With strawberries getting better by the week, it’s time to make fresh ricotta. You can do it. All you need is an instant-read thermometer and liquid rennet. Start to finish, the process takes less than 45 minutes. Imagine how good that first spoonful of warm, fluffy ricotta is going to taste.
Read moreRaw Milk Manifesto
Always Raw: (clockwise from top) 5 Spoke Tumbleweed; Meadow Creek Grayson; Matos St. George; Grafton Village 2-Year Cheddar
Aged cheeses made with raw milk are dwindling in number, in part because FDA scrutiny makes the future uncertain for cheesemakers who choose to work in this traditional way. Even so, some persist. I’ve asked several leading cheesemakers who work exclusively with raw milk to tell us why they bother.
Read moreA Century in the Making
I’m always intrigued to learn how a cheese goes from idea to reality. This luscious newbie from West Marin can trace its roots back more than a century, to the day when 17-year-old Fredilino Lafranchi left his home in the Swiss canton of Ticino to try his luck in the U.S. He had $35 in his pocket
Read moreSharp Attack
Seriously, what is “seriously” sharp? You’ve seen mild, medium and sharp Cheddars at the supermarket. Maybe you’re the extra-sharp type. For some time now, I’ve been pondering what sharpness means and where it comes from. People ask me all the time what make Cheddar sharp, and I don’t have an answer.
Read moreSwiss Bliss
As many cheese professionals know, Oxford University Press is in the process of compiling the first Oxford Companion to Cheese. If it’s even half as good as OUP’s corresponding works for beer (edited by Garrett Oliver) and wine (edited by Jancis Robinson), this encyclopedia will be a must-have reference.
Read moreBoard Games
No, it’s not art. It’s a cheese board, and it’s meant to be consumed down to the last pistachio. Cheese artiste Lilith Spencer creates these edible dreamscapes for Cheesemongers of Santa Fe, the year-old store where she works. Wowza. Looks like we’re all going to have to up our game.
Read moreShow Time
The annual Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January is equal parts delight and dread for me. While it’s energizing to see so many amazing cheeses and cheese people in one place, my appetite always peters out before the cheese does. It’s agonizing at the end of the day to look at gorgeous mountain wheels from some new Swiss affineur and think, “I just can’t.”
Read moreMexico’s Ambassador of Cheese
With The New York Times ranking Mexico City as the top travel destination for 2016, maybe you have moved this vibrant capital higher up on your bucket list. If you do go, make time for Lactography, a petite cheese shop inside the hip Mercado Roma.
In a space the size of a walk-in closet, Carlos Yescas and his sister, Georgina, have amassed hand-crafted cheeses from all over Mexico. On a mission to help rural cheesemakers find markets, these two evangelists are trying to elevate the image of their country’s dairy output and persuade Mexicans to take their own cheeses seriously.
Where Cheese Begins
During college, I spent half of my sophomore year studying in Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France. That’s where I learned to love cheese in all its forms, from stinky puant de Lille (literally, the “reeking cheese from Lille”) to rock-hard chèvres. I often ate lunch in the university cafeteria because it was so tasty, and more often than not, the meal ended with little containers of Petit Suisse, a super-fresh cream-enriched cow’s milk cheese that you sprinkled with sugar and ate like yogurt. What a delicious and wholesome dessert.
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.
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