Posts Tagged “cheese”

It was Professor N’s birthday on the auspicious 8/8/08 but we were able to score a late reservation at Chez Panisse a the day before joined by his buddy P. We ventured out to Berkeley to Alice Waters shrine to gourmet locavoriousness. We were greeted by the trademark Victorian arts & crafts vaguely Frank Lloyd Wright decor of the place and briefly stored upstairs before being seated at our table for three. There was no room no way for a fourth.

Chez Panisse keeps it simple by offering a single four-course menu for $75 (plus 8.75% tax and 17% service for a total of about $95). Besides a wide selection of beverages, the only option was to add a cheese plate to the menu. We opted in. Even though there were no choices, the waiter glided over to review the menu with us, starting oddly with the main and working backward to the starters.

But the food is far from simple. We started off with an insalata caprese with heirloom tomatoes and hand-stretched mozzarella and basil with a bit of olive crostini. The pasta was summer squash tortelloni with garlic broth and squash blossoms on top. The salad was a great start with zesty tomatoes and supple fresh mozzarella. The tortelloni were pleasant enough but a little on the bland side.

The main was a perfect Wolfe Ranch quail with pepperonata, sweet corn, polenta and rocket. I dubbed it “quail with corn two ways” and enjoyed it thoroughly. It shouldn’t distract from the quail to say that the corn was absolutely fantastic, rivaling the corn I had earlier that day at The Slanted Door. It all went down very nicely with a glass of Grüner Veltliner, and apparently with N’s elderflower spritzer, made with the apparently de rigeur Nikolaihof biodynamic elderflower syrup.

We sprang for the cheese supplement and received a firm wedge of sheep cheese, a creamy disc of goat and a semisoft cow cheese with serious rind. The specifics were not recorded and there was barely time to photograph the cheeses before they disappeared. The dessert proper was a pluot crostata with wild fennel ice cream. I’m usually not a big fan of cooked fruit desserts, but this one might have been the best dish of the night: crisp crust with just enough flakiness, and tart fruit sour enough to keep me interested.

It was a celebratory banquet that lasted long enough for the clock to tick over to N’s official birthday. We had a grand time and enjoyed exemplary service, but we had to wonder if the food could have been a bit more adventurous or surprising to help justify the bill.

Not too long ago, I was craving a good savory scone, and when I couldn’t find any in local shops, a good friend went ahead and made some, which were most excellent. Yesterday, I was at the Wine & Cheese Cask, possibly Somerville’s best wine shop, looking for some crisp whites the fried chicken wine pairing. As it turns out, I purchased the winning wine at the cask. But before I did that, I went across the street to The Biscuit (formerly Toscanini, formerly Panini cafe) for a snack, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a savory scone, three cheese scallion to be precise.

It’s dangerous business to compare a purchased scone, even one from a neighborhood bakery, to one made pretty much on demand by a friend. But since some of you might not be lucky enough to have such a friend, I offer these observations on The Biscuit’s scone.

There’s lots of cheese.  This is a good thing.  You can even see some rivers of molten cheese oozing out of the scone on the right.  On the other hand, there’s no bacon.  A split decision, but vegetarians win.  Take note, A, J and L.

The shape of these scones is blobular, not the more traditional scone wedge.  No real opinion on that, but at $2 a pop, I’m happy to report that they are good-sized without being unpleasantly huge.

They are moist, perhaps moister than I’d expect from a scone.  Perhaps there’s extra egg in the mix, resulting in a shiny exterior and a generally brioche-y demeanor.  Not a bad thing at all, just not quite the same as other scones I’ve seen and sampled.

I’m happy there’s at least one more savory scone out there, and I recommend you check them out.

Lots of half-finished business (but hardly any half-finished food) here in the secret LimeCave. After last week’s cheesy post on local eating, I learned a couple of important things:

1. It’s locavore (219,000 google results), not locovore (4,000 results)
2. Via GrowCookEat, I found a list of Massachusetts farm markets, including one in Davis square

So naturally, when Wednesday rolled around, I resolved - crappy weather notwithstanding - to visit the Davis Sq farm market and buy something local. The weather was biblical, but seven or eight local farmers had set up shop in the parking lot behind Chipotle and Starbucks - a couple of herb farmers, some with radishes and other greens, a baker, a butcher, a soapmaker, Taza chocolates and a dairy farm if memory serves.

Slightly guilty for cheating on When Pigs Fly, I bought a whole wheat loaf from Breadsong Bakery in Auburndale (8.4 food miles to the limecave) and a smoked goat cheese from Crystal Brook Farm in Sterling (45 food miles.)* According to the accompanying literature, “A herd of 70 Alpine and Saanen dairy goats produce all the milk used in the cheese operation… The animals have free access to pasture and seasonal browse. Happy goats yield high quality cheese.”

