Blue Cheeses I Have Known, by Nikki

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Today's blue cheese post comes from brand new blogger, Nikki Palladino of La Mia Tavola. She writes in from Hoboken, NJ and describes a blue cheese burger that makes me want to fire up our sad little patio grill in spite of the snowy forecast. 

Nikki and I share a love of juicy fiction and moldy cheese -- at one time, she was a student in my creative writing workshop, back when she was a rugby-playing, sopressata-loving English Major. I knew we would become friends once she went off to seek fame and fortune. Now she works in publishing, and her new blog -- full of food reflections and new recipes -- makes me feel like a proud Auntie Mame. Give the grrrl a big fat washed-rind welcome!

You Break the Mold Blue Cheese

I get the blues like every other foodie, it comes in waves; sometimes I crave a just warmed mozzarella sprinkled with some roasted red peppers, oil and tomato. Sometimes I want to dig my fork into a beautifully prepared beet salad garnished with pecans and warm goat cheese – perhaps a garlic toast poking out. It is a mood and a consistency thing really. I never feel this way about blue cheese though. When it comes to blue cheese, I have yet to encounter Roquefort I did not want to devour.   

Admittedly, my first encounter with the potent stank of this blue-gray mold involves blue cheese as a kind of sidekick, served with an order of wings. Funny that Sundays still revolve around football and good eats in my house but when I was sixteen and my best friends were teenage boys, we weren’t scooping servings of my Nona’s meatballs and marina onto fine china, the cheese a centerpiece of Italian cuisine. Instead we were sinking our teeth into a heaping Styrofoam container of honey BBQ wings and blue cheese dressing to complement those delicious celery sticks. It is and was love at first crunch.

Even now after my aunt serves a beautiful dish of home style chicken noodle soup, whipped up with tri color tortellini and a side of broccoli rabbe and cannellini beans, my Uncle insists on putting the baby blue mold on a plate surrounding an array of oranges, pears, and plums – a dreamboat Italian dessert for a man who passes regularly on the tiramisu. Needless to say, I eat well when I visit my father’s family.

That’s what blue cheese embodies for me – a favorite pastime I remember of bodies hovering over freshly laid plates and too warm to touch dishes in dining rooms and kitchens on weekends when my family came together before adolescence and aging crept up on all of us. I remember blue cheese -- the topping, the stuffing, feeling stuffed because this “stinky cheese” had done it again – had taunted my eyes until they were bigger than my belly and I could only surrender to the Maytag’s saltier serendipity.

This is sounding more and more like an ode to blue cheese or it may resemble more of a celebration of Madame Fromage’s forget-me-not friend, Mr. Blue. In honor of March’s own cheese madness, I am preparing two ground (but lean) beef patties to be stuffed with none other than the man of the hour, Gorgonzola Blue – a nifty little combo I stumbled across in Hoboken’s own Garden of Eden produce haven. Smooth and inviting, the consistency calls for a cracker or a bed of spinach leaves, a perfect pairing to dress up or dress down a meal. Personally, I like to stuff my burgers with cheese as opposed to caustically dropping the cheese atop and hoping for the best (albeit sloppy) melted results. Cannot say enough about drizzling the finished product with some honey Dijon and mushrooms.

Grazie, Madame Fromage, for including Tavola in this worthwhile project.  

My Blue Cheese Manifesto

Last month, I promised to devote March to the blues. Why? Because a lot of Americans live in fear of cheeses with blue mold. And I want to be the angel of Gorgonzola.

Also, I would like to write The Essential Guide to Blue Cheese someday, so let’s call this the preface. Or a party. Or a parade. Over the next few weeks, I am going to put blue cheese on the catwalk. Yes, yes, I really mean it. We are going to have a blue cheese beauty pageant and everything.

Are you with me? Then, let me begin.

I have a testimonial to give:

I love blue cheese, and I want more Americans to enjoy it. Instead of grabbing a hunk of processed cheddar at the grocery, I want more people to buy Maytag. It’s a quintessential American cheese that's been made in Iowa since the '40s, using raw milk. It’s our version of Roquefort but much milder.

