Super Bowl Snacking!

Who dat?  Oh yeah baby.  I speak football.  I don't watch a lot of football, but when I do, I get kind of involved.  And, I tend to eat a lot of crap while I watch the game - chips, spinach dip (my favorite!!), nuts, more chips - nothing fancy.  I used to eat chili until the chili-maker retired from the business.  Since I'm now the cheese lady, I figured I could make this Super Bowl even more exciting with some great cheese.  The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills was actually a Super Bowl sale - 10% off if you said "Who Dat" when ordering cheese.  They were also closing early so they could get home, put their feed up, and root on the Saints while munching on some tasty cheese.  One of the owners is from New Orleans, so you can appreciate their enthusiasm.  I just love having another opportunity to bring cheese to a party and look like a rock star.

So, off I went to the game, cheese board cheese knives and cheeses in tow ready to share the cheese love and possibly to distract people from the game for a few minutes.  I think I succeeded, thanks in no small part to the good people at Andrew's Cheese Shop and Noord Hollander four-year old Gouda (top left with a rich orange color).  This Gouda tastes so sweet, I could chunk it up and put it in a candy bowl.  It has the crunchy texture of Parmesean thanks to the crystalization that happens during aging, and has a distinctive butterscotch flavor.

This Super Bowl is also brought to you by Marisa (top right).  This award winning sheep's milk cheese comes from Wisconsin and has a perfect sweet/salty balance.  The high butterfat content gives it a beautiful creaminess.  It is the perfect snacking cheese.

Finally, this Super Bowl is brought to you by La Serena (bottom left).  This was the "challenging" cheese, but even the 11 year-olds liked it!  This semi-soft sheep's milk cheese from Spain spreads great on a cracker when properly warmed up to room temperature.  It has a sharpness and an earthiness that makes it really interesting - one of those cheeses that make you stop and go "Huh.  What was that?"  I will need to spend more time on this one, as its backstory deserves its own post.  If you can't wait, please check out Angela's Food Love blog here for a great description.  I don't think it was as stinky as she thought, but we agree on the exciting flavor.

I think the only one disappointed by the cheese was my sweet friend Tessa (right).  Look how well she begs!  But none for her!  Sorry Tessa!  After the trophy was presented, all the La Serena was gone, and there was just enough Gouda and Marisa left for some good snacks this week.  Hooray!

No matter which team you rooted for on Sunday (or if you just don't care), I hope you had a happy, cheesy weekend!

Cheese Straws!

Right before Christmas, I discovered a cookbook,  The New Best Recipe Book from the editors of Cooks Illustrated, that had been sitting on my shelf forever with no attention being given to the amazing recipes inside.  Lesson learned.  I made the best gingerbread cookies over the holiday, and thought to myself, "What else is in there?".  So, being the cheese head I am, I looked in the index under "cheese" and found "cheese straws."  "Hooray!"  I thought.  I'd just made some pretty decent collard greens for New Years, and was pretty sure I was successfully channeling my inner southern belle.  Cheese straws being a very traditional southern food would be a perfect next project, right y'all?  Well, being from Michigan with New England parents and living in California, you could safely assume that southern belle is a bit of a stretch for me.  Good thing the recipe was a super easy, non-Southern version, or I would have had to de-camp to Savannah (a bit of a fantasy of mine, but that's for another time...).

Anyway, the version I made was super easy - anyone can do it, even people who don't know where the Mason Dixon Line is.  Ready?
-One sheet of puff pastry, partially thawed.  Place it, unfolded, on a sheet of parchment paper.
-1/2 cup of shredded cheese (the recipe calls for Parmigiano Reggiano, but you could absolutely use Aged Gouda, Sharp Cheddar, or any drier/more aged cheese) sprinkled on top of the sheet of puff pastry with a little salt and pepper. Place another sheet of parchment paper on top and use a rolling pin to press the cheese into the pastry.
-Flip the whole thing over and repeat with another 1/2 cup of cheese and roll to press in.
-Slice into even strips with a pizza cutter or whatever
-Make into twists and bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, rotating halfway through for beautiful, puffed "straws."

So, as I was researching this post, I found this amazing web site.  Hoppin' John has spent A LOT of time researching the history of cheese straws.  Turns out, the recipe I just shared with you is not officially a cheese "straw," but more of a cheese "finger."  And Hoppin' John, while complimentary about the fingers, refuses to admit them to the lexicon of Southern cheese straws.  I will not even begin to share with you the knowledge on his site, but I will tell you that real cheese straws are basically flour, fat, cheese, and a bit of spice - cayannne, etc.  More like a savory shortbread cookie than a cracker.  Think about it - it is HOT in the South, and until recently, cheese wasn't really something that was made there.  A great way to preserve cheese there was to bake it!  Puff pastry just won't hold up in humid, hot weather.  The first Southern cheese straw recipe seems to have surfaced in 1861, and they haven't gone away since.  And did I mention that they're delicious?  Crunchy and flaky, with a rich cheese flavor that comes from a cup+ of cheese, and the intensifying magic of the oven.  The addition of spice, either plenty of black pepper or cayanne, adds great depth of flavor.  Tastes great with Cabernet.  Give it a try!

