I love aged sheep cheeses so much that even a mediocre one will tempt me. But a sublime Manchego like the one pictured here makes me greedy. I don’t want to share it; I want to hoard it. You have the Brie, honey. The Manchego’s all mine. Of course, I also want every cheese lover to know about it, and buy it, so that we keep the shipments coming. Manchego is Spain’s top-selling cheese by a mile, with 61 different producers. But if you want to taste the gold standard, in my view it’s this one.
Read moreYour Cheese is En Route…Maybe
What happens to that Camembert after it leaves the creamery in France? If the cheese is coming to me in Napa Valley, it’s traveling 5,500 miles. The journey is tedious enough if you’re human, but if you’re a steadily ripening cheese, delay can be a death sentence. MIT professor of anthropology Heather Paxson has researched the logistics of cheese importing and recently delivered an illuminating talk on the topic at SOAS Food Studies Centre in London.
Read morePancakes: A Love Story
My recent post on the cottage cheese trend elicited a pancake recipe from a reader, who told me it was a family favorite. When I made them, my husband joked that you had to put your hand on them to keep them from floating. They are indeed fluffy. I think they would make a wonderful Valentine’s Day breakfast, but for those who prefer to celebrate at dinner, I’m reprising Margrit Mondavi’s buckwheat blini with crème fraîche and smoked salmon.
Read moreThe Blue We Need
Most cheese counters I visit—even the best ones—have a big gap in goat blues. The options just aren’t there, domestic or imported. It’s not an easy style to make, according to the cheesemaker who just launched the one pictured here. Goat curd is dense and wants to mat. If it doesn’t remain open and airy, it’s hard for blue veins to grow. But the flavor of a well-made goat blue can be captivating—more tangy than buttery, sometimes closer to feta than to Stilton. I’ve fallen for several over the years—Persillé de Rambouillet from France, Andazul from Spain, Harbourne Blue from the U.K.—but then they vanish. Let’s hope this California newcomer finds an audience and sticks around.
Read moreWhich of These Is Good for You?
I don’t rely on the government for nutrition advice but apparently some people do. The FDA certainly spends a lot of time and resources telling us what we should and should not eat. Mostly I ignore these guidelines because, by now, I know to choose broccoli over doughnuts. But if the FDA is going to be the arbiter of “healthy,” you would hope they would take the big-picture view.
Read moreSo Long to Another American Cheese
America wouldn’t have a dairy industry without immigrants. Italians, Dutch, Germans, French, Mexicans, Swiss…they came here with their recipes and expertise, started dairy farms and made the cheeses they knew. Next week, one of these immigrant families—cheesemakers for five generations—is calling it quits, and I’m not the only one grieving.
Read moreNew Year, New Artisan Cheese
Getting the year off to a promising start, this new cheese makes me hopeful that America’s small dairy farms can find a way forward. We are losing these enterprises at an alarming rate—down 95 percent since the 1970s. Is that trend line irreversible, or are there viable models for young people who want to milk cows and make cheese?
Read moreCottage Cheese is Having a Moment
Because my mom was on a diet her entire life, I grew up with cottage cheese. I didn’t dislike it, but I definitely associated it with deprivation. That was then. Today, cottage cheese is a TikTok phenom, with hundreds of millions of views and counting.
Read moreCheese Straws Go Greek
What will you be nibbling with your New Year’s bubbly? I’ve got a stash of these flaky cheese straws just waiting for a cork to pop. Aglaia Kremezi, the Greek food writer who inspired them, says they’ll last a week, but nothing beats warm from the oven.
Read moreThe Cheeses You Loved
By now the critics have spoken. We know the year’s best movies, books, albums and restaurants. But who will speak for the cheese? I shared my own favorite tastes from the past 12 months in last week’s post. This week, some of the nation’s top mongers weigh in. These front-line folks are going to tell us what their customers flipped over. I also asked them what cheeses in their shop deserve more love than they got. Sometimes even a fabulous cheese fails to find an audience.
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