If you lose motivation because of the amount of time that you’d spend cooking, you should consider using days off to prep building blocks that can be used for different meals. Keeping the initial cook simple can give you a broad canvas to change things up on the spot so that you don’t get fatigued over the flavor. You can salt a large chunk of meat like a pork shoulder or chuck roast and use a long cooking method like a braise or a roast. The longer cook times will make these cuts extremely tender, and you’ll only have to do it once. Use them throughout the week in whatever application you feel like on the day, even if that means just adding it to your ramen. Since it’s just salted, it’s versatile enough to adapt to whatever seasonings or sauces you add to it. If you’re using store bought ingredients, you can put together pasta, bbq sandwiches, or quesadillas pretty quickly.

As far as vegetables go, you can also prep individual portions of things like a mirepoix a week ahead of time, to cut down on the work you have to do every day. You could even freeze it in ice cube trays to make them last longer if you have the space. You can mince garlic ahead of time and store it in a neutral oil. If you don’t mind acidity, pickling and lacto fermenting your vegetables is a good way to both preserve them and have something that’s ready to go on demand. Some vegetables like broccoli can be parcooked without sacrificing texture to reduce the amount of time you have to spend cooking on the day of.

Meal kits may not have worked for you because they simplify the shopping, not the actual cooking process. It still takes the same amount of time to cook a meal kit, which doesn’t exactly help when you’re hungry and exhausted. I think that prepping pieces of a meal in advance will give you the tools to throw something together almost as quickly and easily as ramen, which might lead to you cooking more often. I hope this helps, and I’d be happy to expand on anything that was vague or otherwise lacking!

If your coffee is tasting watery, you probably need to increase your brew ratio. For a drip coffee, you want to be in the range of 1:15-1:18 depending on the bean and personal preference.

If your issue is the body/texture of the coffees here, you might prefer a brew method that doesn’t involve paper filters. Something like a moka pot or a french press would be a cheap way to dip your toes into this, and a moka pot brew with water added is probably the cheapest way to get something close to an Americano, which is what I assume you mean by black coffee.

Also, you’re going to see people recommending that you buy specialty coffee from a local roaster, but I don’t think that should be the first move you make if your goal is recreating your experience in Italy. American third wave coffee has a tendency towards highlighting origin characteristic and bright tones, which don’t lend themselves toward getting the result I think you’re looking for. If you want a roast-forward flavor profile, try using a mass-produced Italian supermarket brand like Illy or Lavazza.

Personally, I’m usually making a cortado with a bit of a longer ratio (1:2.5) to get more punchy fruit flavors out of my roasts. But if I’m evaluating a new bean/tweaking my roast, I’ll also brew on a V60/Orea V4 so that I can get a bit more flavor separation and nuance. Also since it’s summer, I’ll sometimes do a Japanese iced coffee in the afternoons.

It seems like you’re making the assumption that in saying it’s disingenuous to make the claim, I’m casting some final moral judgment about the OP or their overall trustworthiness. Correct me if I’m wrong about that, you just seem to have taken issue with me potentially accidentally having called OP dishonest. To be clear, I was calling them dishonest (with regards to only the claim they made about their stainless steel pan being more nonstick than a nonstick pan, at least for the scope of my comment). It’s just patently untrue that a stainless steel pan is more nonstick than a Teflon nonstick pan, no matter what you do to the stainless steel pan (except applying a nonstick coating). I don’t have to make any unfounded assumptions about any mental state here. To make the claim requires that you are either innocently misinformed/uninformed or purposely making a misrepresentation about this particular issue.

And, for the record, I’m not assuming that the OP is malicious or intentionally set out to mislead people. It’s exciting to achieve little to no sticking in a stainless steel pan and you want to share that achievement with others, hopefully to encourage them to achieve the same thing. All I did was correct some innocent exaggeration. And if it was malicious, well, at least I still used disingenuous correctly.

Usually, it’s a robusta from Vietnam that’s been brewed using a phin, the dripper featured in the original picture. It’s often sweetened with a healthy dose of condensed milk to take some of the edge off of mass-produced and heavily roasted robusta.

Unfortunately, scrambled eggs are one of those things that are a bit harder to cook in stainless. If you’ve been using oil, switching to butter can help with some of the sticking, but you might end up using more butter than you’d like and some heat management is still necessary. Honestly, a lot of people keep a single nonstick frying pan just for things like eggs, seared fish, or sauteed tofu, so don’t feel pressured to make it work on stainless.

