Puddle Duck Creek

My October cheese column in Grid Magazine features this pretty duckling, known as Puddle Duck Creek. It's a bloomy cheese from Hillacres Pride in Peach Bottom, PA. When I first picked up Puddle Duck at my local Green Aisle Grocery, I was struck by it's golden interior -- it looks like banana pudding. That's a good sign. As I mention in my column (see below), that gold coloring tells me that the cows were pasture-raised. Cows can't digest beta carotene in grass, so it shows up in the milk and subsequently in the cheese.

This is the first season I've seen Puddle Duck Creek. It's a great addition to the local cheese world -- dense and fudgy. It joins a couple other notable Brie-style cheeses from the area, namely Buttercup Brie, Noble Run, and Sue Miller's Little Chardy. If you live in the Philadelphia area, check out the Hillacres Pride stand at Headhouse Farmers Market. You'll see Sue Miller's Birchrun Hills Farm stand there, too. It would be fun to try her Little Chardy alongside Puddle Duck Creek since they're made from different breeds of grass-fed cows. Hillacres raises Jerseys, while Birchrun milks Holsteins.  

In fact, that's just what I might do this weekend.

If you find yourself with a puck of Puddle Duck, try serving it with cherry preserves and a sparkly wine or Duvel. You could also toast slices of Puddle Duck on top of baguette rounds and layer some sauteed mushrooms on top to pick up on the earthy notes. Add a sprinkle of chives, too.   

~

Below: A screen shot from the October issue of Grid Magazine, p. 13

 

A Hurricane Cheese Party

When you face blowing away, you want to be among friends. And so, last night, we invited the neighbors over for cheese in the face of Hurricane Irene. 

Just the day before, we’d driven out to Chester County, Monsieur Fromage and I, and we’d picked up some extraordinary wedges, so our larder was stocked with Sue Miller’s entire line of Birchrun Hills Farm cheeses. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing them all if the power went out and the fridge went dark.

Luckily, my neighbors dig the funk. Here’s how the storm of cheese and Irene went down.

6:30 p.m. The rain hits.

7:00 p.m. Madame Fromage sets the table.

7:30 p.m. Cheese lovers dash across the street for nourishment.

8:00 p.m. There is windswept salad, plenty of beer.

9:00 p.m. Our very own “storm catcher” receives texts on her Bad News Blackberry 

10:00 p.m. Loved ones ring. There are phonecalls in the foyer.

Midnight: I'm still thinking about Little Chardy, Sue's great Brie. 

4:00 a.m. The chimney falls in. The ceiling snaps.

10 a.m. I’m blogging, feeling lucky to have a roof and good friends, but I'm also wondering about the cows I met at Sue's farm two days ago, like Little Chardy (below), the namesake cow who inspired the great Brie we all consumed at the height of the storm. Little Chardy, you still there?