Coffee in Hyde Park: I had the misfortune of being stuck in down town Hyde Park needing a coffee without access to a car. I started at Sip and Savour where I ordered a cortado. They did not know what a cortado was. I paused, considered the situation, and slowly walked out. Attempt number two was at a cafe which was nominally a Peets but was actually a “Capital One” cafe. They did have a fine looking Marzocco machine which was a good sign, but they also had a very bored looking barista and my attempt to order a cortado lead to strike two: they also had no idea what I was taking about. I then peeked into Philz Coffee which I know is not really an espresso place; indeed they did not seem to have an espresso machine at all. I considered just getting a regular coffee, but I didn’t like the vibe and ended up at “Cafe 53.” Here I somehow ended up with two small (to go) espresso cups, one consisting of a very watered down and undrinkable espesso, and the other filled with frothed milk. I politely put them on the table, worked on my laptop for 30 minutes, then discretely through them in the trash. Thank god for Plein Air near campus!
The quest for a good Kouign-Amann: In 2009 I went to a conference in Roscoff organized by Tilouine and Hida (mentioned previously here). I have a number of fond memories from that conference: The mathematical discussions; the tides; the speaker who wore loose hanging pants and then kept bending over very low to the ground to write on the extremities of the fairly low white boards to reveal a generous plumber’s crack to those of us fortunate to be sitting in the front row; but also the food. The culinary highlight for me (gizzards aside) was surely the Kouign-Amann, a super indulgent buttery cake which is a speciality of Brittany and of which I got to try several versions (all excellent). Little did I know how hard it would be to reproduce the same dish anywhere else, where very few people seemed to have heard of it. The less said about my attempts to make it myself the better. Now enter Dominique Ansel (spit). This third-rate fraud is probably best known for inventing the cronut, sold at his trendy eponymous bakery in NYC which took a certain section of the US culinary world by storm around 2013. But for me he will be eternally known as the chef who introduce the “Kouign-Amann” to the US. I use quotes here deliberately, since Ansel’s version is something resembling a slightly caramelized croissant and nothing than anything I had had in Brittany. I mean the guy has probably not been west of Rouen let alone actually gone to Brittany. It’s as if a Mexican chef in Baja boiled a tortilla with a hole cut out of it and called it a bagel. Of course, bakeries the entire world over started selling Kouign-Amanns based not on the original but on copies of Ansel’s version, which was a sad simulacrum of the original. I have now been on an almost 15-year quest around the world to find a cake sold by that name which in some way was as amazing as the first ones I tried but to no avail. From East coast to West coast, from Blé Sacré in Paris to, most recently, an hour waits in line at Lune croissanterie on Collins street. Mostly the results have been bad, but even when they have been quite decent they have not been Kouign-Amanns. The quest continues…
Chess: For those watching Ding-Nepo, what a match it has been so far! One thing I have appreciated about watching live on youtube is that the commentators (including Caruana and Giri) analyze the positions in real time instead of using stockfish. That helps you distinguish from an advantage which is obvious to a super GM from an advantage which is obvious only to a super computer! (By the time it is obvious to me the players have already resigned). I’m looking forward to tomorrow.