I think we need a national blue cheese identity. After all, most European countries have one:

• England = Stilton
• France = Roquefort
• Italy = Gorgonzola
• Denmark = Saga
• Ireland=Cashel

Seeing as many of us are descendants of these countries, doesn’t it seem like we should have a healthy appreciation of the blues? Instead, we are known for the Kraft Single and Cheez-Whiz.

But we could change that if we caused a Maytag run.

America = The Land of Maytag

What do you think? Can we do it together?

If you forget the name, just think of your washing machine. Maytag is made by the same family that makes your home appliances. You can find it in most well-stocked groceries. Look for the silver foil.

Then take it home and repeat after me:

We, as blue cheese lovers, believe:

• It's better to wear fake eyelashes than to eat fake cheese.

• Penicillium Roqueforti is natural and has been safe for humans since 50 A.D.

• Eating blue cheese is patriotic. Especially if you put it on a BLT. (It looks a little bit like a flag.)

• Powerful cheese = powerful pleasure.

An Iowa Cheese Plate

My dad is a Maytag man. He’s lived in Iowa going on 40 years, surrounded by the finer pleasures of that rather ho-hum state: good sweet corn, great pork ribs, and fantastic blue cheese. As a kid, I used to look out at the cornfields and wide sky and dream of getting some city grit under my nails. I couldn’t wait to put Iowa behind me. But Pops held steady. He bought a house in the woods and traveled when he could – always with his fiddle –and he learned to appreciate the quiet life. For entertainment, he looks to hummingbirds and his hi-fi.

I spent a week with him in Iowa this month, my longest trip back since I was a teenager. It gave me a chance to eat a dozen ears, read in a hammock, and put together a decent Iowa cheese plate. Used to be that Iowa was my Kraft Cheese Single, but it’s moved up in the world. I was impressed to see a new food co-op, larger than any in my new home city of Philadelphia, and in that food co-op I found an impressive array of local cheeses. Watch out, Wisconsin.

Reichert's Dairy Air, a goat creamery in Knoxville, IA seemed to be the choice of a co-op staffer who was hesitant – as Iowans tend to be – to rave about one cheese over another. Still, I could tell by the way she talked about Reichert's use of fresh herbs, which were “hand-mixed” into the chevre, that she favored this local goat cheese. In her subtle way, she steered me right. This farmstead chevre -- made on a small, sustainable Iowa goat dairy -- was pretty much perfect. (Reichert's also makes Robiola and is the first, if not only, U.S. Robiola maker. Nudge. Nudge.)

Reichert's Chive Chevre was wonderfully creamy, lightly tangy, and…in a word, fresh. I can take or leave most spreadable chevre, which is often dry and clumpy with too much of a Sourpatch twang. It’s good that this chevre came packaged in a sundae cup, because I snuck spoonfuls of it out of the fridge one night and it cured my hankering for soft-serve. (If only there were Mr. Chevre trucks instead of Mr. Softee trucks all over Philadelphia. I’d chase their bleating calls through the neighborhood for chevre like this.)

We also tried a Gouda from Oskaloosa. Cow’s milk. Fruity and mild. Dad, who’s a strong-cheese lover like I am, exclaimed, “Well, that tastes like butter. Only better.” The texture was terrific, but since I like more flavor, I’d like to try the mature Gouda from Frisian Farms Cheese, which is made by the Bandstra Brothers, who raise grass-fed Holsteins.

I left Iowa this week with renewed interest in the state. It’s heartening to see small-batch cheesemakers thriving in a place dominated by agribusiness and factory farms. If you’re curious to try the best of Iowa cheese, this plate’s for you. (All of these cheses are available online.)

Ultimate Iowa Cheese Plate

1. Maytag Blue

2. Milton Creamery’s Prairie Breeze

3. Frisian Farms Gouda

4. Reichert's Chevre

Below, my Pops, assisting in a photo shoot for last week's Prairie Breeze post: