A review of the Milk Pail

Do you live in the west bay, near Mountain View? Does your work take you by Palo Alto or San Jose? Then I want to tell you about my favorite all-time market: The Milk Pail. This wont be an authoritative source on its history or business, but rather why it's so much better than the surrounding competition (and why you should care).

The Milk Pail is a small, non-franchise market between Mountain View and Palo Alto. They advertise themselves as a European Market. What does that mean exactly? What do they even sell?

1. Unwholly foods. Citing itself as a European Market is a PC way of saying that the Milk Pail is not stuck up its own ass, like so many yuppy independent markets in the area. You wont find the typical foodie brand that other franchised outlets stuff down your throat. You wont find any health supplements, whether or not it's been approved by the FDA. Don't bother looking for the specific brand of Soy Milk that doesn't leave weird residue taste. The Milk Pail sells unadulterated sustenance: cheese, fruit, veggies, bread, bulk grains, dairy, eggs and a limited selection of meats. If you can't cook from scratch, then move on.

2. What you smell is what you see. I once heard French supermarkets described as superior over those in America because each aisle in France broadcasts a different and wonderful aroma. In contrast, food in the states is shrink wrapped, sterilized and plasticized before its even delivered. The Milk Pail is more like the former: it's messy; the floor resembles the ground at a farmers market, growing denser with food stains as the day wears on. You will not find a perfect pyramid of red delicious apples anywhere, or uniform spreads of pre-cut deli meat. Instead, all the produce is displayed with all the variety of Nature: different shapes and color, sometimes bruised, sitting in the distributor's cardboard box in which it was delivered. Are you a germaphobe? Do you cringe at slightly brown bananas? Is occasional imperfection unacceptable? If so, move on.

3. Cheese, Gromit! As the name suggests, the Milk Pail is an excellent source of cheese. They have an entire room dedicated to cheese, organized by its country of origin. Most of the cheese is not name brand -- the store buys it in bulk and repackages it, selling each cheese in packaged chunks priced by the pound. If you don't know what kind of cheese you like, they have a rotating sample station with 3-5 different cheeses. They also sell fresh bread, delivered twice daily. The best part of it all is the price.

4. The price is right. I am sick of friends telling me how affordable the cheese at Trader Joe's is. It's not cheap. It's just as expensive as Safeway, and by god if you buy produce there, I am judging you. If you want affordable, amazing produce and cheese, the Milk Pail is your friend. The cheese at the Milk Pail is often upwards of 50% cheaper than chain stores. Often, the best cheeses are also on special, and -- bless the Milk Pail's heart -- all the Special items in one location. There are some expensive items in the Milk Pail, like specialty imported goods (which you can specifically request on their website). However, most items are cheaper than any farmers market or store around the area.

Its not a one-stop shop. I don't get everything at the Milk Pail. It's a tiny store, and they couldn't possibly fit more selection in without sacrificing the quality of what they already have. The Milk Pail is not for household supplies, meat or booze. Still, it's amazing the variety of items you can find in the small space that would never be found in Safeway or Trader Joe's.

At least give it a try. Just avoid rush hour -- it can get pretty packed in there. When you're at the register, tell them Alexandre sent you. They'll look at your weird and ask you "Who's Alexandre?"

Please do share your opinion below...

Traditional Biscotti: subsidize your coffee addiction

"A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems."

A oft-misattributed quote from Paul Erdos in fact invented by the coffee-addicted Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Rényi. Yes, most of us students are addicted to coffee too. In fact, this morning I woke up an hour later than usual and already had a caffeine withdrawal headache (read: definitely not a hangover.)

I may be bad, but I think my coffee intake is pretty average... I buy one or two coffees every day (I go to a drip coffee bar Beckman Bistro at Stanford SoM). That's like $2.50 every day. If I work 200 days a year (lets face it, that's a reasonable estimate), we're looking at half a grand a year. That is a lot of money that I could be putting into retirement (oh yeah -- check out this awesome retirement guide for graduate students by Brandon Curtis here). I think I can understand why coffee is expensive, between farmers, roasters, distributors and baristas). Pastries, on the other hand, are way too expensive.

Lets start with biscotti. Coffee shops sell them individually wrapped for a couple of bucks. For a dry cookie with six ingredients, that seems really really unreasonable, especially for a grad student budget. Biscotti are extremely easy to make, and last forever.

Fun facts: Wikipedia claims the cookie's name is derived from Latin and refers to their "twice baked" recipe. My Italian colleague Carolina Tropini reminds me that if you want to impress your PI, remember to offer them either a single biscotto, or a few biscotti. Here's a recipe I adapted and simplified (from here). I really like it because it makes consistently good crunchy biscotti. Also, they end up being ~10 cents each.

 

Almond Biscotti (30 slices)

Ingredients
+ 2 cups flour
+ 1 cup sugar
+ 1 teaspoon baking powder
+ 1/8 teaspoon salt
+ Pack of raw unsalted almonds
+ 3 large eggs
+ Splash of Amaretto 

Preparation

Preheat oven to 300F. Don't bother with parchment, these cookies don't stick. 

Mix all the ingredients except almonds together until just combined. It'll be a really wet dough. Don't worry about it. Shape it into a loaf thing like in the photo above and cover the entire surface area with almonds (they'll spread out as the dough rises). Bake it for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean after sticking it into the dough. 

Now remove it from the oven, and let it cool down for 10 minutes. Then unstick the loaf and slice it into fairly thin diagonal cookies. Once that's all done, lay them flat back on the same cookie sheet and cook at 320F until browned. The cookies will harden as they cool down, so don't use their consistency as an indicator of "done-ness". Make yourself some coffee and enjoy!