When I woke up and saw my hometown paper’s food section was devoted to coffee, I was thrilled: I could skip it and go straight to gobbling digital doughnuts on Twitter. I can count the number of times I have ever had a better cappuccino out than we brew up every morning. Ours taste like Italy, the country where we have consumed more cappuccino than anywhere else on the planet. The pros may get the fancy designs on the top, but I prefer hot coffee to cool-looking coffee. The magic comes from the Francis Francis espresso machine I bought my consort for his birthday back when I was working at the hometown paper and had the kind of insane salary that deludes editors into thinking $225 Baccarat Champagne flutes make sense for an Oscar party in the worst economy since the Depression. It was a true gift because I didn’t drink cappuccino unless we were traveling in some country where the only cure for caffeine withdrawal is Coke (I used to prefer the ballet slipper to the head that is tea rather than the combat boot that is coffee). Only after I spent 15 days in a hospital in Italy after a stupid accident did I develop the habit. The coffee shop in that lobby in Turin was my big exciting outing when my consort would come to visit, and once we got home he became my barista. Now I’m so hooked the first thing I do every morning, even before picking the papers off the doormat, is switch on the machine. I’ve even learned to tamp the espresso properly so we don’t have to spring for the cra…[...]

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Amortizing an Espresso Machine