If mozzarella di bufala has been your only experience of water-buffalo cheese, you have homework to do. Of course that’s where most of us started—swapping out cow’s-milk mozzarella in our tomato salad for the more gamy and exotic bufala. Then came burrata di bufala with that luscious cream filling. Could cheese get any sexier?
Read morePresidential Cheese Plate
“I stole the idea from George Washington,” admits Bill Owens, the Northern California brewer credited with popularizing pumpkin ale. Historians tell us that our first President was a beer enthusiast, and that he brewed ale from gourds. Now, 250 years later, pumpkin beers are an annual American rite and a sudsy segue into autumn. Pair them with a few of the cheeses they like and there’s your debate-night platter.
Read moreWild Kingdom
Meg Smith Photography
Get a hand lens ready. You’re going to want to take a closer look at this astonishing cheese rind. It is quite the wild kingdom, a thick crust of colorful, coexisting microbes. I’m not sure I have ever seen a more riveting surface on a cheese: suede gray, dusty brown, ivory, powdery yellow and rust.
Read moreIt's Now or Never
My fava bean crop was a disaster this year—diseased leaves, low yield. I have no clue why, but the best gardener I know had the same issues so I’m not taking it personally. The upshot is that I have had to be miserly with the favas and the harvest is ending way too soon. In my garden, it’s now or never.
Read moreWhy So Expensive?
(left to right) Oveja Negra Manchego ($30/lb); Pecorino di Filiano ($20/lb); Bellwether Farms Pepato ($40/lb)
“For years, we’ve held our price down,” the cheesemaker told me. But he couldn’t hold the line any longer. The economics of aged sheep’s milk cheese was forcing him to bump up prices, and not by a little. What I didn’t understand, and what the cheesemaker convincingly explained, was why comparable wheels from Europe often cost much less.
Read moreHigh Spirits
I know I’m late to this party, but I’m just learning how appealing a fine brandy can be with cheese. Not every cheese, of course, but many firm aged cheeses have roasted nut, caramel and brown-butter notes that complement the heady aromas in a brandy glass.
Read moreSuper Subtle →
I can’t explain why I’m so smitten with this little goat cheese from northern Italy, but I am. I couldn’t leave it alone. Nocetto di Capra, a bloomy-rind cheese from the Lombardia region, doesn’t have the mouth-filling flavor that usually flips my switch. It’s a subtle little guy, but so unlike any goat cheese we make in this country or any other goat cheese I know for that matter.
Read moreSix Cabernet All-Stars
I’m vaguely aware that my husband, Doug, maintains a list of cheeses that go well with Cabernet Sauvignon. You might imagine that I would be the one with that list, but no, he’s the go-to source. He’s the winemaker, after all.
Read moreEasy as Pie →
Years ago, the best cheese shops used to sell a baked ricotta imported from Italy. It had a pale, firm, sliceable interior and a dark, crusty skin. I haven’t seen baked ricotta in years, and even back then, it appeared so sporadically and unpredictably that I eventually decided to recreate it myself. Apart from draining the ricotta, which takes a few hours, it’s a five-minute recipe.
Read moreWhere the Bufala Roam →
For years, the only buffalo-milk cheese available in the U.S. was Italian mozzarella di bufala. It came from the Campania region around Naples, where the water buffalo were. But that’s rapidly changing.
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