If you really feel compelled to move off Teflon completely, a carbon steel or cast iron pan will be much better suited to replacing nonstick for the instances where you’re getting excessive sticking, at the cost of needing to avoid acids in the pan. But if I were you, I’d just keep using my Teflon pans until there’s any flaking or chipping before making up my mind.

First of all, congratulations on the baby! :) If you don’t mind me asking, what sorts of dishes are you struggling to make on stainless steel?

I’m going to be presumptuous here and make a few suggestions, so feel free to push back if you’ve tried some of these things and they haven’t worked or aren’t as easy as I’m presenting. If you do still want to transition to stainless, it’ll be easiest to start by only doing it bit by bit, rather than all at once. Dishes that naturally contain some acidic element (like tomatoes, citrus juice, vinegars, or wine) will be easiest to cook without a bunch of sticking. I’d recommend starting with a tomato-based pasta sauce. If, as it reduces, you notice bits sticking to the sides, it’s easy enough to loosen up just by stirring a bit of the sauce onto it. Once you’re more comfortable with this, you can try sauteing vegetables in the pan. Even with preheating, it’ll might result in some stuck on bits, but adding a splash of lemon juice or champagne vinegar at the very end and agitating all of the ingredients should both brighten up the overall dish a bit as well as lift most (if not all) of those browned spots you saw. When it comes to searing meats, you might also have to adjust how often you’re flipping. If it feels stuck when trying to flip it for the first and second time, waiting a bit longer will eventually lead to the meat releasing from the pan. After the initial release on both sides, it won’t be anywhere near as sticky and you can flip as often as you’re used to. I wouldn’t worry about any browned spots either. While resting the meat, you can toss a bit of wine along with some stock in, turn up the heat, and stir continuously to loosen those bits up as well as flavor your pan sauce. Once it’s reduced to about your desired consistency, you can throw a slice or two of cold butter in and stir for a relatively low effort but still tasty pan sauce. Plus, you make washing the pan much easier. I think this tends to be easier than trying to achieve a nonstick effect with stainless, and sort of demonstrates that there’s ways to work around the issues some people have that aren’t strictly heat management.

My cat really wanted to press the submit button halfway through and force me to edit it to complete the thought as quickly as possible. Sorry if it isn’t quite helpful, and I’d be happy to follow up on any of it.

I’d posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can’t get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I’ll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.

You won’t find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can’t achieve those results.

Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there’s not much that I’d use Teflon for, so I just don’t have one after switching to induction.

I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they’ll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn’t true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.

This post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel (“I’m so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect”). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.

I’m really not in a position to understand your financial situation, but I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to accept money from people. I’ve been on a few dates with girls who just put their Cashapp/Venmo in their dating bios without any explanation, and it weirdly seems to work. I’ve literally seen the notifications of random men just sending them money while we’re out for coffee or something. It’s not like they made a bunch of money from it or anything, but there were definitely guys willing to send them money without them even asking for it or pretending to offer anything in return. If you’re not lying to them and they just send you money, I don’t think you’re not a bad person for taking it. Some people just want to spend that way. I will say that if it makes you feel weird, you probably shouldn’t do it though.

If you need someone to talk to in the future, feel free to dm me. I’m not opposed to a respectful Internet friendship, and if you’re feeling lonely and just want someone to talk to I don’t want you to necessarily feel limited to the contents of the original post.

Yeah I can’t say the conversations with those guys were exactly a good thing, but you regret it and I don’t see the point in dwelling on it as long as you don’t do it again. Feeling guilty about not telling him at first is a normal reaction, but things didn’t go wrong just because you didn’t tell him immediately. You worked up the courage to tell him, and that took strength. I will say though, I don’t think it’s necessarily good to tell him just because it makes you feel guilty. You should share things with people out of a positive want to, not out of guilt.

I saw elsewhere in the thread that your body count made you feel terrible because it got such a negative reaction from this guy. I don’t think you should be worried about it, because it doesn’t define you or say anything about you as a person. I’ve had partners and irl friends with much higher body counts than you, and I didn’t think any less of them because of it. It’s one of the least interesting things about a person, so getting too worked up about it is weirdo behavior.

I’m probably the wrong person to ask, since I haven’t really been on socials for about 4 years now, but I really don’t think it’s a big deal to share your Instagram with someone. Are you both particularly cagey about who you share it with? Maybe there’s just a more recent divide on how you curate your personal stuff now.

