{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }
View from the trenches: Jenny Eastwood
You never need an excuse to eat cheese, but May is a good time to show American-made cheeses some extra love. It’s American Cheese Month—that’s official—so I’ll be shining the spotlight for the next few weeks on some of our nation’s finest. To kick us off, I turned to Jenny Eastwood, who sells exclusively American cheese at Smallgoods Cheese Shop & Café, the business she operates in Jolla, CA, with her husband, Mike.
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I never had the chance to cook for my mom on Mother’s Day. From the age of 18, I lived more than 1,500 miles away. It’s too late now, but I’m certain these recipes would have pleased her (eating them, not cooking them). All five dishes have cheese in common—surprise!—but they’re light, quick to make and foolproof. If you have a mother or mother figure to cook for, grab an apron and seize the day.
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Finally, a French cheese to love at a price we can like. It’s been a while since I’ve bought artisan cheese from France without flinching at the checkout counter. Of course you can find affordable Brie and Camembert at the big-box stores, but these cheeses are typically industrial, with quality on par with their cost. This beauty is a distinctive raw cow’s milk tomme, with a rustic natural rind, abundant aroma and an uncommon “double-textured” interior. The reasonable price is just one more of its many admirable features.
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Why is it so hard to find ricotta salata these days? This salted and pressed Italian sheep cheese used to be more present, and I almost always had some on hand for shaving into salads—especially spring salads with fava beans, asparagus or beets. It’s a must for pasta alla Norma but I grate it on pasta sauced every which way. It’s moister than pecorino romano so it makes the dish creamier. Now it is scarcer than it should be, given that it’s neither costly nor rare.
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I went a little crazy at the cheese counter the other day and came home with more than I usually buy at one time. So, at the end of a simple dinner that night, Doug and I had an over-the-top cheese course. Miraculously, we had the same favorite. A new import from Spain, it had all the features I seek: captivating aroma, pleasing texture, proper salting. That it played well with the red wine on the table earned it some more points.
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The notion that cheeses have seasons is less valid than it used to be, but springtime still says goat cheese to me. On small French farms run the traditional way, goats give birth in early spring. Once the kids are weaned, there’s abundant milk for cheese—for all those delicate fresh chèvres and, a few weeks later, lightly aged creations like the one pictured above. Breeding advances and sophisticated aging rooms have altered this pattern, but I still associate the warming weather with creamy, tangy goat cheese…
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This is the cheese of my childhood. What memories! The one-and-only choice for Mom’s mac and cheese, her whole cauliflower baked with cheese sauce and her oozy grilled cheese sandwiches (on Wonder Bread, no less). It’s so supple, and it melts like a dream. It was the only cheese in our fridge unless company was coming. On those occasions Mom traded up to Cracker Barrel. Artisan cheeses have come and gone, but this icon persists, celebrating a century in production in 2018. Sales were lagging until Covid but now are reportedly strong. You don’t need me to tell you this cheese should be a kitchen staple. Could so many Americans be wrong?
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Doug and I were watching a favorite Italian cooking show the other night when I practically started hyperventilating. “No!” I shouted at the screen, as the Michelin-starred chef prepared to serve up his pasta. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! You just RUINED the dish.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The chef was spooning spaghetti with squid sauce into a hollowed-out round of cheese.
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Temps are supposed to hit 90°F this week in Napa Valley, where I live, and it’s still technically winter. Forecasters say many states may experience record-smashing heat over the next few days. My advice: yogurt. I don’t have much appetite for cheese in hot weather, but yogurt salads and chilled yogurt soups have a lot of appeal. Yogurt is cool, tart and refreshing, and we know it’s good for us.
Read morePeople often ask me about the cheeses I buy at Trader Joe’s, the emporium famous for its bargains. Alas, the list is short. I buy my feta there—the store’s private-label Greek feta is excellent—but I’m rarely tempted by anything else in the cheese department. The crackers, however! I have fallen hard for TJ’s seedy Norwegian crispbread. These crunchy, grainy flatbreads are so good with fresh, spreadable cheeses—whipped feta, for one—and they make it easy to produce a platter of colorful crostini in minutes.
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