-in-all a fair trade off. Verdict: Must try. Particularly if you've given up sleep. Further Reading:

• @Beaker, Hoff's highly amusing Twitter account that almost makes me wish I was into cloud computing.
• Starbucks nutrition calculator. Unlike Burger King, they won't let you see what's in a custom item or deep link. Lame.
• The original recipe post, as far as I can tell.