As far as being upset about not immediately sharing that someone else sent you unsolicited pictures, I think the anger is probably related to some other underlying issue moreso than trust. It could be about some insecurities that he has, but I’m not going to try too hard to rationalize his thought process because the response was completely inappropriate. We can’t even know for sure the response would have been any different even if you had told him right away. You didn’t want the pictures, and you did tell him about them on your own without him prying. He doesn’t get to determine the timeline that you do it on.

You’re not being delusional if you think he’s being irrational. He complains about not being able to trust you, but I don’t see why he deserves your trust either. I wouldn’t trust him with my emotions since he hasn’t shown that he can treat them with the depth that they deserve. The Instagram and GoFundMe stuff sounds like a really complex scenario, but he only thought about how it made him feel. If someone I actually care about did something that made them feel disgusting, I would want to comfort them before addressing the way that it made me feel. It’s something that happened to you, not him. He doesn’t get to be the victim just because you didn’t perfectly follow his instructions regarding the GoFundMe. He just dogpiled on you without giving you any air when you were the one who trusted him enough to open up about it.

In the future, you shouldn’t have to “try” to win anyone back. People who want to be in your life will put in the effort, since relationships are a two-way street. The people who don’t try aren’t deserving of your time. This sounds like it was a pretty terrible experience for you, but I hope it doesn’t make you more jaded about emotionally connecting with people.

I’m gonna be frank: I would not want to remain friends with someone like this at all. It’s incredibly insulting and manipulative to tell someone that they’re unworthy of being trusted when you know that they have issues with their self-worth, while also continuing to maintain contact with said person. Trust should be implicit in any opt-in relationship, whether it’s a platonic friendship or a romantic one. Relationships require sharing vulnerability, and I wouldn’t do that with anyone I don’t trust not to take advantage of me. If for any reason I no longer feel able to trust a person, that’s fine, it’s just where the relationship is going to end. From my (admittedly extremely limited) outsider perspective, you’re being vulnerable to this guy and he’s taking advantage of it.

You were honest with him about what you viewed as a mistake, and he used that as a vehicle to say you can’t be trusted? Make that make sense. I can’t say whether I’d be happy about it in the same scenario, but if anything it would make me trust you more. Even though you knew it would be upsetting, you made the mature choice to tell him what happened. I think an appropriate response in that situation would be to be upset, but to recognize that you were already reflecting on your actions. It sounds as though you were already unhappy, and even if he wasn’t going to comfort you, the least he could do is not blow a fuse. That’s not healthy behavior in a relationship, and I’d urge you to look at things like that when vetting potential partners in the future.

Plainly speaking, it sounds like you were just being strung along from this point forward. He knows or should have known how hurtful it is to say that he can’t trust you, especially given all of the nice and flowery things he’s said in the previous months. He knows your insecurities, and made them so much worse with his actions. Then, he continues a physical relationship with you and the dates under the guise of being “just friends” while knowing that you want something more from the relationship. That’s a horribly shitty thing to do to someone that you know you have an emotional grip on, especially if they have some emotional trauma as you seem to. It’s not something I would do to someone I dislike, let alone a friend I’m supposed to care about. It shows a complete disdain for your feelings. You deserve much better from your friends. Strangers on the internet shouldn’t be more considerate of your feelings than some guy that you wanted a relationship with.

I hope your therapy goes well. I’m rooting for you, and want to tell you that I think that you are absolutely worthy of love as you are, so you should try loving yourself. You’re honest, introspective, and capable of self-critique.

You can try using this tool by Unspecialty to get an idea of the grind size/uniformity without buying any fancy equipment. As far as whether your grinder is up to snuff, I think how the coffee tastes to you is the best determinant. If it tastes good to you, it’s good coffee :)

Assuming that you’re looking for filter coffee, the Specialty Coffee Association and European Coffee Brewing Center both have certification programs for home coffee makers. None of these machines should be a barrier to getting a great cup of coffee, so you can comfortably focus on picking a machine based on price/aesthetic/convenience features from either of these lists. Even if you don’t want anything from these lists, looking at their guidelines will be helpful in knowing what to look for when selecting a machine. Naturally, the lists are nonexhaustive and only feature machines that have paid for the certification testing.

If you’re interested in manual brewers, some of the more accessible brewers would be the Clever Dripper, Ceado Hoop, Aeropress, or the Hario Switch. None of these brewers gets much benefit from using a gooseneck kettle, so you won’t need to jump too far down the rabbit hole.

I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t concerned about the taste of your coffee at all, sorry if that’s how it came across! I tried to stay away from the elitist tendencies that creep in when talking about coffee gear because I find it counterproductive and off-putting, and what’s more important than anything is that we all enjoy the cups that we brew.

If you’re brewing with an Aeropress, I can see why the value proposition of more expensive grinders seems a bit suspect. It’s a very forgiving brewer (and the perfect size for travel), which is one of its greatest strengths. Immersion brewers are tolerant of a significantly wider range of grind sizes and tend towards producing rounder flavors and more even extractions. This is an obvious oversimplification of the Aeropress, since there’s some absolutely wild World Aeropress Championship recipes (especially from a couple years ago), but I think there isn’t a need to dial in much on the Aeropress because it’s so forgiving. I feel like I’d have to actively try to get a bad result out of an Aeropress, which is a huge testament to how great it is.

My personal preference when it comes to filter coffee at home is either a V60 or an Orea V4. Generalizing again, but the grinder becomes a lot more important in pour overs because it reduces variables when it comes to your extraction. A more uniform grind allows water to trickle through the bed at similar rates. Too many boulders and fines in the bed can lead to a cup tasting simultaneously bitter and acidic, which doesn’t really happen in my experience with the Aeropress. However, the cups that I get when I have the beans dialed in offer more clarity and flavor separation than I get from an Aeropress, which isn’t necessarily better, just different.

I’d tend to agree with you on electric grinders, by and large. It feels like you’re either better suited buying a hand grinder for the same price as your budget, or you’d need to spend substantially more for an electric grinder that can match a $200 hand grinder. If you’re interested in an electric grinder, a little bit handy, and have the counter space, you might want to keep an eye out for used commercial grinders. I’ve seen quite a few Mazzer Super Jollys and their rebranded cousins in my area, so you might be able to eventually pick up one in yours for a steal.

Generally speaking, more expensive grinders are going to be better aligned, offer more grind size options, and have burr geometries that are suited to particular types of brew methods. In the case of hand grinders, they’ll also probably be significantly easier to crank than something like a Hario Mini Slim. I personally found that when I switched from the Hario to a more expensive hand grinder about 7 years ago, I was getting cups that were tastier and more consistent. I’m not going to pretend that it’s worth the additional cost for everyone, but for me personally it was about getting more of what I want from coffee rather than what I need.

I’m going to stray from the crowd here and sing the praises of ethyl acetate (EA or sugarcane) decaffeination. In my experience, it’s produced the most consistently “good” decafs. I’ve had plenty of good SWP beans, but sometimes they result in a more muted flavor. I have yet to have an EA decaf where I’ve felt that it was lacking for any reason other than roaster error (the roaster being myself). Some of my EA roasts have been so good that my friends have expressed skepticism about it actually being decaf.

That being said, I think if you purchase from a roaster who really takes pride in their decaf, they’re unlikely to source a SWP (or really any decaffeination method) that doesn’t result in a tasty, flavorful cup. Nobody in specialty coffee sets out to make a roast that a customer doesn’t like. That being said, I would avoid any roaster who doesn’t openly advertise which decaffeination method was used. To me, it signals either lack of pride in the end result or a lack of care in sourcing.

Late to the party here, but I’d caution against buying sets. They often come bundled with lots of superfluous pans that your giftee might not use. If you know their normal cooking habits, I’d purchase individual pieces to make your own set. To that end, I’d probably say that you want to pick up just two skillets, a saucepan, and a pot, unless they’re starting from scratch and tossing all their other cookware.

For the pan, I think that a regular cast iron is a good choice. Cheap options here for a brand new pan are Lodge and Victoria, and they work as well as the more expensive boutique cast iron brands. You’ll likely have trouble finding nicer antique cast iron at thrift stores because it’s become rather popular to buy and resell Wagners, BSRs, and Griswolds for the price of new Lodges or more. If your giftee doesn’t mind used antiques, these three brands are all quite nice if you know what to look for. Definitely check for any signs of pitting if you look for a used one. If you really wanted to though, Field, Stargazer, and Butter Pat all have more expensive pans that are polished to have a smooth surface. This will not affect the performance of the pan in any way, shape, or form. If they cook with tomatoes or other acidic foods a lot, you’re going to want to opt for an enameled skillet. Le Creuset and Staub are the default answers here, since they have a long history and lifetime warranty. However, if you want something cheaper, Tramontina and Lodge also make enameled skillets. As for size, a 10-inch skillet should be sufficient for a family of 2-4, while a 12-inch skillet or larger would be necessary for larger families. These skillets get much heavier as you increase in size, so there are some downsides to just picking up the largest size available.

