When I posted about cacio e pepe recently, I didn’t realize I was headed down a rabbit hole. I like this dish—pasta with pecorino romano and black pepper—but I’m not obsessed with it. Then I discovered someone who is. Her Instagram, cacioepepelove, has 6,600 followers and climbing. I took one look and couldn’t stop looking. Every day, a new cacio e pepe. Who was behind this funny, mouthwatering, passionate love letter to a pasta dish?
Read moreCheese by the Numbers
The numbers are in and they’re not pretty. Wisconsin lost a record number of dairy farms last year. More than 800 farms folded. More than 2,700 have called it quits in the past five years.
How does this happen when artisan cheese consumption is booming? And what does it mean for all those amazing Wisconsin cheeses we love? For insights, I turned to a couple of Wisconsin’s most respected cheesemakers: Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese Company, a farmstead producer of Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve; and Bob Wills of Cedar Grove Cheese, who buys milk from more than 30 Wisconsin farms. This post is longer than usual, but these gentlemen had a lot to say and we need to hear it.
Read moreFour-Star Cacio e Pepe
The classic Roman dish, spaghetti cacio e pepe, seems to be having a moment. I have no idea why. Americans tend to prefer pasta with more stuff on it. This sauce is about as simple as it gets, although it’s easy to screw up. With Valentine’s Day on the brain, I bought a truffled pecorino recently and started to wonder if it would work in cacio e pepe. Genius, I must say.
Read moreRight Place, Right Time
If a truffled triple-cream cheese sounds like the right thing for Valentine’s Day, keep reading. I’m going to help you make one. Whether you use fresh black truffle (best) or truffle paste (second best), the result will make you a hero. The cheese pictured here was an impromptu gift from Ken Frank, chef-owner of La Toque in Napa—talk about being in the right place at the right time—and later the chef shared a video of how he made it.
Read moreAdieu to a Bread Diva
Cheese without bread? Mon dieu. I still remember when I forgot to bring the baguettes to a cheese tasting and got reprimanded by an irritated Frenchman. I’ll never do that again. Sturdy, chewy bread is maybe the only thing I love as much as cheese (well, wine is up there), and Della Fattoria loaves are a gold standard for me. Last week, we lost Della Fattoria founder Kathleen Weber—too quickly, too soon.
Read moreIt’s a Cheese Marathon
One of these years, I’m going to take a clicker to the Winter Fancy Food Show so I can count exactly how many cheeses I sampled. Sixty? Seventy? My self-discipline melts like hot mozzarella at this three-day extravaganza. I’m looking for trends and the next big stars, so I soldier on. Eighty cheeses?
Read moreAlways Something New
Recently, a young man in one of my classes asked me how many cheeses there were. Like…how many in ALL? Who could know? Thousands, surely. All I know is that I keep stumbling on new ones, or at least new to me, like this totally loveable goat cheese from northern Italy. I’m crazy for it on its own, but I intend to drape slices on hot polenta at the next opportunity.
Read moreBlack Magic
I was hanging out in the Cakebread Cellars kitchen in Napa Valley not long ago, watching chef Tom Sixsmith assemble cheese plates for visitors. What caught my eye was the accompaniment he was putting on each plate, slices of a dried fruit and pistachio paste that looked delicious. And it was. I hadn’t seen the paste in stores because Tom makes it himself. He calls it dried fruit “salami,” for obvious reasons, and it takes all of five minutes to make. It’s a good keeper, so you can make a lot and use it to dress up your cheese boards all winter long.
Read moreNew Year, New Drink
A pretty Champagne cocktail to ring in the New Year? I’m a big fan of this one, which I think I invented but, like so many recipes, it probably already existed. Let me know if you know it by another name. I call it the Ruby Yacht. It is elegant, it shimmers in a flute, and it is way too easy to drink. If it becomes your house cocktail, well, you’re welcome.
Read moreSuperstar Cheeses of 2019
French showstopper: Tomme Brulée
What cheeses topped the charts at American cheese counters this year? For answers, I polled a few independent retailers around the country about their biggest hits of the past 12 months. I wanted to hear about newcomers that took off, sleeper hits that surpassed expectations and any under-performers that, for whatever reason, finally got traction.
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