Posted by Jamie Forrest, May 26, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Most people, when they hear the words coffee and cheese in the same sentence, wince at the thought of two such vastly different foods coming in such close contact. But Utah's Beehive Dairy is boldly cutting straight through that taboo with their coffee-covered Barely Buzzed, a blue ribbon winner in the 2008 American Cheese Society Awards. The first time I'd tasted it was back in March at Beecher's Cheese in Seattle.
As I bit down through the cheese, the bitter nuttiness of the espresso and the caramel sweetness of the cheddar-style cheese made me realize this is a match made in some really quirky and hip corner of heaven.
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Posted by Jamie Forrest, May 19, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Photograph from wili_hybrid on Flickr
There was an article in last weekend's New York Times that I found utterly fascinating. In a memoir-style piece, author Jennifer Mascia described the epiphany she experienced when realizing that goat cheese had made it to her East Harlem supermarket. To her, this signaled that gentrification was truly taking hold.
When I read the story, I wondered why goat cheese—a very basic, rustic food—has become so symbolic of "gourmet" food in America, specifically the gastronomic revolution that has taken place in the last 30 years. One could even argue that goat cheese is more indicative of gentrification than even the supremely-yuppified arugula.
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Posted by Jamie Forrest, May 12, 2009 at 1:30 PM
"It's not surprising that we're witnessing a cheesemaking resurgence of sorts in that part of the world."
Photograph from dearanxiety on Flickr
Last week, there was an interesting story from the McClatchy newspapers about a group of Italian agronomists helping some Palestinian farmers set up an Italian sheep cheese operation in the West Bank. The dairy goes by the name of Golden Sheep, and produces a small variety of Italian cheeses like pecorino (a generic term for an aged sheep cheese), smoked ricotta, and scamorza (a close relative of mozzarella).
The economy in the West Bank is, for obvious reasons, relatively stagnant, and the agronomists at Italy's Ucodep have launched this development project to help get some money flowing. The target market for the cheese is middle and upper class Palestinians who have lived abroad, as well as foreigners (journalists, diplomats, etc.) stationed in the West Bank.
It's a smart idea to target this admittedly small, but niche, market, and bring them some of the more Western tastes they may be craving.
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Posted by Jamie Forrest, May 5, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Spring is naturally the season of new beginnings, and during these warm days rife with optimism, I like to think about all the wonderful things this season kicks off. Spring harvest, baseball, the first days of the rest of a college graduate's life, and of course the effective start of cheese season.
In this third installment of Cheese 101 (we've already covered blues and Alpines), we take a detailed look at some of the best cheeses for spring—the aged goat cheeses—largely inspired by the "chèvres" of France's Loire Valley.
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