CONUNDRUM!

The hard working gents at Jasper Hill Farms have done it again... Introducing the newest addition to their cheese lineup, Conundrum! Aka soon to be named something else (this is the name for all their experimental cheeses), aka Mini-Winni-Mo, because it is a smaller hybrid of their bloomy rind Moses Sleeper, and their cult-status Winnimere. The marriage is a happy one.

Conundrum most resembles Winnimere. It has the spruce bark wrap and its top rind is meant to be trimmed back, revealing the unctuous, creamy paste (and then meant to be face planted into). But it is not a washed rind, so it lacks the orange-red brick color of Winni. Instead it is bloomy - all creamy white and fluffy like Moses.

The flavor meets somewhere in the middle too. Think Winnimere for wimps (wimps with great taste). The rich bacon, wood and smoke flavors are muted, but present, and the runny, gooey consistency is the same. It walks a touch on the side of salty, which works well with the meaty flavors. Overall, A+! Cheesemongers everywhere will either be cramming this down customers throats with enthusiasm, or hoarding it all to themselves. My guess is the latter. So keep a keen eye out in your local cheese shop for Conundrum, hopefully appearing in stores soon.

I think I smell another cult classic from Jasper.

Feelin' Blue, What to Do?...

Make pizza!

This baking/cooking hybrid always puts a smile on my face. It' fun, it's easy, and it's delicious. I find that the best ones come from mixing together ingredients already in my fridge (veggies on the verge can be saved when thrown on a pie) and also allows for experimenting with melting cheeses. For those that don't melt, I'm a big fan of shaving them on top once the pizza has come out of the oven. And using the freshest seasonal ingredients makes anything more delicious.

My pizza tonight had baked asparagus and prosciutto drizzled with olive oil. Just before it was done I pulled it from the oven and covered with lemon peel and Bellwether Farm's creme fraiche that I added green garlic and just a squeeze of lemon to. After about 90 more seconds in the oven I took it out for the last time, let it sit for a minute, then sprinkled shaved Fiore Sardo over the top.

My cute, lopsided pie.

 

I love, love, LOVE Fiore Sardo! This cheese can work with almost anything; from pastas and pizzas, to a great companion of cured meats, to salads, to my morning buttered toast. A Sardinian Pecorino (sheep's milk) that's meaty and savory while still subtle, I can't disagree with the islanders for referring to it as "the flower of Sardinia". If there was such a thing as cheese high school, Fiore would win "Most Well Rounded" in the annual.

I don't particularly like to use the word "lovely" when referring to most things, especially those that are edible. It sounds too precious, too delicate, and sometimes even like a cop-out. But I'll have to bite my tongue this time (which I literally did while devouring my creation) because that was exactly what it was. The flavors were bright yet mellow and sung well together. The crust was crunchy, the asparagus crisp, the prosciutto fatty and salty, all dressed in a light garlicy creaminess with a citrus snap. Washed down with a tall can of PBR, my night is looking up.

Pizza's I've made in the past were equally successful, though slightly overdone. This one was underdone by no means, but I would have liked it a touch crisper (I've yet to perfect the timing). Here's a photo from one pizza night not too long ago when I went a little crazy and made three different concoctions. All were delicious and super easy to make. 

Clockwise from top:
Sliced potato with red mustard greens, green garlic and yummy, runny egg. Hot coppa with Fontina and fire roasted tomatoes, garnished with fresh oregano. And last but not least, trumpet mushrooms with home-made gremolata, and Fiore Sardo.

Rind and Reason

Twig Farm Goat Tomme

Everyone has phobias. Fear of the dark. Heights. Arachnophobia. Fear of pickles even (I saw it on the Maury Show once). While some are more serious than others, I think it's safe to assume that the majority of people have rind phobia. Rind qualifies as the outside of cheese, i.e. not the paste, or the yummy stuff everyone wants to eat. It can look a lot of ways, can be formed from a lot of different stuff, and can have a ton of things done to it. The truth is most rinds are edible, save a wax coated Gouda or the strips of cloth on a bandage wrapped cheddar. And lucky for the phobic there are even rind-less cheeses.

It breaks my heart when I hand out samples of Mt. Tam (Cowgirl Creamery's bloomy-rind triple cream) to customers and watch them squish the gooey insides out into their mouth and discard the white, fuzzy casing. To me they just tossed out the best part - a rind that lends a mildly fungal hint to a cheese that otherwise tastes and feels like a pat of room temperature butter in your mouth. And I thought that soft cheese rinds were more approachable? Perhaps it's the often chewy, bitter rinds you find on store bought brie that scares people away. I must have a disapproving look on my face because the offenders often follow with "I can't eat the skin, can I?"

So when people do ask if the rind is edible before they pop a sample in their mouth, this is my advice to them – First, taste the paste. Second, taste the paste with some rind. If the rind enhances the experience of the cheese, Great! If not, don’t eat it. I find that the negative affects often happen with harder, aged cheeses, while I'm fairly certain all (correct me if I’m wrong?) soft ripened cheeses have edible rinds, and greatly improve or at least make more interest out of the inside.

Like I mentioned, most aged cheese has a natural rind, and can border on rugged (think Mimolette) which isn't very appetizing. So I sought out a couple of aged wheels with natural rinds that were dusty and thinner, hoping they would be examples I could point to when working with the rind-phobic. I brought home two: First is Appalachian, a raw cow’s milk cheese hailing from Virginia's Meadow Creek Dairy. Appalachian is visually striking, standing out against round after round of cheese, being that it is a short, wide, powdery white, gray and beige square. When the semi-firm cheese is cut, it reveals a vivid buttercup yellow paste. The second is Goat Tomme from Twig Farm in Vermont. The approximately two pound unpasteurized drum has a rustic, grayish-white, craggy rind, with a bone white interior (give away of goat’s milk). It’s a dwarf among giants. Here's what I found -

Appalachian is a mild cheese with a lot going on. Its got a great fatty texture, and while it's mild and buttery, there are also prominent notes of grasses, wild herbs and flowers. I've even tasted wheels that had a slight anise spice to them (not this one though). The rind is super tasty! Earthy and mildly musty, it complements the high notes in the paste quite well. Awesome on its own, still I can't wait to melt this cheese on a burger.

Goat Tomme from Twig Farm in Vermont is firm and chalky, yet moist. It has tang that is matched by minerality with a slight berry sweetness. The rind lends a powdery-velvet texture to the cool, moist paste, and also a slight cellar taste. This would be a great cheese to incorporate into a cheese plate to add rustic appearance - and delicate, mellow flavors

Both cheeses were winners in the edible rind category, and there are many more, delicious options out there. 'Cause when it comes down to it, rind is just cheese. So go eat some and tell your friends!

Going Basque in West Marin

 Wheels of Baserri in the aging room.

This past September I was fortunate enough to visit Barinaga Ranch in Marshall, CA. Situated on top of a hill just due East of gorgeous Tomales Bay, this small, farmstead operation is rolling out some amazing cheese. The first time I met Marcia Barinaga (cheese maker and shepherd) was a few months prior when I hosted her at the San Francisco Saturday farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Through the hectic few hours she spent under the tent with me, her energy remained constant and her passion obvious. To see her in her element was something entirely different.

Marcia pressing soon-to-be wheels of Baserri (farmhouse is Basque) using bottles of water as weights.

Marcia makes two cheeses - Baserri and Txiki (pronounced cheeky, Basque for "little") which are essentially the same cheese made into two different sizes. The milk is unpasteurized, coming from roughly 40 East Friesian ewes, pasture raised, and milked literally 15 feet from the cheese making room.

While we waited for the milking ladies to make their way from the hills to the barn, we passed around some (raw) milk freshly collected that morning. I do not like milk. But I had to try it... Since it's been six months from my visit, I can't accurately describe all the flavors and nuances of the milk, but I do remember that it was delicious, and I'd gladly drink it every day.

The ewe's arrived shortly after, udders swollen and swinging. Marsha pointed out one in the middle and claimed that she was always first to milk. Sure enough when the gate opened up she had made her way to the front and was first to be strapped into the milking machine. Ovis aries pecking order? While sheep are notoriously stubborn and people-shy, Marsha's flock was serene and anything but skittish. (Unfortunately the camera battery died before I could photograph their cute, woolly selves.) 

The combination of rind and paste smelled of sweet earth on this wedge of Baserri. Its texture was slightly crumbly but melted in my mouth, and it tasted (in the most subtle way) rich, grassy and nutty, with a nice lactic tang to round it out. Wheels I have tasted in the past have varied from floral and herbaceous to slightly gamy. While Baserri isn't always the most consistent cheese, it is consistently good.   

It's lambing season up at Barinaga Ranch, and hopefully in three months time (one month of milk fed to the lambs, two months to age the cheese) we'll be seeing some beautiful new wheels. This is the start of only the third season (citation?) for Barinaga, and while her cheese has been amazing from the get-go, it's promising to assume that, like most cheeses, her business and product will only get better with age.

