Rogue River Smokey Blue

Lately, people have been asking me about smoked cheeses, so this week on the Di Bruno blog, I devoted my column to Rogue River Smokey Blue from Oregon state. It's one of the best smoked cheeses on the market -- not that competition is stiff. Most "smoked" cheeses are loaded with Liquid Smoke, a chemical additive. For the 411 on why Rogue River Smokey Blue stands out, please check out my column. 

Full disclosure: I am a freelancer for Di Bruno Bros. Twice a month, I select a cheese and develop a post for their blog. This is how I cover the cost of my dairy habit.

Culture Magazine Debut + Birchrun Dinner

Alas, it’s here: the winter issue of Culture Magazine. It features my first story for the magazine, and I’m so pleased that it brings attention to a stellar blue-cheese maker from Pennsylvania, Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills Farm.

I interviewed Sue this fall and spent a day watching her make Birchrun Blue. Her attention to detail and her deep love of all things Holstein showed me something important that goes into cheesemaking besides milk and rennet: devotion. Deep, deep devotion to animals, land, and the people Sue calls her "eaters".

This issue of Culture feels like an album of greatest hits for me. The centerfold cheese is Rush Creek, from Uplands Cheese in my home state of Wisconsin. And the spread right after my story on Sue showcases Mike Geno’s cheese portraits (yup, that's one on the wall in the photo below). Mike’s been featured on this site many times. In fact, he often accompanies me on fromage junkets around the city.

Birchrun Hills Farm Dinner: Coincidentally, Philadelphia’s own Southwark restaurant has planned to honor Sue Miller with a Birchrun Hills Farm tasting dinner on Wednesday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. ($45). Chef Nick Macri has four incredible courses planned to feature Birchrun's cheese, whey-fed pork, and veal. Please join Mike Geno, Sue Miller, and me. Raw milk and cookies for dessert!

To reserve a spot at Southwark’s Birchrun Hills Dinner, call the restaurant at 215-238-1888.  

Roquefort Meatloaf

Saturday's cheese tasting at Tria put me in the mood to cook with big blues. Lo, when I came across a recipe for Roquefort Meatloaf in a dog-eared copy of The Silver Palate, I knew I had to make it this week. Today, it appears in my column on the Di Bruno Bros. blog. 

This is a good recipe for the winter months. It's hearty, company-worthy, and it keeps well. It's also crazy delicious -- this from someone who is not a big meatloaf lover. Consider this the luxury liner of meatloaves. The center is like bread pudding, light and fluffy, while the exterior is dense and toothsome.

If you're tired of serving turkey for Thanksgiving, this could be your salvation. It's a bit of a project, but on a wintry afternoon when the house is cold, why doesn't want to rock a fur hat and roll up a meatloaf?  For the recipe, please click here.

Yours Truly, during Saturday's ice storm

On Blue Cheese & Food Blogging: Two Classes

"Black Castello," by Mike Geno

Pssst...it's happening. I'm teaching a class on tasting blue cheese. Yeah, I know, blue cheese is not everyone's bag, but you and I know that most people get hung up on "crumbles" at the grocery. We don't like those either. But we love a soft, purring blue like Gorg Dolce (which would be a very good name for a cat) and we get rowdy when someone brings out a big blue bruiser like Stilton. 

On Friday, October 28, I am going to sing the blues at Tria's Fermentation School. I hope you'll grab the hand of an adventurous friend and join me for an around-the-world, multi-milk tour. We'll start in the U.S., with some award-winning blues, then fly to Italy, France, Spain, and England, enjoying pairings with each bite. It's a flight of 7 blues, my loves. There will be dark chocolate, there will be sherry. Let's all wear silk stockings. 

Click here for tickets.

