Caffe in Italy

You might ask why we have an espresso machine in Italy where great coffee is available practically everywhere? Heather enjoys a cappuccino in bed each morning courtesy of her wonderful (my description) husband Larry. In the US this obviously requires a home machine as the last thing Larry's going to do is get a "Fourbucks" to go! But even here in Viterbo the nearest bar is a block away and getting cappuccino to go is kinda tacky anyway -- hence the little jewel you see here, Gaggia's machine using the new ILLY iperespresso capsules. We tried a FrancisFrancis unit awhile back (dubbed "Stewie" for the football-like face) and liked the espresso just fine but couldn't justify tossing our perfectly good Gaggia Classic aside. But Larry swore the next coffee machine he bought would be an Illy iperespresso unit -- so he had to put his euros where his mouth was! This little rascal puts out excellent espresso every time, no skill needed. We'll keep it after our time in Viterbo for when/if we can finally figure out how to live in Italy full-time. A PS: if you have yet to subscribe to La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia, our electronic newsletter, go to www.cycleitalia.com and scroll down to the "What's New?" link to sign yourself up. A new issue will go out in the next few days. (Disclaimer for the FTC- we paid full price for all of our Gaggia units and can only hope they read this and do something nice for us)