Vacherin, The Peignoir Cheese

I’ve wanted to try Vacherin Mont d’Or ever since I first read Patricia Michelson’s description of it in her book, The Cheese Room. She calls it a "melting sensation" and compares the texture to “the folds of a satin peignoir.” Read: nightie.

I was watching Mad Men at the time. I thought of Joan with her high, crimson hair and blousy bedroom attire. When I imagined the taste of Vacherin, I envisioned something voluptuous but repressed, delicate.

Oh, how wrong I was. Vacherin is a tiger. It may, in fact, be the ultimate Mad Men-era cheese because it comes in a box, like an engagement ring, and it’s cinched at the waist with a belt (made of bark). When you bake it, it turns to Jell-O pudding.

Vacherin is a seasonal cheese that hails from the mountain range between Switzerland and France. It’s ready in winter, and that’s because it’s only made with autumn milk when the cows come down from the Alps. The milk from these same cows -- in spring and summer -- is used to make Comté and Gruyere.

The name Vacherin literally means “Golden Mountain.”

Vacherin Fondue

Following Patricia Michelson’s instructions, I baked this cheese in its balsa wood box. At 350 degrees, it took thirty minutes. 

It’s important to wrap the box in foil in case the melted cheese leaks out. After the center warmed, I peeled back the top rind, swirled 2 tablespoons of Sauvignon Blanc into the custardy softness, and served hot Vacherin with boiled potatoes, pickled onions, and cornichons.

Unforgettable. Imagine a forest melting in your mouth. A forest with nightgowns hanging like leaves from the branches. The taste is big -- mushrooms, sweet hay, night sweat -- and the texture is sumptuous. All you need is a salad with a vinegary dressing and a glass of Gewurztraminer.

Online, you can find Vacherin at Murray's and Artisanal. I purchased mine at the counter of Di Bruno Bros. If you're lucky enough to find Rush Creek, a raw-milk version of Vacherin made by Uplands Cheese in Wisconsin, you could try this same recipe.

This is a delightful supper for a winter Sunday. Change into your PJs as it bakes.

Prairie Breeze

I'm in Iowa this week, listening to the corn rustle. I came for a high-school reunion and a chance to hang with my pops, but the real treat has been discovering local cheese. I grew up on Maytag Blue, a raw-milk zinger from Newton (made by the same family who manufactured your washer and dryer), but I don't remember any other regional cheesemakers. Now, there are a handful, including Milton Creamery, makers of Prairie Breeze.

You can taste the quality milk in this young cheddar -- it's sweet and nutty with a rich, buttery color, a sign of pasture-grazed cows. I like a sharper, more rustic cheddar, personally, but this has a pleasing taste and enough boldness to sidle up to whole-grain mustard and hearty bread. With its sugary notes, this cheese reminds me of sweet corn.

Milton Creamery launched in 2006 by a Pennsylvania Dutch family, the Mussers. Ma and pa moved to Milton, Iowa with their five kids back in 2002, and they recognized the quality of Amish milk. After four years of experimentation, they released their first cheese, using hormone-free milk from their neighbors. This is a pasteurized cheese; Iowa doesn't permit the sale of raw-milk cheese (too bad), except for Maytag Blue, which was grandfathered in.

I look forward to trying more Milton Creamery cheese, especially their new release, Prairie Rose. In the meantime, I've got plenty of corn on the cob to keep me happy and a cheddar that tastes sweetly of Iowa.

Prairie Breeze is available at farmers' markets around Iowa and from the creamery's web site. I bought my hunk at Wheatsfield Co-op in Ames.

Muenster and Me

I've never been a big Muenster lover. This week, however, I had a brick of it to contend with from my local CSA farm share, and so Muenster and I had to reconcile. I had to pretend it wasn't the blandest of American-made cheeses and that I didn't feel disenchanted by its paprika coat -- enticing and yet flavorless. And so I decided I would dress Muenster up with some sexy bacon and the first heirloom tomato of summer.

If Muenster wasn't going to be my BFF, it was going to be my BLT.

Muenster has a reputable bloodline. French Muenster, the original, is beefy and nutty with "huge" flavor, according to cheese guru Steven Jenkins. Even the Germans and the Dutch make versions with some oomph. Americans, however, have taken the stink out of Muenster, and reduced it to a supermarket stepchild, a cheese that is rindless, odorless, and not the least bit beefy. It's the chicken McNugget of cheese.

