I have been drinking only espresso macchiato and lattes for the last 3.5 years with my own espresso machine and grinder. (My husband drinks dripped coffee, and I sometimes drink a bit of what he brews.) However on a hot summer day like today, iced coffee seems to be so much more appealing, and I decided to follow the method that’s introduced at the Counter Culture Coffee’s website. (Counter Culture Coffee makes one of my favorite espresso beans, Espresso Toscano.) And the result? The BEST iced coffee I have ever tasted! It’s also much lighter tasting than iced Americano, which is made with espresso shots and ice/water. Also it gets the most aroma from the beans, and it tastes much more fresh than a lot of iced coffee that you get from the commercial places.

You can find the original instruction here:

http://www.counterculturecoffee.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=574&Itemid=

I used a coffee stand that my dear friend Robert Scott - a dentist, flutist, and a beautiful wood-worker - made for me last Christmas. It’s supposed to be a Costa Rican chorreador stand, but I think it works much better for this recipe. You can make your own following the direction here: http://www.runnerduck.com/coffee_maker.htm You can buy one at www.chorreador.com as well. (Of course the one that I bought in San Jose was much cheaper, but I am thrilled that you can finally order one in the states.)

Here is how I did:

1) Hang the coffee basket and filter on the chorreador stand (or find a similar way to suspend a basket above the glass that you’ll use for the finished coffee).

2) Boil enough water to fill a tall glass - you won’t use all of it, because the glass will have ice in it.

3) Put 3-4 tbs. of freshly ground coffee in the filter.  Today I used Coffee Klatch’s Ipanema Dulce.

4) Fill a tall glass to the top with ice cubes, and put it under the coffee basket.

5) Slowly pour the hot water over the filter.  Watch the coffee level in the glass so it doesn’t overflow.  You’ll wind up using less water than you would if you were making hot coffee with the same amount of grounds, to compensate for the dilution that happens when the hot water hits the ice cubes.

Enjoy!

Yes, that’s right! A Korean grocery store, not an Asian grocery store - here in Fargo!

I love eating all kinds of food, but I am a Korean at heart (naturally) and I crave Korean foods periodically. It’s been wonderful living in Fargo, but the grocery situation has not been too hot. I have had to order so many times from H-Mart online, which is highly over-priced, whenever I needed Korean pepper paste (Gochu-jang), Korean style noodles, etc.  But now with the help of this  little store, I won’t need to order anything from H-Mart for a long time.
This store is called “Everyday Mart”, and is located on the 10th St., between 7th and 8th Ave N. There used to be a sign that said “Maeil Mart” (in Korean) for a long time without anything inside the store. I saw an “Open” sign lit when I was driving a few weeks ago, and today I decided to check it out. It is operated by two very nice Korean ladies, and they have walls of nicely arranged sauces, oils, soups, seaweeds, pastes, rice, noodles, instant ramens and udons, flours, ready-made soups and other prepared foods, canned fish, etc. Also they have a freezer/ refrigerator section with various kinds of Korean style frozen  dumplings, frozen fish cake, jars of kimchi, a few side dishes (seasoned dried radish, seasoned sesame leaves, spicy salted squid  and so on) and some frozen fish, meat, and seafood mix. There’s even a wall of various teas from Korea. They also stock a few Japanese sauces and other Asian ingredients such as Sriracha sauce and fish sauce.

Things are about $1-3 cheaper (depending on what you are buying) than H-Mart online or the Asian American grocery store on Main.) - I am going to be a happy cook in the kitchen!

P.S. They keep only napa-cabage that’s needed for making kimchi or bean sprouts in the vegetable section. This is a store for sauces, seasonings, basic grains for cooking Korean style food, not a store for fresh produces.

707 10th St
Fargo, ND 58102-4319
(701) 232-2266