No argument there. Although my <1 food mile supply of Cambridge mizuna and arugula had run out, I still made a a nice sandwich with pretty low mileage. The bread was firm and on the sweet side (containing molasses, honey and brown sugar!) but a nice complement to the smoky but otherwise super-fresh goat cheese which was a welcome twist on the classic log. If only I had a nice slice of tomato. Maybe in a month or two.

I’d been watching the vacant spot between Kick Ass Cupcakes and When Pigs Fly Bread for a while, and just last week it bloomed into the Dairy Bar at Kick Ass Cupcakes. But I’m just going to call it the Kick Ass Dairy Bar. It’s now official - Davis Square is the Paris of Somerville. We have a bakery and a cheese shop.

I popped in today on my way home and checked out the selection of “farm fresh and local dairy milk, cream, butter, eggs, cheese, hand packed ice cream and more.” They also have some chocolate and other odds and ends, but let’s be honest, I was there for the cheese. I picked up a bright white brick of Myenberg aged goat milk cheddar and a package of adorable thimble-shaped “tiny artisinal cheeses” called Hanabells from Shy Brothers Farm in Westport, MA.

With a little help from a pear, some crackers, the omnipresent loaf of When Pigs Fly pumpernickel and some mizuna and arugula from J’s garden, I put together a couple of tastings for myself. There was a Marlborough (NZ, not MA) Sauvignon Blanc in there too. The Hannabells were creamy and mild with a nice note of sea salt and barely any rind. We’ll have to see if they last long enough to get more. I bought the plain kind, but they also come in herb and spicy formulae. I think the brothers should consider a variety pack.

The goat cheddar was something I’d never seen before. I didn’t know it was possible. I think it’s successful, but have to wonder if most people wouldn’t prefer cow cheddar or more traditional forms of goat cheese. I also made a sandwich of this cheese with some greens and pumpernickel. Will have to consider this for the next cheese sandwich challenge.

Since Universal Hub tagged me with the “locovore” “locavore” label, I wondered how close this spread was in terms of food miles. I did better than average, but ultimately not that well, since the Myenberg is from California. If I had made the sandwich with the Shy Brothers cheese, it would have done — bread from Maine, cheese from Massachussets, and greens from a Cambridge garden. But the Hanabells were better taken as canapes with a cracker (corner 7-11) and a slice of pear (organic from Harvest Coop, but probably from the southern hemisphere). In any case, Locovore Locavore Sandwich is a good name for a band or a blog. You read it here first.

I had just one thing on my mind heading out to lunch yesterday: cheese. Pizza? No. Cheeseburger? No. Cheese fries? Ugh. Can you just have a slab or slice or chunk of cheese for lunch? Not that I haven’t done so before, but it’s somehow just not done during a lunch break from work. So I popped into a local place and ordered up a sandwich with cheese in it. It didn’t really live up to my cheese hankering, so today, I went to a different local place and had a different cheesy sandwich. Presented here for your edification, a head-to-head cheese sandwich comparison.

Sandwich the first: “Granny & Jack” at Blue Shirt Cafe

Jack cheese, granny smith apples and caramelized onions on grilled sourdough bread. I think I would have preferred it with cheddar, but as it turned out, the cheese was so meager and thin, I’m not sure I would have tasted it. (But wait, the cheese is yellow, does jack come in yellow like cheddar does?) Onions were nicely done and in good supply, and the apple was freshly sliced. What brings this sandwich down is that the proportions are out of whack, and it’s not grilled long enough for the apple to warm up. Maybe those issues are related, because my gripe is that there is way too much apple compared to the cheese, and the apple slices are so thick that it’s hard to keep the sandwich together since the onions are pretty slippery. I think that if there were more cheese and thinner slices of apple, things would harmonize better.

Sandwich the second: “Branch Trio” at Diesel Cafe

Three cheeses, greens, cucumber and tomato on seven grain bread. I think two of the cheeses were havarti and muenster, but I’m not sure of the thrd. I was intially put off that the sandwich was not grilled, but the bread held up well. Also oddly, it was served in a bowl because they were out of plates. The cheese to vegetable ratio was right on, with both sliced nice and thin. All in all, very comforting with the greens and grainy bread giving the feeling of a somewhat healthy meal, despite all the cheese.

Although the overall advantage is clearly to the Branch Trio, Both sandwiches could have benefitted from more interesting bread, and perhaps more time on the grill. Also, neither one really satsified my cheese craving, but maybe that’s better for all concerned. In addition, I should mention that the Diesel sandwich was a bit more expensive than Blue Shirt’s.

I think I might even have a cheese sandwich for dinner. Here’s my cheese sandwich formula: 18-24 month old cheddar and fresh granny smith apple on grilled pumpernickel. I’d definitely put some cheese on each slice of bread to melt around the apple slices and keep them from squirting out the end of the sandwich when I take a bite.