The FDA gives cheesemakers a real food scare

It’s been a wild ride the last couple of weeks for cheese lovers and artisan cheese producers. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration appeared to signal that it would ban the aging of cheese on wooden boards in the United States. Doing so would effectively end most small batch (and even good-sized batch) independent production of artisan cheeses in America. By extension, it would also end the import of many European cheeses, most of which are aged on wood—including Parmigiano-Reggiano. Continue reading “The FDA gives cheesemakers a real food scare” →

Celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month with American cheeses expert Laura Werlin

April is National Grilled Cheese Month. Cheese cookbook author Laura Werlin shares her thoughts on the iconic comfort sandwich as well as tips for making great grilled cheese. And yes, she shares a recipe too.

Editor’s note: Blue Kitchen is now publishing twice weekly. Wednesdays, you’ll find fresh recipes. On Sundays, we share stories about food—new tools for the kitchen, cookbooks we like, interviews (like this one) and more. Subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for email updates, so you don’t miss a thing.

Laura Werlin is an ambassador for American cheeses and author of six cookbooks on the subject. She won the prestigious James Beard award for The All American Cheese and Wine Book, published in 2003. To celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month, we caught up with the San Francisco-based Werlin to talk about her favorite subject. Continue reading “Celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month with American cheeses expert Laura Werlin” →

Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese

An Italian favorite, sliced fennel bulb is sautéed until lightly browned, then served over pasta with goat cheese, lemon zest and fennel fronds. Recipe below.

The idea for this dish began with two words on a restaurant menu. We were having dinner a few weeks ago at Telegraph Restaurant and Wine Bar in our neighborhood, and Marion chose seared escolar with stuffed cherrystone clam, uni butter, caramelized fennel, orange vinaigrette and tarragon from chef Johnny Anderes’s inventive, seasonally driven menu. Caramelized fennel. It was buried in the middle of the description, but a standout on the plate.

This wasn’t the first time we’d eaten fennel (yes, I got a bite too). In fact, Marion has occasionally used it raw in salads. But caramelizing it—cooking it in a skillet until it browns, bringing out its natural sweetness—was something we hadn’t tried. Over the next couple of weeks, caramelized fennel kept popping up in our conversations as we tried to figure out what to do with it. We thought it deserved more than its usual side dish treatment. Marion suggested pasta, and a meal was born. Continue reading “Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese” →

Savoring National Pear Month with Pear Blue Cheese Bacon Pizza

Blue cheese, onion and bacon give pears a savory twist on this pizza. Recipe below.

December seems an odd month to honor any produce that isn’t a root vegetable. At least that’s what I thought until we recently attended a pear-focused luncheon at Chicago’s Blackbird. The event was hosted by Pear Bureau Northwest as part of an eight-city tour aimed primarily at helping people understand how to tell when pears are ripe and ready to eat. More about that later.

We were treated to a four-course meal by Chef de Cuisine David Posey that showcased pears’ versatility, from pear and butternut squash soup with blis char roe enrobed in stout foam to leg of lamb with roasted pears, maitake mushrooms and hearts of palm and, for dessert, warm beignets with butterscotch, spiced brittle, pears and maple ice cream. We were also treated to lively conversation between delicious bites, much of it about food, but only a little of it about pears. Still, we came away knowing a great deal about this popular fruit. Continue reading “Savoring National Pear Month with Pear Blue Cheese Bacon Pizza” →

Sharing the love: Tiny microbuses make a big splash on the Tillamook Cheese Loaf Love Tour

How do you celebrate 100 years of making great cheese? By taking it on a year-long road trip. Tillamook’s Loaf Love Tour is the subject of my latest post on the USA Character Approved Blog.

In the post above, you saw how seriously Tillamook takes its cheesemaking. Here’s how they have fun. Their cheeses are available in all 50 states, but they’re not universally known everywhere. So to kick off their 101st year in the business, they decided to spread the word—and the love—with the Loaf Love Tour. And what better way to do that than with the official vehicle of the Summer of Love, the 1966 VW Microbus?

Cute as the original was, though, it wasn’t quite cute enough. So the Tillamook team chopped their trio of microbuses to a diminutive Continue reading “Sharing the love: Tiny microbuses make a big splash on the Tillamook Cheese Loaf Love Tour” →

Real men don’t just eat quiche, they make it

Bacon and Leek Quiche, with two cheeses and a simple four-ingredient crust, makes a satisfying lunch or dinner with the addition of a side salad. Recipe below.

AS MUCH AS FEMINISTS—MYSELF INCLUDED, the proud, vigilant father of two daughters—would like to believe otherwise, men and women are different. Equal, but different. Men are from Mars, women aren’t afraid to make pie crust.

That’s the only reason I can think of that I haven’t made quiche before now. Yeah, a lot of recipes let you cop out with store-bought crusts, but I told myself that if I was going to make a quiche, I was going to make the crust too. Continue reading “Real men don’t just eat quiche, they make it” →

Raw but still refined: Pan-grilled crostini with green garlic and chevre

Crisp baguette slices topped with a mix of goat cheese and green garlic create a lively seasonal appetizer. Recipe below.

green-garlic-crostini2

Babies and even toddlers have naturally sweet smelling breath. Baby’s breath, as it were. When older daughter Claire was not quite two years old, we were having dinner at the wonderful Blueberry Hill in St. Louis one evening. Marion’s salad arrived, festooned with a heap of raw red onion, which immediately captivated young Claire. She insisted on eating all of it. Carrying her as we left the restaurant later, I noticed that her breath was an amusing mix of baby’s breath and ONIONNNN!

In a way, that describes the taste of these luscious crostini. Goat cheese has a nice, mild, non-assertive flavor, and the green garlic—even used raw, as it is here—offers a much milder version of mature garlic’s big flavor. The end result is a crunchy, satisfyingly savory appetizer that melds the creamy richness of the cheese with a mild garlicky kick. Continue reading “Raw but still refined: Pan-grilled crostini with green garlic and chevre” →

Steaks and blue cheese: Start with good ingredients and get out of the way

Simple preparation lets quality ingredients shine in Steaks with Blue Cheese. Recipe of sorts below.

We had our friends Karin and Dick over for dinner for the first time last weekend. As we started talking about what to serve, my first thought was to mine the Blue Kitchen archives. Then Marion told me that Karin had said they’ve cooked everything we’ve posted on Blue Kitchen. My first reaction probably should have been feeling flattered. Instead it was this: “Dang.”

We got busy looking through cookbooks and back issues of Bon Appétit and Gourmet. We started prowling the Internet. And the more we bandied ideas back and forth, the more complex things seemed to get. And then it hit me. What about some nice little steaks pan seared and topped with really good blue cheese? Done.

Suddenly, everything got simpler in a very good way. For sides, some hand mashed potatoes with buttermilk and a salad of mixed greens and arugula. Some cheese and olives to start and a delicious, rustic apple galette [that will inspire its own post one of these days] for dessert. The conversation flowed like wine. So did the wine. And a simply beautiful evening was had by all [unless Dick and Karin were lying to spare our feelings]. Continue reading “Steaks and blue cheese: Start with good ingredients and get out of the way” →

Chicken, goat cheese, arugula and… apricot jam?

Yes, apricot jam adds a perfect unexpected note to this summery sandwich of chicken, goat cheese and arugula. Recipe below.

As anyone who spends much time in the kitchen knows, inspiration can come from anywhere. A recipe you’ve seen, a farmers market find, what’s on sale at the grocery store—even something you found in the back of your pantry. The inspiration for the sandwich above began with a photograph. Specifically, this one: Continue reading “Chicken, goat cheese, arugula and… apricot jam?” →

Mascarpone: Italian for easy, elegant desserts

Delicate, creamy mascarpone cheese is the starting point for countless impressive, easy-to-make desserts. Recipes below.

The holiday season is upon us, which means parties galore. Which means it’s also the season of the little black dress. Women know little black dresses as the simple little tricks in their closets that—with a few accessories—make them look elegant, festive and very, very lovely. Men know them as the things that make us lose our train of thought at parties, because they’re just that good. Marion has one that works like a charm, every time.

Well, when it comes to dinner parties, this is the little black dress of desserts. Simple, sophisticated, infinitely accessorizable. At its heart is mascarpone, a buttery rich double-cream or triple-cream dessert cheese from Italy. Made from cow’s milk and typically containing 60% to 75% milk fat, it is most often known as that intoxicatingly silky cream found in tiramisù.

A quick search on epicurious.com turns up more than 120 recipes for this versatile cheese. Still, they’re the first to admit that “this delicately flavored cheese needs little embellishment other than being topped with fruit.”

The recipe below is almost that simple. A half dozen ingredients thrown into a bowl and beaten with an electric mixer into mascarpone cream. And then a little fruit, nuts, chocolate or what have you to accessorize it. That’s it—no double boilers, no baking, no fuss. So easy for something that tastes so over-the-top decadent and dresses up so beautifully in the right setting. We used smallish vintage martini glasses. Teacups, mismatched or otherwise, could work just as well—especially with a couple of small, plainish, lemony cookies on each saucer. Obviously, the key here is scale. These desserts are served in small portions—serving dishes should be scaled appropriately.

An unexpected bonus for something so delicate tasting is how surprisingly sturdy mascarpone cream is. I mixed up a batch and then started experimenting with the fruit I was adding for one version. Then I fussed over one photo set-up until I decided it wouldn’t work and created a completely different one at the opposite end of the apartment. After the first shot, I decided it would be good to show two variations, and Marion helped me put together the second dessert. The whole time, the mascarpone cream was sitting out on the kitchen counter, no wilting, no running, no collapsing. And the first prepared dessert looked just as good in the last shot as it did in the first. In fact, we even had the remaining cream the next night with more fresh berries, and spending the night in the fridge [covered, of course] hadn’t affected it in the slightest. To me, this says you can whip up the mascarpone cream before company shows up and dress it up when you’re ready to serve dessert. If the kitchen’s particularly hot, you may want to keep it in the fridge.

This recipe is based on one found in Tastes of Italia, the same issue of the magazine that led to last week’s Rosemary Sage Chops. If I get a couple/few recipes out of an entire cookbook, I feel that I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Well, so far I’ve gotten two from one issue of a magazine—and I don’t think I’m done yet.

Continue reading “Mascarpone: Italian for easy, elegant desserts” →