Great Gouda!

I love gouda.  It's so good!  Remember - it isn't actually pronounced "goo-da" but "how-da."  Whatever.  It tastes great!  When its been aging for five years, it gets crystals in it that give it a crunch kind of like parmesean and it has this incredible sweet butterscotch, nutty-ness.  I love it aged so much, that I have yet to really try some of the younger versions.  While the older cheese has a crunchy crystalline texture, the younger cheeses have a nice creamy, buttery texture that I can't wait to get to know.  I've got some guidance now.  The latest issue of Culture (an amazing magazine for cheese heads), has a sexy gouda centerfold!  Oh yes it does.  Want some statistics?

1)  All gouda has to be at least 48% fat.  Yum!
2)  Worried about little holes in your gouda?  Perfectly normal.  If fact, some cheese makers add enzymes to intentionally make the curd "burp."
3)  Think flavored gouda is weird?  Actually, since the Netherlands was an early spice trade hub, putting cumin seeds in the cheese has a great, old history.
4)  Wondering where the incredible sweetness comes from?  After the curd has been cut, and the whey is being released, some of it is drained off and the curd is rinsed with warm water to remove some of the lactose.  Less lactose minimizes lactic acid development, and creates a sweeter cheese.  Again yum!  This sounds like a pretty complex process.  In fact, if you change the temperature of the washing water by just one degree, you get a different flavor/texture profile.
5)  Wax on, wax off?  A real gouda isn't covered in red wax like the ones at the grocery store, but it is covered with a thin layer of plastic to keep the rind clean during the aging process.

As with all cheeses, the food the cows eat really impacts the flavor of the cheese.  While cows make more milk when they're eating "silage" (dry feed), grass makes for tastier cheese.  When you can close your eyes and feel like you're in the pasture with the beasties, that's  a good cheese!  Don't take it from me - check out these happy Dutch cows on the first day of spring!   Just remember this as the sun sets earlier, and the skies fill with clouds and snow!

A Cheese and Tea Party

My dear friend VG hosted a birthday tea for herself today, and we all pitched in, bringing cucumber sandwiches, scones, tea, and of course, I had to bring cheese! I had never thought about how to pair cheese with tea, but I knew it was totally possible. There are not as many guides for tea and cheese pairings as there are for wine and cheese. Its a bit more complicated than goat cheese with Chardonnay! That said, I did find this great site that offered a few suggestions (I also subscribed to the magazine! Stay tuned for future insights). Very helpful!

I was running late, and had to go to to Whole Paycheck to pick up the cheese babies for the day, and so was deprived of an encouraging chat with my cheese monger friends. I was looking for the Mt. Tam triple cream that I knew everyone would enjoy, but they didn't have it, darn it all! Thinking on the fly, I settled on a very diverse trio, figuring that people would probably find at least one that they enjoyed, and perhaps one that even melded well with the tea. Since almost everyone snacked on at least two, I think it was a success!

The first cheese was a Bucheron goat cheese, which has a nice delicate flavor, with a soft, almost bloomy rind. It comes from the farm in a log shape, so what you get from the store is a lovely circle of goaty goodness. It is slightly aged to mellow out the goat flavor a little, and the one I got had an incredible "cream line" which is the ring of softer, gooey-er, more translucent cheese right underneath the rind that has ripened more than the bright white, firmer center. Yum! And delicious with green tea, as it turns out.

The second was an amazing Epoisse - a traditional washed rind cheese from France that gets its weekly rind washings with brandy! How about that. This stinker comes in its own cute little balsa wood box, and has a great saltiness that tastes much more mild than it smells. Once you cut into this one, it oozes gracefully out onto the plate - just waiting to be scooped up onto a cracker and eaten with Earl Grey.

Finally, I grabbed a beautiful, caramel colored hunk of 5 year aged Gouda. Now, I recently learned that this cheese is not called goo-da, but how-da. Those crazy Dutch. This hard cheese would probably taste amazing grated up and used instead of Parmesan on a pasta with a butternut squash sauce. It even looks a little like Parmesan, because as it ages, it somehow grows crunchy crystals, probably through dehydration. It tastes a little like a butterscotch candy that got mixed with hazelnuts. My goodness, delicious! I could have eaten the whole chunk myself. But I did share, and it was incredible with an Autumnal black tea infused with orange.

We all had a great time at the party and stuffed ourselves with little sandwiches, scones, champagne, tea and cheese! We didn't hold our pinky's in the air, as we discussed the craziness one of the ladies experienced during her week at Burning Man (unpublishable on this respectable page!), outdoor corporate karaoke (the horror!) and watched Tessa the dog do tricks for (non-cheese) treats. What can I say? We're a post-modern crowd, but we sure know how to have a good time!

In addition, I had fun experimenting with how tea and cheese can go together. It was great to share these cheeses with such a smart and eclectic group of women, and I'm looking forward to continued research! It's a gooey job, but someones got to do it!

Sweet dreams all. I hope that the caffeine has all been absorbed by the cheese and I'll be able to rest up for another day of cheesy exploration!