Category: cheese

The Andante Dairy goat cheese pyra­mid is a lit­tle like that rare wood­peck­er in Arkansas that some peo­ple say they have seen and oth­ers say is extinct. If you can get up ear­ly enough, you might catch a fleet­ing glimpse of the pyra­mid at the Andante stand at the Fer­ry Plaza Sat­ur­day Farm­ers Mar­ket. I have been lucky enough to catch it twice; all oth­er times I have either been too late (and I would argue that 9:00 a.m. shouldn't be con­sid­ered late for a week­end morn­ing unless you hap­pen to have a baby in the house) or the per­son at the stand has denied all knowl­edge of even the exis­tence of the pyra­mid. The pyra­mid is an aged goat cheese, firm and creamy, yet a lit­tle crumbly, the per­fect con­sis­ten­cy for eat­ing on a crack­er. The first time I bought one, I served it to din­ner guests, ladies with petite appetites who only ate half of it and I spent a glo­ri­ous week eat­ing goat cheese pyra­mid on starr ridge crack­ers for din­ner. The sec­ond time I bought one, I served it to din­ner guests, rav­en­ous glut­tons who devoured the whole thing in the time it took me to prep a leg of lamb for the grill. My rec­om­men­da­tion: put the pyra­mid on your life list while main­tain­ing to oth­ers that it is only a myth.

Recent­ly at a din­ner par­ty I met an eli­gi­ble, attrac­tive sort, not real­ly my type but entic­ing nonethe­less. Cow­girl Creamery's sea­son­al Pierce Pt. is a cheese per­fect for a fling: it's creamy and com­plex, and it's only around for a short time so you don't have to wor­ry about mak­ing a long-term com­mit­ment. It's a whole milk cheese bathed in mosca­to and rolled in dried herbs (some­thing I often wish would hap­pen to me); it shows up in fall and win­ter and is gone by spring, inspir­ing a gath­er-ye-cheese-rounds-while-ye-may approach when you find it on a cheese plate.

this is a pleas­ant lit­tle aged cow's milk cheese from a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia cheese­mak­er whose name I can­not recall. Rest assured, though, that if you're try­ing to eat as local­ly as pos­si­ble, blondie's best can safe­ly be on your gro­cery list. It's some­what like an aged jack, or an aged hip­pie, with that kind of mel­low nut­ti­ness, cut with a lit­tle tang. It's good on a crack­er but also works well in a sal­ad with some dried cher­ries and toast­ed almonds.

with a wedge of appleby's cheshire in the house, one is always eat­ing good in the neigh­bor­hood. It's a Neal's Yard cheese, and so far in San Fran­cis­co I've only found it at Whole Foods. There are oth­er cheshires to be had in the city, and accord­ing to the grumpy pro­pri­etor of the cheese shop in my neigh­bor­hood Neal's Yard cheeses are over­priced, but to me Appleby's is the best tast­ing. It is the ched­dar of my dreams. I know you shouldn't keep hard cheeses in the refrig­er­a­tor, but I've always found that when left out, they take on a kind of oily sheen that I don't find very appe­tiz­ing. The cheshire, on the oth­er hand, gets bet­ter and bet­ter the longer it is left out. Fresh from the fridge it has a kind of firm but creamy tex­ture; when left out it takes on a delec­table crum­bli­ness that inten­si­fies the fla­vor. A piece of cheshire on a starr ridge crack­er is a meal for kings. The only prob­lem with leav­ing it out is that it can become a meal for dogs. Bis­cuit has to date swiped four blocks of cheshire care­less­ly left with­in swip­ing dis­tance on the counter. She always does such a com­plete job, leav­ing nary a crumb, that I often don't real­ize until a day lat­er. The dog is not known for her refined palate, but she makes an extra effort for the cheshire.

Quark (when it's not a sub­atom­ic par­ti­cle) is a byprod­uct of curds and whey that results in what some describe as "a Ger­man-style cream cheese," oth­ers describe as "a cross between yogurt and cot­tage cheese," and still oth­ers describe as "yum­my." This Sat­ur­day we bought some lemon quark at the Spring Hill Jer­sey Farm. This can best be described as tast­ing like the fill­ing of a lemon cheese­cake. You can eat it with a spoon, spread it on toast, or just use your fin­ger to scoop out deli­cious lemo­ny creamy pleas­ant­ly tangy milk fats in a semi-sol­id state. My friend Reed recalls that in Hol­land, they sell quark in some­thing like yogurt-con­tain­ers, and that there it is most­ly like pud­ding. I like it best spread on toast and driz­zled with some 420 Honey.

Ahh, Ams­ter­dam. Some­times I wish there was a Gen­er­al Foods Inter­na­tion­al Cof­fee fla­vor that would trans­port me back to those gauzy days on the banks of the Ams­tel — the cool fall breeze, the Night­watch, the hazy cof­feeshop after­noons. Actu­al­ly, to faith­ful­ly recre­ate those sim­pler times, a sin­gle cup of cof­fee would have to knock me on my ass and erase my mem­o­ry for a week. Fur­ther­more, it would have to make me feel like I'd been lobot­o­mized, and send my life into a ter­ri­ble, slow-motion tail­spin. It would also have to emp­ty my bank account, force me to live on nan bread from the Indi­an restau­rant next to my crap­py Lon­don apart­ment. (If not for the kind­ness and infi­nite­ly tol­er­ant under­stand­ing of Kar­la Betts, this era of my life would have been noth­ing more than a plat­ter of cheese cubes drift­ing silent­ly past me). While it can't faith­ful­ly recre­ate the Ams­ter­dam expe­ri­ence of my vague rec­ol­lec­tion, there is a cheese which has a way of tak­ing me back to a more ide­al place. It's called Old Ams­ter­dam. It's in the gou­da fam­i­ly, and it has got a nice salty bite bal­anced with the req­ui­site gou­da creami­ness. Does it lead me to spend 72 straight hours in the base­ment lounge of a hos­tel? No. But it tastes nice with crispy crack­ers, toma­toes, and olive oil, and it doesn't give me uncon­trol­lable crav­ings for falafel that I can't afford.