Food Blogging Workshops I & II

You've been asking and asking, and now this dream comes true: Marisa McClellan and I are teaming up to teach two workshops specifically for food bloggers. Whether you're just starting out or deeply engrossed in the blogosphere, we think this set of two hands-on classes will be smashing. Come to one, or both. We're holding them at Indy Hall, a unique co-working space in Old City, Philadelphia. Both workshops will be intimate (12-15 people), and we're providing coffee and baked goods for breakfast. Our goal is to provide you with community, creativity, and croissants, along with new skills and a boost of confidence. 

Food Blogging I : An Introduction

Sat., October 15, 10-1 p.m.

Indy Hall, $75, includes brunch

Instructors: Marisa McClellan (foodinjars.com) & Tenaya Darlington a.k.a. Madame Fromage 

Want to launch a food blog, or spice up the one you’ve already started? Spend a morning developing your culinary identity. We’ll give you an anatomy lesson of good blog components, talk photo gear, explore trends and niches, plus brainstorm future posts with you. This is a hands-on class. You will eat muffins. You will take lots of notes. When you leave, you’ll have all the tools to start blogging with a clear vision of the food story you want to share. 

Food Blogging II: Ethics & Etiquette

Sat., Nov. 5, 10-1p.m.

Indy Hall, $75, includes breakfast

Instructors: Marisa McClellan (foodinjars.com) & Tenaya Darlington a.k.a. Madame Fromage 

So you’ve been blogging for a while, but you’re wondering how to get noticed. And you’re worried your posts might be too long. And you think you might want to run advertising? In this 3-hour workshop, we’ll run through Blog Ethics 101 and help you think through the choices ahead. We’ll also look at several case studies of successful bloggers who have landed book deals and launched full-blown careers in writing. It’s not just about branding, it’s also about understanding the ethics and etiquette around posting recipes, photos, and comments. Consider this your baptism into the pro blogger community.

Note: The image of "Black Castello" at the top of this post is a new work by Mike Geno. His cheese paintings will be featured in the winter issue of Culture Magazine.

Blue Cheese Cherry Burgers

Recently I took on the challenge to create a “hometown burger” for Labor Weekend, a request from Wisconsin Cheese Talk. Since I still think of Wisconsin as home – Madison, specifically – I thought back on two of my favorite summer flavors from that state: Door County Cherries and Black River Blue from North Hendron Dairy Co-op. If you’ve ever paired Stilton with port, you know that these two flavors make beautiful music in the key of sweet-salty.

Black River Blue is a great burger topper – it melts well, and the flavor is sharp without being too aggressive. If you have any left over, sprinkle it in a spinach salad or tuck it into a BLT. The cherry-onion relish can be made in advance, and it keeps well. The tartness of the cherries alongside the caramelized onions balance out the saltiness of the blue, making for a truly stunning burger.

Back when I lived in Wisconsin, I used to bike down to North Hendron Dairy from my favorite little writing cabin at a place called The Christine Center, which was run by nuns. Props to Sister Margaret and Sister Johanna who turned me onto this cheese. When I see it on the East Coast, it makes me think of rural Wisconsin and kind Franciscans.

Blue Cheese Cherry Burgers

For the cherry-onion relish

¼ cup dried cherries

½ cup warm water or dark beer

1 medium-sized white or yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)

Ground black pepper

Sea salt

For the burgers

4 ground beef patties

4 whole wheat hamburger buns

Baby spinach

Black River Blue Cheese (or Gorgonzola)

1. Soak cherries in warm water or beer and set aside to soak for half an hour or more.

2. Melt butter in skillet and add thinly sliced onions. Cook on low to medium heat, about 20 minutes. If they brown, they’ll get tough, so be sure to let them cook down slowly. Once onions are transluscent, add balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and turn off heat. Add a pinch of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Drain cherries, and add to onion mixture.

3. Salt and pepper ground beef patties, and grill. If you cook them on a stove, get the pan hot and cook them in a little butter, 5-7 minutes per side if you want them to be rare – closer to 9 or 12 minutes per side for well-done.

4. Top burgers with cherry-onion relish and a hunk of blue. For additional condiments, try some baby spinach, a shmear of mayo, and a little whole-grain mustard. Serve with a dark, smoky beer and sweet-potato chips.

Note: You can use dried cranberries in place of cherries in this recipe. If you like a smoother relish, put it in a food processor.

August Cheese Round-Up

At the American Cheese Society, earlier this month

August was a good month for cheese, from recipes to reports on the American Cheese Society (ACS) conference in Montreal. Greatly inspired by these, I submit to you my dairy montage from the blogosphere. If I missed any choice posts, drop me a line. 

Here's what August looked like on the cheese web:

Cookbookman examined the canned cheese, Cougar Gold.
Kevin over at Closet Cooking waxed poetic about blue cheese guacamole.
Maddie, a lit lovin' cheesemongeress at Artisanal, launched a cheese and poetry web.      Alexandra Cooks concocted homemade ricotta pizza.
AskChefDennis rocked the squash blossom with zucchini blossom cannoli.
Janet Fletcher's column in The San Francisco Chronicle plugged new cheesemakers.     
The grrls at Cheese and Champagne offered an all-American goat cheese round-up.
Cheese Underground highlighted new WI cheeses.
At the sandwich blog, Grilled Cheese Social, MacKenzie fried a Bee Sting.
In Montreal, Gordonzola captured cheese graffiti.
And in case you missed it, cheesemonger Anne Saxelby made The New York Times.
Off the cutting board, a cool new organization formed, Bloggers Without Borders.

Consider the Cheese Mite, Or What I Learned at ACS

Sister Noella, the Cheese Nun, showing a rind up close

The life of every cheese blogger is full of nibbles and pursuit. Pursuit of knowledge. Pursuit of the next delicious bite. Camping out in Montreal amid scores of cheesemakers and cheesemongers as part of last week’s American Cheese Society conference filled the belly and the brain. I hardly know where to start in describing the myriad delicacies and factoid tidbits.

In a sentence: I am still full.

Here are the unforgettable insights from a 4-day binge on North American cheeses and the men and women who make, sell, coddle, and sniff them.

Cheese Mites

Most aging rooms house cheese mites – tiny, near-miniscule creatures that feast on the rinds of hard cheeses especially. In a presentation by the cheese nun, we saw them munching like calves on grass, under a microscope.  If you have a cheese mite problem, consider getting an ozone machine. One gentleman who shall remain unnamed found that this sterilized the mites and prevented them from reproducing.

Scouitch!

This is the French way of pronouncing what cheese curds do when you eat them.

Naming Cheese

Following hipster trends, popular cheese names are derived from fowl. Gray Owl. Birdville Reserve. Hummingbird.

The Blue Cheese Revival

More blue cheese is made in America than in France, the birthplace of Roquefort. So says Will Studd, a man who held a public funeral for Roquefort in Australia when the country banned raw-milk cheese.

Beecher’s Secret

The reason Beecher’s clothbound cheddar tastes so freaking good, my luvs? The wheels are rubbed down with melted better. I also learned why Beecher’s never uses the word “cheddar” in their packaging: the recipe contains cultures also used in Gruyere and Ementaler. It’s a beautiful, butter-lathered hybrid.

Quebec Cheese

No surprise, this French-speaking region produces 350 varieties of cheese and is the original home to the first dairy school in North America (founded in 1889). I sampled a gorgeous cheese plate at Accords Wine Bar in Old Montreal where the cheeses were served so beautifully. Voila! My favorite was Riopelle.

The Life of the Tongue

Did you know that you are born with 10,000 tastebuds? By old age, you only have 4,000 left. I learned this at a flavor session with Christine Chénard, a taste specialist from Cintech. 

Trigeminal Sensations

Flavor is a combination of taste and aroma, but taste itself relates to touch and temperature. Trigeminal sensations are broken down into the following categories:

            Astringency (think green bananas)

            Piquancy (radishes, chilis)

            Metallic (canned pineapple juice)

            Cooling (mint, anise)

Raw Milk Reactions

Will Studd predicts a raw-milk ban for the U.S. similar to the one Australia and New Zealand adopted in 1996 (N.Z. reversed it eventually). Ann Colonna, a researcher from Oregon State University, who has been studying the issue shared evidence that 95% of Americans are not in favor the ban, and 60% said they wanted to see the 60-day rule relaxed.  

