A Proper Italian Coffee Maker

I love coffee (I realize I say I love a lot of things culinary, but it's all true. If I didn't love these things I write about, it would hardly make for an interesting post: "I feel ambivalent about dill. The end."). I have recently kicked the caffeine habit, but I still can't walk away from having a (decaf) coffee a day. This is because I have a new coffee maker, and it's changed my coffee-drink life.

I've long considered buying a proper Bialetti Moka coffee maker, the 1930's style silver thing you put on your hob and can get espresso from. I've had a French press for a while, though, and felt a bit silly buying another coffee machine when the first one is working fine. Besides, the type that you plug into the wall and are all glimmer and gleam and hot froth are much more enticing, and I figured that if I were to get another coffee machine it would be that.

I was talking to my Italian friend recently about coffee machines. She has a beautiful barista-style machine in her house as well as a Moka machine, and she said she shuns the fancy one for the simple, hob-based one because the simpler one makes better coffee. Realizing that what an Italian doesn't know about coffee isn't worth knowing, I promptly went out and bought the coffee maker you see above, and have been enjoying gorgeous cups of coffee because of it. After several years of almost buying a Moka but holding back because it might be redundant, I've now saved myself much more money by getting the Moka and seeing that I don't need an expensive, counter-top machine. I'm a complete convert, and like anyone who has seen the light, I've already been trying to convert others to my new-found culinary passion.