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 moreBullish on Britain
If your notion of British cheese begins with Cheddar and ends with Stilton, you have some catching up to do. The diversity and quality of wheels coming into the U.S. from the British Isles has been nothing short of remarkable in recent years, reflecting a renaissance of artisan cheese making there. But American consumers don’t seem up to speed on this—perhaps because they have low esteem for British food in general. Wake up, people.
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 moreGreat Lady of Goat Cheese
Late last year, Jennifer Bice announced the sale of Redwood Hill Farm, her goat milk products company in Sebastopol, California. The purchaser? Emmi, the Swiss dairy giant, which also bought Cypress Grove Chèvre, makers of Humboldt Fog, from founder Mary Keehn five years ago. With the sale of Laura Chenel’s Chèvre to a French firm in 2006, the country’s pioneering producers of goat cheese are no longer American owned. Recently, I spoke to Bice by phone about the sale and its ramifications.
Read moreCheese(s) of the Year
So I asked a dozen retailers to name their top cheese of the year—the one that sold best for them or that their customers loved most. It didn’t have to be a new cheese, just new to their counter. Did I get a dozen answers? Are you kidding?
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 moreStrong Bread
I’ve never met a fruitcake I didn’t like, but panforte is first among equals. I only make it at Christmas time for some reason, although it’s a nice companion for cheese year round. I’ve tweaked this recipe over the years to get the spicing just where I want it and the right proportion of fruit to nuts. (Lots of nuts.) It keeps a long time, but not at my house.
Read moreAuthor, Author
For Berkeley software engineer Anthony Kosky, cheese is a recurring theme in life. Without cheese, he might not be married. Without a wife, he wouldn’t have two young daughters. And without the daughters, he wouldn’t have written The Mouse and the Moon, an adorable new children’s book starring cheese.
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