No disrespect to pie—I love it—but you can serve more than one dessert on Independence Day. I nominate this luscious Greek yogurt panna cotta. With blueberry sauce or a strawberry-rhubarb sauce, it’s appropriately dressed for the day. Gluten-avoiding guests will be grateful, and any leftovers will make a dreamy breakfast. It took a few tests to get the panna cotta to that perfect quivery state, but I think I nailed it.
Read moreBetter Than Ever
I recently led a small cheese and wine tasting for the winners of a charity auction lot. The cheeses were donated by the makers and maybe not what I would have chosen—they weren’t fancy-schmancy—but free is a nice price. So I wasn’t expecting any “wow” moments from this cheese plate but…wow.
Read moreRemembering Cindy Callahan, Sheep Cheese Pioneer
A registered nurse who became a tax lawyer and, in her fifties, a California cheesemaker and shepherd, Cindy Callahan died in early June after a brief illness. She was 88. Callahan was an American sheep cheese pioneer who, with her son, Liam, and his wife, Diana, built one of the most successful U.S. creameries devoted largely to sheep’s milk products. Bellwether Farms, in Sonoma County, is now the nation’s leading producer of sheep’s milk yogurt and an acclaimed producer of sheep cheese. In her multi-faceted career, “shepherd” was the job Callahan loved most. She didn’t exactly choose the role but life happens.
Read moreGood Health News for Dairy Fans
As an enthusiastic consumer of cheese, yogurt, butter, buttermilk and all things dairy, I’m dismayed that so many people consider these products unwholesome. I associate dairy foods with Heidi, happy cows, spring grass and strong bones. I eat cheese every day and—not boasting here, just saying—I can still fit into my decades-old wedding dress. (Why I know this is another story.) So it was unsettling to read that a majority of respondents in a survey of New Englanders agreed that “dairy products are bad for my health” or were uncertain. Maybe you are uncertain, too.
Read moreAward-Winning Crème Fraîche for Berry Days
I live in a pretty food-savvy place (Napa Valley) so I was surprised when nobody at my local supermarket knew where the crème fraîche was. The clerks didn’t even know what it was. I finally located some in the store but it wasn’t the product I was hoping for, from nearby Bellwether Farms. It was a French brand I had never tried. And OMG, was it amazing. I needed it for an ice cream recipe but kept sneaking little spoonfuls.
Read moreSuperstar New Cheeses from Europe
“How many cheeses do you have to eat to become a cheese expert?” someone asked me recently. As if there’s a checklist. I’m not counting, but I did add several remarkable new cheeses to my life list last week. I led a tasting of “New Arrivals from Europe,” including the beauty pictured above, and I was blown away by these newcomers.
Read moreCacio e Pepe Croutons? Genius.
Meg Smith Photography
Leave it to John McConnell, one of my favorite Napa Valley chefs, to dream up a new take on cacio e pepe. How did grated pecorino plus black pepper became America’s favorite flavor? It’s everywhere. Cacio e pepe potato chips. Cacio e pepe pizza. Cacio e pepe pasta sauce in a jar. (No, thanks.) McConnell anticipated this trend with his cacio e pepe croutons, which perk up the Caesar he serves at the Bruschetteria food truck in St. Helena.
Read moreBuzziest Creamery in America
Top: Linedeline (left) and Shabby Shoe; bottom (l to r): Sunny Ridge, Afterglow and St. Germain
In last week’s post, I polled retailers around the country about their favorite new American cheeses. Laura Downey, who owns the Greenwich Cheese Shop and Fairfield Cheese Shop in Connecticut, replied immediately. “Veronica Pedraza is making some of the best cheese in the U.S. at the moment,” wrote Downey. Wow. I’ve written about Pedraza before but not since her latest career move: to a new goat farm and creamery in Wisconsin, where she has creative freedom and an employer with deep pockets. Time for an update on this rock-star cheesemaker and what seems like the “buzziest” creamery in America.
Read moreBest New American Cheeses? Ask a Monger
Monger favorite: Alemar Cheese Apricity
After a long pandemic pause, American creameries are launching new cheeses again. Hooray! Optimism is trouncing uncertainty and yielding some exciting newcomers for our cheese boards. American Cheese Month—that would be May—is a great time to celebrate this creativity and encourage our cheesemakers to keep at it. I asked some of the nation’s leading retailers to name a new domestic cheese that they’re loving. Consider this your bucket list for the months ahead.
Read moreDutch Sheep Cheese for Gouda Fans
You don’t see sheep cheese from the Netherlands every day, so I leaped on this one as soon I learned of it. The Dutch make mountains of cow’s milk cheese—about 2 billion pounds a year—but not much else. Goat cheese amounts to less than three percent of the country’s production and sheep cheese is barely a blip. But maybe that’s changing. Ewephoria, a sheep Gouda crafted for the American market about 20 years ago, found an instant fan club (not surprising—it’s like cheese candy), and this newcomer deserves a warm welcome, too. Made with organic milk and matured for six to eight months in the Treur Kaas cellar, this Gouda-like beauty—christened Beppie—is as creamy as a caramel.
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