Personally, I find that I only ever need one cast iron skillet, because I just don’t ever cook two separate dishes at the same time that would take advantage of the main advantages of cast iron (great heat retention and the ability to go from stovetop to oven). If you think they’d like it, I would suggest going with stainless steel for a second skillet. It’s capable of handling acids, heats quickly, is oven safe, and can be used to build fond. It’ll also last a lifetime with proper care. Here, almost any fully clad skillet is suitable, but some of the splurge options are Demeyer and Hestan. I have no personal experience with them, but the lack of rivets does look rather nice. I use All-Clad skillets myself, but the handle shape can be unwieldy on some of the lines so they aren’t for everyone. Great Jones is a direct to consumer brand that makes some pretty looking cookware, but aren’t necessarily cheap. More budget options that still do the job perfectly well are Calphalon and Tramontina. I’m sure many other fully clad options out there are also great, these are just the ones that I could think of off the top of my head and believe are worth taking a look at. Given the sloped edges of most stainless steel skillets, you’d probably want something in the 12-inch range. Alternatively, a stainless steel saute pan could be good. A 3qt size could bridge some of the gap between a skillet and a pot.

On the topic of stainless steel, I also think it’s the material of choice for a small saucepan. In my opinion, cast iron is just too heavy and changes temperature too slowly to be suitable for a saucepan. All the same brand recommendations apply when looking for a saucepan. I like the 1qt size and it’s probably what I use the most, but anything from 1-2qt is probably good. Too large and you end up with something too similar to the dutch oven

For a pot, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than an enameled cast iron dutch oven if you must have cast iron. It provides more flexibility to cook with acids and liquids without worrying about ruining the seasoning. As above, Le Creuset and Staub make beautiful pieces that carry a lot of social cache, and they both feature a lifetime warranty. I have experience with the Le Creuset warranty, and was able to get a free replacement dutch oven after mine suffered some chips in the enamel. However, Tramontina and Lodge both make perfectly good options at a much lower price point. Here, I’d buy a dutch oven that’s anywhere from 6-8qt, depending on personal need. I’d err on the side of larger, but they can take up a lot of space.

These four items should be enough to cover 99% of a home cook’s needs without taking up a bunch of storage space. You can always add more if you’d like, and I’d be happy to make more recommendations if you know what sort of cooking your giftee likes to do. I know that personally, I’d be happier with a curated selection of nicer pans than a set that comes with more pans than I know what to do with. Best of luck, and I’m sure your giftee will love it no matter what!

Assuming that you want to keep your budget in a price range similar to the Capresso Infinity Plus, you don’t have too many electric options that will be suited for espresso, let alone suited for filter coffee and espresso.

That being said, I think the Baratza Encore sounds right up your alley when it comes to longevity and reliability. It’s more expensive than the Capresso, but it’s durable, repairable (and popular enough that you’ll find lots of documentation online from others who have had to repair the grinder), and definitely a capable-enough grinder to get tasty cups with. In my personal experience, it’s the cheapest electric grinder where you aren’t necessarily conceding taste for convenience when it comes to grinding for filter coffee. And if you for some reason get the itch to upgrade your setup, the Encore can be made to fit a different burr offered by Baratza, the M2, which does improve the filter coffee. The original Encore makes claims that it can grind for espresso, but you should take that with a grain of salt. While it can technically grind at the espresso range, the grind adjustment mechanism simply cannot make the minute adjustments necessary to dial in your espresso properly. You can probably get a drinkable espresso, and maybe even a good one depending on the particular bean, but I don’t think you would get enough control to ever be satisfied if you are particular about your espresso, or ever think you might become particular in the future.

That being said, Baratza has also recently released a different version of the Encore, the Encore ESP, that they claim is capable of making minute adjustments for espresso. I want to stress that I have no personal experience with this grinder, unlike the Encore, so I cannot vouch for its suitability for espresso, nor whether it’s worth the additional cost. It is worth doing more research into if you think that you’ll want to get more into espresso.

I know that I wrote quite a bit about the Encore, but that’s really just because I made the assumption that you were looking for an electric grinder. Others have mentioned hand grinders in the sub 220USD price range, and I personally would tend to choose a hand grinder of the same price versus an electric grinder. This might be due to my own personal biases, but in my experience, hand grinders offer far better value for money in this space (but how much you value convenience may differ).