Rogue River Lovin’

Judges at the American Cheese Society tasted over 1600 cheeses to select a North American grand champion. I’m happy to report it’s one of my faves, too: Rogue River Blue. Got get a wedge before it's gone. It's great with barley wine (try Blithering Idiot from Weyerbacher).

To check out my post about ACS for Di Bruno Bros., please click here. 

Cherries and Cheese

Now that it's cherry season, we can do the unthinkable. As you can see, I have gone off my rocker by adding blue cheese and cherries to home-made chocolate pudding. This combination isn't for everyone, but if you love these three flavors, the tastes go together surprisingly well. Sweet, tart, and salty -- my best friends.

If you spot these Corvette-red sour cherries at the farm stand, don't walk away from a great potential cheese pairing. Cook the cherries down into a compote, and keep them in the fridge to garnish Bries and blues. They also come in handy when you want to make a cracking good Manhattan. The recipe below is glorious, and you don't need any Red #5.

Last night, I tucked some of these cherries into blintzes with a bit of farmer's cheese, and oh didn't we all cry our eyes out from joy? Let me tell you, one jar of tart cherries has turned our hot, hot house into a pleasure dome. Every time I open the fridge, the red glow of the cherry jar motivates me to cook -- or at least to rustle up a snack plate.

Try this cherry compote with a cream bomb, like Delice de Bourgogne, or a feisty blue, like Roaring Forties.

Cherry Compote

Adapted from epicurious

• 1.5 pounds of sour cherries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 Tablespoons corn starch
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 drops rose water (optional)

1. Remove cherry stones by hand. To do this, simply split cherries in half and dig your thumb under the pit. It pops right out. Then put the pitted cherries in a sauce pan with water, sugar, and corn starch and bring to a boil.

2. After 5 minutes, strain the cherries, reserving the liquid. Put the cooked cherries in a tall, clean mason jar and return the liquid to the stove.

3. Reduce the cherry liquid for about 10 minutes, so that the mixture is syrupy. Add rose water, if desired. Then pour the syrup over the cherries and seal the jar. Let cool, then refrigerate.

A July 4 Cheese Plate with Friends

You might think it would be impossible to put together a red, white, and blue cheese board without getting corny. Think again. There are some very fine cheeses that come in multicolored wax. And if you think of "red" in loose terms -- a pimento-studded Basque-aroo, say -- you can pull off a spicy snack plate that fits the star-spangled theme.

For a party in Media, PA, hosted by a pair of world travelers now home-bound with tikes, I plundered the cheese worlds of France, Spain, and Australia for a luxe cheese plate that, lo, even the kids gobbled.

Get ready. Here's the sequence. Truly, this is one of the best little combos ever. Once July 4 is over, I will happily serve it again.

Red

Ossau Iraty with Pimento: This classic sheep's milk cheese is smooth and nutty. With a touch of dried pimento (Piment d'Espelette), which is native to the region, this gorgeous hunk turns into a beautiful Dorito. Sounds slanderous, I know, but I am using the term "Dorito" as a term of endearment. I owe the description to cheesemonger Ezekial Ferguson of Di Bruno Bros. 

As you can see from the photo, the red is subtle. If you only buy one nice cheese this summer, make it this one. It's absolutely delicious -- so creamy, so complex with its nutty-sweet tones, and just faintly kicky.

White

Pave D'Affinois: I couldn't resist a cheese cube, something contained and easy to tote. Kara of Almanac Market introduced me to this little Brie-like number. It's soft and simple, a good foil for cherries. Interestingly, the children of our party took to it immediately and begged for slice upon slice.  

Blue

Roaring Forties Blue: This Australian blue is creamy and fruity, a favorite at every party. I'm always drawn to its blue wax casing. It's made by King Island Dairy, just south of Melbourne.

And now...to the party. To the cheese-eating children.

There he is, the Blue Cheese Brit. Notice the gleam in his eye.

Blue Cheese and Barley Wine

There are few things I love more than planning a spontaneous cheese party, so that was my gift to myself last Saturday. It was the first day of spring break, and there was my tenure to celebrate. So off I went to Rittenhouse Square on a mission to buy any blue cheese that called my name.

Most people think all blue cheese tastes the same. But you know and I know that’s not true. Some taste mushroomy and mild, while others pop your eyes out with a peppery hook on the finish. The common thread is salt. Most blues taste like tears.

What alleviates tears? Sweet stuff.

That’s why blue cheese calls for port or sherry. Over the summer, a homebrewer suggested I try blue cheese with barley wine. I wrote it down, then looked it up. High in alcohol. The cognac of the beer world. Intriguing.

On Saturday, I picked up four barley wines at my local beer joint and trotted home to match sorrow and joy, blue veins and barley malt.

Here is what we tasted, cheese-wise:

Cremifacto Verde Capra

Rogue River Blue

Bleu de Basque

Colston Bassett Stilton

Blaue Geiss

Now for the Barley wines:

Blithering Idiot (Weyerbecher Brewing)

Insanity (Weyerbecher Brewing)

Cereal Killer (Arcadia Brewing)

Horn Dog (Flying Dog)

Our cheeses ranged from mild and creamy (Cremifacto) to sharp and clayey (Blaue Geiss) with a mellow sheep’s milk blue (Bleu de Basque) and a traditional British wallop-packer (Stilton) thrown in.

Not all of the barley wines worked with blue cheese, but we found a few favorites. And as the night wore on, the conversation grew livelier and livelier. You can guess why. "Blithering Idiot" and "Insanity" are apt names for these beers – they’re not for the lily-livered.

Blithering Idiot was deemed “O Negative.” It worked well with every blue in the house. Pairing it with Rogue River Blue, a grapey leaf-wrapped blue, earned yelps of “A stunning combo!” and “These were made for each other!”

Cereal Killer, which really did smell like Honeynut Cheerios, made a happy marriage with Cremifacto. Creamy meets creamy, go figure.

Horn Dog loved Blaue Geiss. The heavy grapefruit and honey sweetness of this beer pattered along perfectly with this dense, fudgy cheese -- even with its peppery head butt at the end.

Insanity paired off with feisty Stilton, no surprise. Insanity also spent the night with Rogue River. Two magical mates, very flexible.

And that left Bleu de Basque. With its curious flavor combination of mutton and grass, mixed with a hint of coconut (I kid you not – I made cheesemonger Dan Black confirm this tasting), this Spanish sheep’s milk blue couldn’t find a match, although Blithering Idiot worked okay.

Stick around for more of the Blue Cheese Invitational. In the coming days, I’ll unpack these cheeses, blue by blue. As for Saturday night's guests, special thanks to my blue-cheese guinea pigs: Meat Man Mike, Andre of Canada, and April Lindner whose new book, Jane, makes a perfect accompaniment to strong cheese.

Day 7: Meet the Welsh Blue, Perl Las

The photo of this tender slab was sent to me by Alanna of London, our latest participant in the Blue Cheese Invitational. Alanna works as a full-time policy adviser but still finds time to ferret out delicious cheeses. She recently launched a blog, 360degreescheese, on which she documents a bit of in-home cheesemaking. Do check it out.

Alanna’s favorite blue is called Perl Las, a Welsh nub with a name that means “blue pearl.” It's made from organic cow's milk at Caws Cenarth, a small artisan dairy in Carmeshire, Wales. Look at that rind and those dashing blue stripes! I can almost taste this in the back of my throat, can’t you?

Alanna writes:

I tried this cheese at a St David's Day tasting of Welsh cheeses last week (St David's Days is on 1 March and is the national day for Wales) and it was the stand out cheese for me. It is actually a blue caerphilly cheese and doesn't have the sweetness of some other blues. The taste is a bit like having a small piece of slightly salty cream on the tip of your tongue - its soft and creamy but tastes distinctly strong. The smell is quite mild but musty and earthy. 

I love that in the piece I bought you can see the line where they pierced the cheese (I find the whole process of making blue cheese fascinating  - the adding of the bacteria, the piercing of the cheese and the slow spread of  blue  through the open spaces. Its like the flavour slowly creeps into the cheese).

I'm sorry I can't bring you a sample to eat! 

Oh, Alanna, I’m sorry, too. It looks just like my type of cheese – a little bit crumbly, with a natural rind that suggests cavey notes, maybe a touch of leather? Thanks so much for writing in and sending a picture. Best of luck with blogging and cheesing in the U.K. We'll stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’ve got my nose in the air to sniff out Caws Cenarth, which not only makes Per Las but a gorgeous moon called Golden Cenarth -- winner of Best Welsh Cheese and Best Semi-Soft at the 2010 British Cheese Awards. Golden Cenarth looks like an Epoisse throw pillow. Maybe after our blue cheese marathon we will have to hover over washed rinds for a while.

Want to send in a photo of your favorite blue? Drop me a line, or visit the first post about the Blue Cheese Invitational. 

Day 2: A Blue Cheese Brunch

My friend the Triple Crème Queen offered to throw a party. She knew I was devoting the month of March to blue cheese, so she offered to host a brunch. No one timid was invited.

She made a beautiful blue cheesecake.

It looked like a moonscape. Picture a smooth surface with tiny blue craters. I wanted to put a flag in it, claim it as unchartered territory, but turns out recipes for blue cheesecake abound on the Internet. Come out, come out, blue-cheesecake lovers, wherever you are.

Triple Crème baked up a recipe from her favorite chefs, Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee, at Cook's House in Traverse City, Michigan. The recipe called for two pounds of cream cheese and 8 ounces of creamy blue (she used Saint Agur). Alongside: vanilla pear compote.

Sublime.

I think this cake is the perfect vehicle for conversion. By that I mean: conversion experience. Say you are a Blue Cheese Skeptic, or say you live among the Uncertain. I meet them all the time – people at the cheese counter who won’t let anything blue pass their lips, although they think nothing of eating a hotdog. Okay. Hmm.

The texture of this cake is dense and crumble-moist.

As you eat it, you taste a winged sweetness, so faint. Then Saint Agur flutterkicks – a bold but gentle move. The pairing of blue cheese with pears is classic, so the compote fits like a habit on this nun.

I had to take a picture – really, I was moved to – after I ate the first bite. Just so I could relive the experience on lonely lettuce nights.

If you can’t find Saint Agur, try a creamy blue like Maytag, Cashel, or Black Castello.

Blue Cheese Cheesecake with Pear Compote

from The Cook's House

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

5 eggs

2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature

8 ounces blue cheese, broken into small pieces

6 firm, ripe pears

2 cups Riesling wine

½ cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise

zest of ½ orange

juice of ½ lemon

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

Put 1 cup sugar, flour, eggs, and cream cheese in a bowl. Combine using an electric mixer, mixing until smooth. Carefully fold in blue cheese. Don’t over-mix or you’ll end up with a grey cake. Pour into springform pan. Bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours before unmolding.

For the pear compote:

Cube the pears – no need to peel them. Combine the wine and ½ cup sugar in a 4-qyart pot. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add vanilla bean, pears, and orange zest. Coook for 5 minutes – the pears will get tender and the sauce will thicken – then pour into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, mix well and cool.

Serve compote alongside slices of cheesecake, along with glasses of Ice Wine, Champagne, or Sauternes.

*

For dessert: Triple Creme served the most sensuous brownies, dotted with sea salt and pistachios. She is a Charlie's Angel, this girl. You must meet her. Her brownie recipe is over at her blog, Aesthetically. Be sure to dilly-dally.