Rocket Girl

There are some things one should really only buy from Italy. Shoes, flashy cars and, yeah, espresso makers.  And no one's ever going to accuse me of being self-denying. To wit, meet my precious:

Rocket Cellini Evoluzione V2

I have made 8 espressos in the last half an hour. Sure, a few of them went right down the drain. But I'm so jacked up on caffeine right now, I should be able to unpack every box in the next 2 hours :-)

This machine hovers in the sweet spot between commercial- and consumer-grade. It works for home and light-commercial purposes and it'll likely last 20 years. Moreover, the heat exchanger (2 pressurization systems) allows one to make the espresso while also foaming the milk. And the foamer does not fuck around.

We also bought a good Italian grinder (the Lux). It's not the one that costs 1300 bucks so we'll need to play about with a knob to set the right grind. Once we find that, though, this version is every bit as good as the $$ one at half the price.

I can tell you that pulling a perfect shot is both complicated and eternally simple. I deliberately went with a semi-automatic machine because, people, I'm not a robot. I want to engage with my coffee, not to simply press a button. And every time I open the brew lever I am miraculously transported from greasy, grey, late-winter TO to endlessly beautiful, mid-summer Barcelona. Mentally, I'm on a terasse. This whole house smells like a cafe. I'm using some pre-ground beans (Faema gave us a batch ground to the correct consistency for practice purposes) and the taste is crazy delicious. It's caramelly and bitter with some cocoa undertones - I'm not into fruity beans. I steamed all the kinds of milk from skim to homogenized to determine what will make the best foam. I'm leaning towards the full fat for a thick, milky pour. Note: these beans must be jacked on caffeine because, even as a daily 3-shot drinker, I'm jittery right now.

This machine plumbs into the waterline which, obvs we won't do till we bring it back to the "new" house in the fall. In the meanwhile, we can use its water reservoir which, while quite robust, still required 2 refills while Scott made his own batch of coffees.

I've spent 15 years wanting a gorgeous machine and Scott has always used the same refrain: Wait till we renovate and put in an espresso counter. Secretly, I believe that was his way to avoid bringing any new appliances into an overstuffed kitchen and, really, he doesn't like to commit when it comes to the gizmos. Remind me to tell you about the ice cream maker fiasco of 2010.

The time for delayed gratification has been and gone. This is the season for living like a grown-up - a grown-up with great taste. We have a huge, if not chic, front porch (maybe 300 square feet) that'll be totally perfect for knitting while coffee drinking this summer. Now I just need to find that real fur blanket...