But it does melt! Oh, yes. Drape a slice over toast and it goes limp, like a Victorian on a fainting couch. Hidden under lettuce and tomato, it finds quiet dignity, adding just the right note of milky ooze to a simple BLT. Just when I thought my favorite sandwich could not be improved, well, Muenster proved me wrong.

The key to a good BLT, of course, is the bacon and the tomato. If you have a great homegrown tomato, you can make a pretty sublime BLT. If you have stellar bacon, you can make ecstasy. I recommend Benton's, which is dry-cured and hickory-smoked. It comes from Tennessee, and it tastes like the Smoky Mountains. Like campfire. The smell is intoxicating.

Boyfriend and I cooked it on the grill in a cast iron skillet so that we wouldn't heat up the kitchen, but honestly, I wouldn't mind if the smell saturated every piece of furniture in the house. To me, it's potpourri.

Now I'm on the hunt for just one thing: a beefy French Muenster to go with it.

Big Ed

I first read about Big Ed in the Washington Post. Here was a raw cow's milk cheese (with a great name) from my home state, and I'd never heard of it. How was this possible? Needless to say, when I traveled back to Wisconsin in May, I went on a hunt for Big Ed. He was coming home with me.

In Fromagination, a cheese shop in downtown Madison, I found him. What love! He was a 15-lb wheel with leaves embossed around the edge, about as pretty a cheese as I'd ever seen. I was smitten.

My brother and I had plans to host a small grilled-pizza party that night, as it was his birthday, so we picked up a selection of our favorite Wisconsin cheeses and decided to make an all-state blow-out of WI pies. We grabbed some Bleu Mont Dairy Bandaged Cheddar, some BelGioiosi Parm, some local mozzarella, a wedge of Dante (a stunning sheep's milk cheese), and a great slab of Big Ed.

Big Ed is a gouda-style cheese that comes from Saxon Homestead Creamery in Cleveland, WI on the shores of Lake Michigan. It's named after a guy named Ed Klessig, who supported his three sons in a cheese-making endeavor that began back in 2005. Now, the real Big Ed is no more, but his belief in being a steward of the land lives on, in part through this cheese. Saxon Homestead Creamery practices rotational grazing to produce about five high-quality artisanal cheeses. Saxony, their latest release, was just written up in Culture Magazine.

This might be a gouda-style cheese, but it's more flavorful than any gouda I've eaten. It's got a buttery texture, but the flavor profile is nutty, salty, and gently beefy -- we decided to test it against some sharp pizza ingredients, namely onions, mushrooms, black olives, and a whole load of chives.

Delicious. Big Ed melted beautifully and paired so well with the onions and olives. Our pizza party got a little rained out, but that didn't matter. We ate in my brother's garage, and even the chefs (my brother Andre, and his girlfriend Jen) managed to stay dry. And happy.

Liederkranz

Imagine the opposite of a breath mint, a cheese so oniony and powerful that even mice would retreat into their holes. What you have is America’s own stink mint, a take-off on Limburger that was once known as Liederkranz, named after an all-male New York singing club. 

Liederkranz disappeared from the American cheese scene in 1985 but was recently revived by some folks in Wisconsin, DCI Cheese. As my boyfriend cried out after the first bit, “Whoa, this is grandfather cheese!” True, Liederkranz calls to mind hairy-legged men in lederhosen running through the Black Forest. It’s not a cheese for the faint of heart, but then, if you like Raclette, sweat, and the thought of hairy men in lederhosen, chances are you will love Liederkranz.

Given the number of online comments responding to the story of Liederkranz in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – there were only three, but they were enthusiastic – I’m not sure I see a Liederkranz revolution exactly, but I do know there will be at least a few snack-cheese-lovin’ seniors relishing its return. 

Liederkranz looks a little bit like a Jersey Cow in the form of Velveeta. When dislodged from its foil wrapping, the surface appears stippled with pale brown markings, and the texture looks creamy. One bite and its pungency shoots across your tongue, where it forms a long-lasting seal across the roof of your mouth. Beefy. Oniony. Barnyardy. Ooo, I quite like it!

