Cheeses of the Field

This is a scene from Friday's tasting at the home of Sue Miller, maker of some of the finest raw milk cheese in Pennsylvania. I've bought Sue's cheese for several years -- her Birchrun Blue and Red Cat are household favorites. Usually, I eat them at my dining room table. What a treat it was to eat at Sue's table, in the meadow behind her pasture.

Her house in Chester County is the kind of place that makes you want to abandon your laptop and curl up with a book on her porch. Or in the swing across the road.

I wanted to do just that, but I had cheese to eat. And candied bacon. Paul Lawler of Fair Food Philly (right) and Sue Miller (left) know how to plan wicked schemes.

Plus, Jean Broillet IV was on the scene, pouring something called Blood Root.

It was a great pairing, alongside Sue's cheeses. Then someone pulled out a jar of brandied cherries. You know how I have a thing for cherries and blue.

I don't think I have ever been to a more convivial gathering. Or a prettier one. Just before solstice. With Holsteins grazing at sunset. And cheese lovers carrying on like children who have just discovered fireflies.

Many thanks to Sue and her family for so much hard work. For the milking. For the planning. For walking through the mud to make good cheese happen.

Wild Cat Dinner, May 12

If you recognize this cheese, you probably know Sue Miller, one of Pennyslvania’s farmstead cheese pioneers. Sue has been making cheese at her home in Chester Springs for a long time, and she is rocking the washed-rind world with her spunky Red Cat and Fat Cat -- variations on the same cheese, but they're washed differently. Her Birchrun Blue is already a classic.

On Thursday, May 12, 2011 Di Bruno Bros. is hosting a special 5-course dinner that will incorporate Birchrun cheeses along with craft beer from up-and-comer Tired Hands Brewing. In fact, Birchrun and Tired Hands have collaborated on a new cheese, and I suspect a wheel of it just might make it to the table on Thursday night. Fingers crossed.

I’ll be there, along with cheesemonger emcee Rich Morillo and Di Bruno’s new king of the kitchen, Chef Rob Sidor. A few seats for Thursday's dinner are still left. Tickets are $45 now and $50 at the door. To reserve, just email catering@dibruno.com. The celebration starts at 6 p.m. on May 12 in the Upstairs Café at Di Bruno Bros., 1730 Chestnut Street.

Here are two sample courses…recently leaked from an unknown source:

• Guillemot-washed "Proto-cat," Fried Tomatillo Ice Cream
• Braised Birchrun Hills Veal Neck, Fresh Milk, Oatmeal, and Rhubarb

Note: I suspect that “Proto-cat” is the ghoulish micro kitten that Birchrun and Tired Hands created during a surly brawl of creative mind-melding. Sue Miller tells me this dream wheel is washed in Flemish Black. You can expect a full report later this week.

(Below, Sue Miller at the Head House Square Farmer's Market)

Cheese and Cherry Blossoms

Outside my window, our street looks like the night after an Indian wedding. Pink petals hang thick in the gutters, and every breeze is heavy with confetti-like blossoms. I am happy to say that Monsieur Camembert and I have a royal view of this party scene, since we have the one cherry tree on the block. It is, in fact, the only tree on the block. When it blooms, we throw a party.

This weekend, we held our third annual Cherry Tree Festival. It’s a dinky affair – just the neighbors, some wine, some cheese. But every year around this time, we look forward to celebrating our one bright blot of natural beauty in what is otherwise a rather gritty setting.

To celebrate, I purchased a wedge of Fat Cat, a washed rind stinker from Birchrun Hills Farm. It seemed like just the right note for an airy-fairy festival, which is often attended – distantly – by lurking alley cats and winsome teens. I like how heady this cheese is. It reeks of locker room, but it tastes like yeast and onions. That’s my kind of cheese. An urban cheese. Even the rind looks like it was marked by claws, or pressed against a rusty fence.

We set out the folding chairs and poured some Prosecco. A goat cheese tart with fiddleheads proved to be the hit of the night, thanks to Gil Ortale of Market Day – a vendor at Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market.

But mostly, it was just nice to catch up with the neighbors after a long winter, to learn who had developed secret alliances with the squirrels (Monica) and who had mastered the art of baked tofu (Antoine). There were babies -- the one below attended the first Cherry Festival in utero – and dogs in sweaters. And there were petals, everywhere.

Happy May!

Birchrun Blue

Okay, so I know what you’re wondering, luvs: what kind of blue cheese should I eat for breakfast?  Oh come on, you drink black coffee to snap your eyes open, why not add a jolt of blue cheese, occasionally?!  I already told you about the nighttime cheesecap, so good with a cucumber martini – it only seems right to dispel today’s gray skies with my new fave on an English Muffin.  With some fig jam and a pot of lavender Earl Gray, this combination makes Mme. Fromage very happy.  Maybe one day, she will host a blue cheese tea party.

What makes this a good blue for breakfast?  Ahhh, let me count the ways.

1.     It’s creamy and spreadable.  Let it sit a spell so that it softens up while you boil your tea.

2.     It opens like a meadow on your tongue, then becomes salty and almost floral.  There’s a gentle finish – no biteyness, whatsoever. 

3.     It goes well with jam.  I bet a rose petal jelly would be nifty.  Fig is a little heavy, but one has to make sacrifices.

4.     It’s cozy.  

Birchrun Blue comes out of a small farm in Chester Springs, Pa., Birchrun Hills Farm, that only produces two kinds of cheese, this one and a gruyere-style.  This is a raw milk beauty with a gorgeous, reptilian rind and a faint speckling of blue color.  I’m learning an awful lot about blue cheese these days, including how the mold (Penicillium roqueforti) gets into the mix – often by inserting long skewers into the ripening cheese.  In the early days of Roquefort, farmers stored bread in damp caves to create mold, then grated the moldy bread into vats of curds.  Mmmm, sexy.

If you follow news of the fromagiosphere, then you've probably heard that roquefort, the original French cave-aged blue, is likely to become obsolete in the States, or at least very pricey.  Yesterday the BBC ran a story about the 300% tariff increase, and Our Lady of Wisco Cheeses at Cheese Underground offered a post about it -- it also includes her blue cheese love- list.  The tariff goes into effect April 23, so get out your blue veils.

Today’s breakfast comes with a toast to Albert over at the Fair Food Farm Stand, who gave me a nibble of Birchrun yesterday a.m. (this is his “second favorite blue”) as I was passing by his stand on my way to work.  That means I’ve officially had blue cheese for breakfast twice now, and given the amount of cheese in my crisper, I think this will become a sneaky habit.