Feta for Dessert

Photo courtesy of Abigail Pfunder

Few of us think cheese when we think dessert. Mostly it's a filler in a sandwich, an accompaniment with wine or beer, or a stand alone pre-dinner course. For those who do savor cheese as a post-meal treat - say a luxurious, zingy blue smothered with sweet honey and dry almonds, or a beautiful wedge of Alpine cheese needing nothing more than a knife and good company, sometimes change can be of the essence. Admittedly an admirer of cheese all on its own, mixing it up (outside of your own standards) can bring you a whole new take on the dairy you eat.
I am personally not a huge feta fan. After years of eating the salty, brine soaked white block on salads (and little else) I thought this Mediterranean staple to be irrelevant to my cheese repertoire. But while working in a cheese shop in tourist-central, the long days of Winter - from January and February, even through (God help me) April - can be devastatingly dull. When cleaning projects run out and morale is low, it's time to interject some fun back into an otherwise dead shop. That's where Funday's come in! (tastings we put together to occupy, entertain and educate ourselves) Most recently I was asked to put together a tasting of the different ways Greeks eat feta. Besides the savory (olive oil drenched and served atop cured meats) the sweet alternative was a real stand out. I didn't do the research but the paper I was handed said "Feta with honey and almonds". So I took a beautiful chunk of Mt. Vikos Greek feta (goat and sheep blend) and topped (or rather soaked) it with Marshall's Mt. Tam honey and coarsely chopped, blanched and salted almonds from Alfieri Farms. Lucky for me, a coworker was tubing Medjool dates in the kitchen while I was fussing over the display. Dates just scream Mediterranean to me, so I grabbed a few and diced them over the concoction, and garnished with a few sprigs of oregano (not Greek unfortunately). The result was sublime.
Sweet, salty, and a myriad of textures, all I could think about while scattering from the office to the walk-in refrigerator (and forcing it down coworker's throats) was that I needed an excuse to have a dinner party soon and feature this dish sometime during the meal. Once I came down from my sugar high, I realized that you don't need an excuse to have a dinner party, especially if an exceptional cheese dish is being served. So to my future dinner guests who will be eating this delicious California take on a Greek classic: You're welcome. And more importantly, Opa! I think of feta as lowly no more.

Valentine's with Rush Creek

This 2/14, rather than roses and chocolates, the centerpiece on my table was cheese - Rush Creek Reserve to be specific. The raw cow's milk Vacherin Mont d’Or style cheese, debuted late last year by Uplands Cheese Co. is a rarely found style in the American cheese market (with the exception of Jasper Hill's Winnimere). This winter cheese, unctuous and creamy, tasting meaty, a little mushroomy, a bit vegetal (like broccoli), and woodsy from the Spruce bark wrapped around its exterior, is a force to be reckoned with. I brought this cheese to both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Valentine's was by far the ripest. (Last of the season I later learned). Hands down, a cheese that begs to be shared.

While amazing on its own, the experience was only further enhanced by Blossom Bluff's dried Spring Bright yellow nectarines, locally grown almonds, and a crisp, mineraly Ligurian white. Sadly we won't be seeing this cheese again until late 2011. While it will be missed, the chilly Winter days and holiday excitement I now associate with Rush Creek hold even more impact and (hopefully, soon) memories than any other exceptional cheese I can purchase year-round. Definitely a treat well worth waiting for. As they say, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder".

Hairy Cheese?

As a cheese monger I get a lot of interesting questions.
Most recently I had a man tell me that he had been to France and had eaten a cheese that had hair on it (and wanted to know if we carried it). My first thought was that some sneaky Frenchman had accidentally dropped a wedge on the floor and decided to pass it off as a delicacy to some unwitting tourist. But not wanting to burst his bubble (or make him sick),  I told him that cheese could not grow hair. He again stated that this cheese was growing hair. "Maybe it was some unique looking mold", I suggested. At this point he seemed a bit frustrated and told me that he "knows what mold looks like" and this was not. Obviously I was not going to convince this man that cheeses lack the essential follicles to grow hair, so I directed him to the French cheese section with the warning "I don't think we carry it". "That's ok", he said. "It's probably illegal here."
I hope so.
Nonetheless I was intrigued. Initially when he said "hair" I pictured the slightly longer-than-average fuzz that can occur on bloomy rinded cheeses, like I've seen on Vermont Butter and Cheese's Coupole. But after some research I found that there is a mold called poil de chat, or cat's hair mold, that looks like the tumbleweeds of cat fur that careen across the floor when Spring is near. It sometimes makes its home on cheese.
While I first found this man's question silly and (snobishly, on my part) ignorrant, I am glad he asked. Not only did I learn something new about cheese (poil de chat can be toxic by the way. If your cheese looks like your pet has been shedding on it, don't try to "save" it with scraping), it also reminded me that there is still so much to teach the public about cheese. In all of its unique forms, cheese is so much more than a cryovaced brick - it's a living food, and I think an essential part of instilling a real food culture and system in America.
Cheese is alive, yes, but still not capable of growing hair.