The key to enjoying Liederkranz is…well, other people who enjoy Liederkranz. My boyfriend left the house; I didn’t mind having a Liederkranz party for one, but next time I think I’ll call in the stink lovers and serve up plenty of dark beer, rye bread, and pickles. Then we’ll crack the windows, put on some polka, and chomp away.

If you're keen to try this stinky cheese, you can find it for sale online at the West Allis Cheese & Sausage Shoppe. Its distribution appears to be fairly limited. Interestingly, the Liederkranz singing society is still alive. There's even one near my neck of the woods in Pennsylvania -- I highly recommend watching the Lancaster Liederkrantz singing video while you nosh.  

Full disclosure: a sample of this cheese was provided by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing board.

Strathdon: A Blue for the Beach

If ever there was a blue cheese destined for ocean-side enjoyment, it’s Strathdon. It even sounds like the name of a beach – much better than Stichelton Shores or Roquefort Cove. Yes, Strathdon Beach. I think I’d like to have my ashes scattered there.

I picked up this wedge as an accompaniment to a bottle of oyster stout I had cooling in the fridge. Lucky me, my cheesemonger knew the beer and said, “I have just the thing.” He disappeared behind the counter and rose again with this salty blue, assuring me it had a hint of the seaside.

“It’s from Scotland,” he added, and this clinched it, because as you know, I have a dotty Scottish friend who I adoringly call the Blue Cheese Brit, and he was coming to dinner. I darted home, called together my cheese hounds, and soon we were glugging stout and gorging on cheese, and it was like a beach party without the sandy legs and the smell of Coppertone.

Strathdon Blue is a pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from the tippy-top of Scotland, by the North Sea. It’s made by cheesemaker Ruaraidh (pronounced “Rory”) Stone in an old brewery, then aged by the brilliant affineurs at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. Wrapped in blue foil, Strathdon has a craggy look with furry blue pockets that suggest it will be a bitey beast, but no, it’s much milder than stilton and marvelously creamy with notes of seaweed and shell.

“That blue told me it was taking me home tonight the minute I walked in the door,” the Blue Cheese Brit bellowed as soon as he carved off a bite. Then he moaned, turned flustered, and whispered, “Silk on my bare skin.”

The Blue Cheese Goddess, a.k.a. Future Federal Defender Tracy Tripp, had to translate as the Brit fell onto the cheeseboard, scratching for more. “I taste Scottish sea cave," she said, "with slate on the front end.” 

The monger was right. Strathdon was glorious with Flying Fish’s Bayshore Oyster Stout. The malty and salty, it just doesn’t get any better.

Cabot Clothbound Cheddar

My good friend, the Blue Cheese Brit, likes to crow about how only the English make “a proper cheddar.” His refined palate has often been noted on this blog, since the BCB is a DCE (Daily Cheese Eater), and we often compare notes. Recently, I went to a party at his house, carrying a wedge of American cheddar in my handbag. When I slid it onto the Brit’s cheese board, he took a step back. “What’s this?” he crooned. “Is that a clothbound cheddar?”

Friends, the Brit had a wee heart attack when he discovered this nubby bit of gorgeousness came from Vermont. He took one bite of this sharp, cavey delight, then broke into a fox-like smile, “You can say the Blue Cheese Brit endorses it. It reminds me of Montgomery Cheddar, the best clothbound cheddar in the world. It has the same texture, taste, emotion.” He cut into it again, then declared, very aptly, “It’s like cutting through geological time.”

The Brit is right. Cabot Clothbound Cheddar appears mummified; it’s look and taste call to mind certain scenes from “The English Patient” – think of the heavily bandaged Ralph Feinnes, then recall the opening shots of the African desert. Swoon. This cheese is literally bandaged, then cellared, and carefully nursed to perfection by the laudable folk at Jasper Hill Farm, who are well known for their award-winning Bayley Hazen Blue. The result is a cheddar with starry crystals and narrative.

The taste is bracingly sharp at first, the texture firm, but then it melts on your tongue, releasing a woodsiness that reminds me of sweetgrass – the scent of it. Along the way, lactic acid crystals release their salty, caramel notes. Extraordinary. This is a cheese that just tastes better and better the longer it sits out, and alongside a glass of sherry or a pint of cask ale, it’s stunning. Interestingly, this is a pasteurized cheese, and it’s only aged 12 months -- not years, the way some cheddars (Hook’s, for example) are put to rest like long-sleeping beauties.

