Picture, if you will, a cold storage unit in Long Island City. Outside it is a grubby wasteland of featureless warehouses and tiny pieces of broken glass, with only a few taped-up signs and a line of suspiciously young and well-dressed people to mark the door. Inside, a man in a cow costume is standing on … Read more
All hail the champion! Truffle Moliterno. Winner: Best Cheese Granted, like most championships these days, this one was won with the help of an enhancing substance. In this case: A whole heaping bunch of ground up truffle. Not a light coat of truffle oil, not a sprinkling of dried powder, just deep veins of the … Read more
By popular demand! Big thanks to Crys for getting this picture. I meant to take one, but as you can see, I was busy. From the top: Smokey Blue All credit for this one must go to the guy at Country Cheese in Berkeley, who was instrumental in putting this selection together. I knew we … Read more
(Off for two weeks and back with my least popular feature! I rock at this.) Remember that time about forever ago when I spent an afternoon drinking wine and reading Sunset magazine, suddenly decided that I was the kind of person who made things at home and ordered a cheese-making kit and a mushroom log? … Read more
You know what’s better than going out on New Year’s Eve? Staying home and eating cheese: Top row: Cowgirl Creamery Wagon Wheel, Blue StiltonBottom row: Hirtenkase, Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog, Cave Aged GruyereNot pictured: Brillat-Savarin With the brand new set of cheese knives you got for Christmas: I’m still not totally sure what the big … Read more
Pierce Point cheese from Cowgirl Creamery Confession: I did not take this picture. I know this is not the kind of intellectual honesty you have come to expect from this blog, but I think it’s time we all lowered our standards a bit. Don’t you? Anyway, one thing that does not have low standards is … Read more
Trader Joe’s is a wonderous place, isn’t it? Even stupid impulse buys made in a moment of hunger-driven idiocy can turn out well there. Take this, for example.* If person is shopping for frozen lunches on an empty stomach comes across a bag a of individually packed little cups labeled “brie” and buys them because … Read more
I love cheese. I love clothes. I do not think these are things that should go together. Although, I have to admit that I appreciate the efficiency of having the hostess and the appetizer tray as an all-in-one deal.
There are a few things I ask for from my cheese. One is, of course, to be delicious*. Others, in no particular order, include spreadability, failure to make the refrigerator smell like a lower class of toxic waste dump, and help with my taxes.** It hadn’t occurred to me to ask for a name that … Read more
A Case of Mistaken Cheesedentity It’s not that I doubt the labeling. If my cheese-club provider claims that this is a slice of “French Raclette,” who am I to dispute that? It’s just that I have some very specific ideas of what raclette should taste like, and I think it should be more along the … Read more