Cheese for a Snow Day

Out here in the East, the world is blizzard bright. Our street looks a little bit like Nuvola di Pecora, a bloomy sheep cheese with a mattress cover of snowy rind. It is pudding glorious and perfect for fattening up your snow-bound kin, which is exactly what I am doing.

My father is in town from the Great Plains, and we are enjoying moments of intrepidness, girding ourselves with fur. This afternoon we braved the wilds, hoping to make it down to the cheese counter, but we only made it as far as the liquor store before the wind blew us back home.

Padre Fromage

If only we had some Nuvola di Pecora in the fridge. If you like sheep’s milk cheese, this is a must-find delicacy. It tastes like sheep’s milk custard -- sweet and vegetal with a hint of steamed cauliflower and a clean, milky finish. It’s not muttony the way some sheep’s milk cheeses are, like the dense and delicious Shepherd’s Basket I tried several weeks ago.

Nuvola di Pecora means “sheep clouds.” Easy to remember. This is a cheese I will dream about – and visualize during sleepless nights, counting ONE Nuvola di Pecora, TWO…. If you can't find it at the cheese counter (it's a new release), beg your cheesemonger to seek this out.

Serve it with blackberry jam, preferably during a snow storm.

Nuvola di Pecora, Tait Farm Blackberry Jam