Like my British cheese friend (nemesis?), I am smitten with Cabot's. I can think of few pasteurized cheeses with this much flavor, and the fact that it’s easy to come by – and consistently good – makes it my new fave hunk. As the Blue Cheese Brit says, whenever anything sweeps him off his feet, “Oh, dancer!”

Quark, versatile quark

If you followed Lindsey Vonn’s story during the Olympics last week, you probably heard about how this world-class skier used cheese to help heal her bruised shin. That’s right, cheese. Quark, to be more precise. Vonn applied it topically as a poultice, and it must have done the trick because she medaled – gold, in fact.

In the United States, quark is a relatively unknown delicacy, but in Europe it’s easy to find in dairy cases, alongside yogurt and soft cheeses. I remember eating boat loads of it in Germany, where I was an exchange student in the early nineties. My host family ate quark as a snack, more often than yogurt in fact. They liked that it was creamier than yogurt -- and less sour. With fresh berries, it was delicious.

Given quark’s recent press, you just might start seeing it state-side. It’s worth trying, especially if you’re looking for a low-fat, low-salt alternative to sour cream or even cream cheese. It’s much more flavorful than most low-fat dairy products I’ve tasted, which are often gelatinous and without taste. Quark reminds me of Greek Yogurt – thick, smooth, substantive – but with a fresh, lemony twist that calls to mind mascarpone, the Italian cheese used in Tiramisu.

Vermont Butter & Cheese Company makes a wonderful version of quark that tastes even better than the slightly gritty German brand I remember. This artisanal cheese company specializes in European soft cheeses, including fromage blanc and crème fraiche, and has made a name for itself by using quality r-BGH free Vermont milk.

If you find yourself grinning before a tub of quark in the dairy case (try Whole Foods; some of their locations carry it), here are a few things you can do with it, aside from slathering it on bruises:

            -top quark with brown sugar, granola, and fruit

            -serve it on a baked potato, with chives

            -spread it on fresh bread with sliced cukes

            -put a dab of quark on pureed soups 

            -mix quark with cinnamon sugar and use it to top waffles

  

Raclette Parties

My grandparents, who are from Switzerland, always hosted Raclette parties around the holidays, filling their Cleveland house with the smell of strong cheese and boiled potatoes. As a child, my favorite part was sitting around the Raclette grill, an electric table-top device, and using my own little fry pan to toast bite-size portions of a meal that lasted several hours. It was a thrill to watch the adults do the same, as if we were all partaking of an Alice in Wonderland-style event around a Holly Hobby Oven.

Raclette is a cow’s milk cheese made on both the French and Swiss side of the Alps. It melts beautifully, and its strong flavor is tempered by heating it. This is a semi-stinker, nothing to be afraid of; if you like Morbier, it’ll go down easy. Many cheese shops and groceries stock Raclette (and even raw-milk Raclette) around the holidays.

In December, I always host several Raclette dinners. It’s a cheap, easy way to entertain – once you buy a Raclette oven (about $99 from Swissmar) – and friends always remember it from one year to the next, and request it. The 8-person Swissmar Classic Raclette Grill I bought a few years ago is really a dream, since it comes with a grill top – perfect for roasting wursts as a second course.

So, how does a Raclette party work? First, you can only invite as many people as your Raclette grill can handle (most grills come with 6 or 8 little pans). Then you ask everyone to bring a condiment; cured ham, pickled onions, cornichons, and baby corn are the traditional add-ons. My grandmother always served chopped scallions, my mother always provided a dish of chopped, sweet red pepper. As the host, your only real job is to boil a big pot of red potatoes and slice up a hefty wedge of Raclette.

When guests come over, break out the lager, and fire up the Raclette oven. Then plan to sit around toasting slices of cheese on top of boiled potato-halves for, oh, the next two hours. Between cheesy bites, guests can snack on pickled condiments. If you’ve invited some impatient carnivores, you can offer them sliced sausage and raw onions to grill on top of the oven, or you can create a separate course of marinated veggies or shrimp.

After dinner, our family always plays a traditional game, passed down from my Swiss grandparents. We call it “The Chocolate Game.” When the Raclette grill is put away, we set out a whole dark chocolate bar on a cutting board, and everyone at the table receives a fork and a knife. Then we pass a dice. Anyone who rolls a 6 may eat the chocolate bar, using the silverware, but only until someone else rolls the lucky number. The game goes on until the chocolate bar is gone. Usaully, there is some hysteria involved.

Raclette grill+chocolate game=perfect holiday meal with very little cooking. It’s also a great way to stay warm when the temperatures drop. Just pretend you are in the Alps.

Époisses

The star cheese of our Thanksgiving plate was a little French wheel washed in brandy. I’d read about it in The Cheese Primer, in Murray’s Cheese Handbook, and in a book on pairings by Janet Fletcher, Cheese and Wine. Here was an old monastery cheese that was rumored to taste like meat and garlic, an Old World stinker perfected by monks. Époisses is also rumored to be banned from French trains due to its smell.

So, I expected a real whiff-burger, but my wheel of Epoisses did not stink up the fridge. And it did not offend our brazen band of dinner guests, who spent a whole afternoon eating and drinking around the cheese board while Monseiur Fromage prepared his time-consuming “Turkey in a Shroud.” The real key, though, was pairing this cheese with a great wine. Wow, the white Burgundy that several Internetters recommended brought flavors out of this cheese that were absolutely novel to witness. Rarely have I enjoyed such an optimal pairing.

We drove to New Jersey to find a bottle of 2008 Joseph Drouhin Saint-Véran (about $15). Cooled it on the back stoop, brought the cheese to room temperature, and let our couch-clan of tasters descend. The response was YouTube-able; a sip of wine after a nibble of Epoisses had everyone’s eyebrows on the ceiling. “Oh my god,” exclaimed our Blue Cheese Brit, who had just arrived with a bag of delicious patés and cheeses under his arm.

With all the hype, Époisses may sound scary. I found it surprisingly tame but perfectly balanced. It’s a bit whiffy, but only when you take it out of its round package – the fragrance calls to mind onions, mushrooms, a damp carpet of leaves. The taste, however, is wicked; think of a brandy-spiked venison pate, then add a velvetine mouthfeel, and give it a tangy orange rind.

Wine-and-cheese guru Janet Fletcher recommends serving Époisses with a Riesling or a Dry Pinot Gris, while others suggest a Cab. Frankly, I would never serve it without the Saint Véran white burgundy we enjoyed over Thanksgiving. It was truly…it sounds canned, I know…but I mean it: astonishing.

Other highlights from our Thanksgiving cheeseboard:

Keen’s Cheddar: a flawless raw-milk farmhouse cheddar that our friend, the Blue Cheese Brit, calls his old steady. He says it’s “a must” in any gentleman’s crisper.

Forsterkase: A bacony-flavored, washed-rind, raw-milk cheese from Switzerland that is cured in spruce bark. Yes, bacony! This is a fantastically heady and bizarre cheese that calls to mind hunting lodges and men wearing wineskins into the woods. The rind looks like a dirty hiking boot but is whack-delicious in a herdsman kind of way.

Yes, yes, that is the famed "Turkey in a Shroud." There's our bird after two days of marinating in a mustard rub. The cheesecloth shroud was draped over her at half past twelve, and she was basted every quarter hour, which meant that she wasn't ready until almost 7:30 p.m. Was she a fine bird, our little Nefertiti? Oh, she was.

Pierre Robert

I’ve never been a brie freak, probably because brie is the hummus of English departments, and I overloaded on it at mixers during grad school. So often brie is rubbery, flavorless – glue on toast. I almost never buy it unless I am hosting people I don’t know well, then I figure it will be a pleaser.

Today, however, I took a whole wheel of Pierre Robert, a French triple-crème, into my Fiction Workshop – an exceptionally good class this year. I felt it was time to induct these 15 students into the world of cheese now that they’re seniors. And, come on, eating brie is an English major’s rite of passage. I wanted them to sample the good stuff.

Pierre Robert was recommended to me by a local cheese maven, and her recommendation was spot on. I’ve been reading a lot about Brillat-Savarin lately (also a triple crème), which I’ll be serving this Saturday at my first public tasting. From everything I’ve read, Brillat-Savarin is body butter – rated #2 sexiest cheese in my Murray’s Cheese Handbook. So, I was curious to see how Pierre Robert compared.

Mmmm…it was decadent. Pierre Robert has the texture of a mousse, dense and yet light. The rind melted on my tongue – not the least bit rubbery. And the flavors were more potent than I’d imagined, grassy and peppery. I’m still a stink-bomb lover – the blues have it – but I will buy the Pierre Robert again, for picnics, for hot-night desserts. Bring on the champagne, or, as one artisanal cheese site recommended: Tequila Sunrises.

My students definitely passed the brie test. Honestly, I thought they’d find the mold off-putting, but they descended on this snow-white cake like a pack of writers, which is to say, like wolves! Even the box went out the door under one person’s arm. So, I guess there will have to be more cheese inductions for senior English majors. Maybe I’ll work up to a salty wedge of tongue-numbing Cabrales.

My mind is working on a list of cheese-and-writer pairings – hmm…what cheese would go well with Joyce Carol Oates?

Trugole

On Friday, I made a great discovery: there’s a cheese importer in my neighborhood. Tucked amid the row houses, two unmarked garages function as a wholesale warehouse for International Food Distributors Inc., a company that’s been in business since 1939. I can’t believe I’ve been walking my dog down this block, past coolers full of triple-creams, shelves of stilton and manchego. Somehow I have to believe that this is not just a coincidence, that it’s destiny.

Trugole, a beautiful cow’s milk cheese from the Piedmont region of Italy, was one of the cheeses I tasted on Friday, when I toured International Food Distributors in preparation for next weekend’s tasting. Nicole Marcote, of my local cheese shop, Quince, was kind enough to make the introduction.

I spent an hour in the cooler with a broad-shouldered she-Viking named Jayne, who was kind enough to school me on some of her favorite cheeses, including this one, a staff-favorite at International Food Distributors. In fact, when Jayne took the wheel into the cutting room, about five people appeared, noses in the air, sniffing. “Is that Trugole?” each one asked.

Trugole is a sharp, sweet cheese with a lingering taste of caramelized onions. The texture reminds me of an aged Provolone, but the taste is more characteristic of a Parm or an Asiago. When I served it tonight, alongside lagers and pickles, Monsieur Camembert exclaimed, “This would be good in a plowman’s lunch.”

There is something infinitely snack-worthy about Trugole. It’s full-flavored and fruity, and it pairs well with just about anything – fruits, nuts, olives, cured meats. It was especially good on a sesame-crusted baguette.

Trugole (pronounced True-goh-lay) comes from the foothills of the Alps, where the mountain grasses and foliage must be heavenly, because the sweet notes in this cheese are out of this world. This is a washed-rind cheese, and for every day of Trugole’s 60-day aging process, the wheels are turned and sprayed with water and salt.

The result is a pleasantly sharp semi-soft cheese that I think would fit nicely on the Thanksgiving table, especially if you have risk-averse friends who might shy away from stinkier business. Trugole would be a great mediator – a cheese to impress the foodies and the non-foodies. And it melts well, which means it would be great at midnight when you are contemplating a grilled turkey sandwich and scrabbling about the crisper for a cheese that can hold its own against layers of cranberry sauce and gravy.

Mmm…I’m already dreaming about leftovers. Dangerous.

Roaring Forties Blue

It’s been a very long time since I went to a spontaneous dinner party, but tonight was a full moon, and the time change made everything seem possible. So off I shambled, summoned to a last-minute harvest supper. It was a good thing I had a blue cheese to fit the mood. I threw it in a bag with half a bottle of sherry. Voila: dessert.

Here are 5 things that make a spontaneous dinner party delightful:

Random ingredients.

People sitting around on stools.

A chopped apple salsa w/ purple onion, ginger, cilantro, and lime juice.

Conversation-piece lighting.

Experiments in the oven, in this case: lavender-infused pork chops.

My friend Shanta put on an exquisite feast in her converted garage. The best part was watching everyone chop squash and fry bacon and sip wine around her great big counter. Some people just ate pumpkin seeds and read the Sunday New York Times, which felt truly decadent.

The Roaring Forties Blue fit right into the beautiful whirr of it all. I can think of no other blue that makes a more perfect dessert. Who doesn’t love a cheese that comes in sapphire wax (spectacular by candelight). And the texture, it’s like cheesecake – ultra-creamy, sweet-sharp, with a complex, grassy head and a burnt sugar finish.

Truth is, I’ve searched for Roaring Forties Blue since I read about it on Miss Cheesemonger. What a delight to come upon it this weekend, unexpectedly, in the cold case of a small Center City market, where a grab basket of wedges drew the cheese-curious. There it was, my Roarting Forties, a peacock in the mix.

Roaring Forties hails from King Island, a craggy blip off the Australian coast. The island has a strong dairy industry, and it’s thought that seed from shipwrecks during the 15^th and 16^th centuries washed ashore and created the lush grasses that make the milk so rich. King Island cows are renowned for their sweet milk. The name "Roaring Forties" is actually the name of a gale.

So, there you have it: shipwrecks spontaneously generating pastures, cheese shops mysteriously appearing with curious cheese, and harvest parties happening spur of the moment. Synchronous cheese+spontaneity. Could there be a more auspicious beginning to November?

Gouda & Green Apple Pizza

It’s all cheese and apples at our house these days. Tonight, my man Tij and I were hankering for a pizza, so why not a pizza with cheese and apples? Why be shy and pretend we don’t love a pizza that’s a wee bit like apple pie?

Lucky for me, a Poe scholar at work gave me his pizza recipe this afternoon – so I was ready to knead while Tij read “The Raven.” On a whisper-cool night, this was perfect. Caw caw. We thought of Scholar Fusco as we sliced heart-shaped apple slices and tried not to grate our knuckles as we readied the cheese.

I had a puck of Farmer John’s Gouda in the crisper, another bit of fortune. When I lived in Wisconsin, I used to buy cheese from Farmer John at the Dane County Farmers’ Market – good stuff. Although you can use any gouda to top your pizza (recipe below), I like the understated taste of Farmer John’s – it’s a young gouda, and it’s texture is very smooth. The taste is vaguely cheddar-like with a sweet-sour note that goes nicely with tart green apples.

We make our pizzas in a 12-inch skillet, which crisps the crust. Dr. Fusco and Farmer John did right by us; this was an excellent pie, probably the best we’ve ever made.

Skillet Pizza with Gouda & Apples

First, the crust…

1 1/3 cup warm water

1 packet (2 ¼ tsp.) active yeast

1 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. olive oil

4 cups flour (1 cup whole wheat, 3 cups unbleached white)

Using a standard mixer, combine water, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil. Measure the flours into a separate bowl, then add 1 ½ cup of the flour mixture to the yeast mixture. If you’ve got a dough hook handy, get it ready; otherwise use a wooden spoon to stir in the remaining flour a heaping spoonful at a time. Knead for 5 minutes.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Turn to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot for one hour, or until dough has doubled in size. Then punch the dough down and divide it in half. You’ll make two pies.

Now, the pie…

4-5 Tbs. fresh ricotta

6-8 slices of green apple (thin slices)

2-3 strips of Pancetta

1 cup grated Gouda

1 medium yellow onion, sliced

1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Sprig of rosemary

While your dough is rising, caramelize onion: heat the skillet over a medium flame and add 1 Tbs. of oil, then add sliced onions. Turn the heat to low after five minutes, and go play a round of rummy. Turn onions occasionally until they are tender. Then add 1 Tbs. of balsamic and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Stir, then turn off the heat. You’ve got gorgeous onions. Put them in a bowl.

When the dough is ready to go, crank the oven to 500 degrees. Put the skillet in the oven while it warms. When the oven is done preheating, pull the skillet out, drizzle some olive oil around the bottom, and press half of your pizza dough into it so that you’ve got a funny little patted-down pizza crust that reaches the sides.

Bake this for 10 minutes. Play another hand of rummy.

Drizzle a little oil on the pizza dough when it comes out. Spread it around with the back of a spoon, then lather on the ricotta. Add apple slices, caramelized onions, torn bits of Pancetta, a few needles of rosemary, and finally the Gouda.

Turn the oven down to 425 degrees, and bake the pizza for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is really bubbly. Let sit for 5 minutes before cutting.