Who Gets Your Cheese Dollars?

January 5, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com

At this inflection point in the pandemic, it’s hard to predict where will we shop for cheese in 2021. Will we continue to buy online because it’s safe and easy, or from the big-box stores because it’s cheap? Or will we return to the small independent merchants who provide the service, selection and smiles we love? The demise of San Francisco’s Mission Cheese and Portland’s Cheese Bar made me anxious about what lies ahead. My recent conversation with Sarah Dvorak of Mission Cheese reminded me that, as consumers, we have to decide what we value. Low prices, selection, quality, knowledgeable service, convenience, personal safety…what matters most to you?

Margrit Mondavi’s Blini

December 28, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

I’m looking forward to lowering the curtain on this no good, very bad year. At my house, we’ll be celebrating quietly with Margrit Mondavi’s blini and a bottle of bubbles. I had the pleasure of collaborating with Margrit on two memoirs, and her buckwheat blini recipe is in one of them. The wife of vintner Robert Mondavi, Margrit was a fine cook but, by her own admission, not a patient one, so she made her blini with baking soda, not yeast. She put crème fraîche on top, but I have labneh in the fridge and like the tang.

Give One, Keep One

December 1, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

Bread or crackers? I rarely teach a cheese class without someone lobbing this question. Don’t make me choose. But, truthfully, crackers are inching ahead now that I’ve discovered these wonderfully seedy, crunchy, crackly shards made in Buffalo. What a great stocking stuffer for a cheese lover, although you’ll probably want to stockpile a box for each one you give. That’s how I hope you’ll feel about all the giftables I’ve rounded up for this post. One for them, one for you.

Relish Tray Reboot

November 16, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

Crème fraîche makes the most luscious deviled eggs, a discovery I made only recently. For a client who needed some holiday recipes, I was playing around with ways to dress up stuffed eggs without resorting to budget-busting caviar. I landed on crème fraîche, which gives the filling a subtle tang, and smoked trout on top to make them festive. Eureka. Open a sparkling wine or a Riesling and reboot your Thanksgiving relish tray with these two-bite beauties.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Encore

November 9, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

The definition of eternity, they say, is two people and a ham. I’m recalling that wisecrack as I contemplate the Thanksgiving menu for my bubble of two. Cenk Sönmezsoy’s luscious pumpkin cheesecake has become a holiday tradition at our house, but it serves a dozen at least. My husband and I could polish it off, I have no doubt, but I’d rather take that option off the table. So I wanted to try to cut the recipe down—for my own sake and for those of you who might also be having a smallish gathering this year.

Everybody Loves a Winner

October 19, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

Has so much deliciousness ever been assembled on Zoom? Sixteen blue-ribbon cheeses. Four tastings. The best of the best. Oh, and a bonus cheese on the final evening. That’s the new “Cheese O’Clock” series in a nutshell, folks. My co-conspirator in cheese, Laura Werlin , and I hope you will join us for this virtual cheese party/cheese class/deep dive. We’re tasting exclusively American Cheese Society Blue Ribbon Winners, grouped into four themed tastings

Whiz-Kid Cheese

October 13, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

Sixteen-year-old cheesemaker Avery Jones has another hit on her hands. Last year, the California teenager took a top award at the American Cheese Society competition for Aries , her first entry. Her latest debut, a bloomy-rind sheep cheese called Leo, looks destined for a bright future, too. As if these whiz-kid achievements weren’t enough to impress, Avery recently presented a check for $2,200—five percent of her sales—to AmpSurf, a nonprofit with personal meaning for her.

What Goes with Cheese?

October 6, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

Autumn duo: Jasper Hill Farm Whitney with apple chutney

Americans didn’t pioneer the practice of pairing cheese with condiments, but we have certainly embraced it. When I teach cheese-appreciation classes, I can count on being asked, “What should I pair with this cheese?” I’m Old School and believe that good cheese is perfectly complete by itself, yet the condiments keep coming and I have to admit that they make a cheese platter more beautiful and, to some, more enticing. While sampling some new American-made mostarda, I flashed back to some of my earliest experiences with the cheese course, as a 22-year-old in France, where I encountered some firm “do’s and don’ts” about the plâteau de fromages.

Cheese Judging in Covid Times

September 29, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

No Summer Olympics. No James Beard Awards, at least not for chefs. No American Cheese Society conference. Not even a Miss America pageant. We’re becoming so accustomed to events being canceled that’s its noteworthy when they aren’t. When the Good Food Awards Foundation announced that it was moving forward with its annual competition and awards, I was pretty skeptical, because…well…tasting. In groups. But they figured it out. I was a Good Foods Awards cheese judge last weekend and the crazy scheme worked.

Is That Shipping Charge Too High?

September 22, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com

One of these days, we’ll feel totally comfortable with going into cheese shops again. In the meantime, a lot of us are ordering online. As you can imagine, shipping cheese is not remotely like shipping books. Novels don’t need gel packs and insulated boxes. If your book gets stalled in a warm warehouse over a weekend, no harm done. A Planet Cheese reader recently complained to me about a merchant’s shipping charge, so I thought I would dig a little more deeply. Are sellers raking it in on the shipping, or does it really cost that much to get the Brie to you?