Red Hawk

Yesterday, I mentioned this peanutty wonder, which I sampled at a recent tasting when it was paired with  chocolate stout. It's a triple creme from Cowgirl Creamery, run by Sue Conley and Peggy Smith -- two farmstead-cheese pioneers with a soft spot for stink. 


Many of my friends are triple-crème lovers. Me? I don’t freak for brie, but I do like this wicked stepchild. It's a little bit truck stop and a little bit beachy. Each wheel is only about the size of a dinner roll. And yet, it’s full of flavor -- salty, luscious, peanutty goodness. 


Although the Troeg's chocolate stout I tried alongside this cheese isn't available any more (it was just a limited edition), I bet you could sub in Rogue Chocolate Stout and recreate the combo -- serve it after dinner in place of dessert, and tell your friends it's a fermented peanut buster parfait.


Cowgirl Creamery makes Red Hawk from organic milk, then washes it in brine so that a ruddy rind develops. Think of Epoisses, another washed-rind winner. Cheese maven Janet Fletcher suggests taking Red Hawk out of its wrapper a day before you want to eat it and letting it sit at room temperature under “a cheese dome or inverted bowl” so the rind can dry and develop “a faint salty crunch.”


My Red Hawk is on the counter right now, glowing like a holy relic under glass. And when the sun lights up the rind, I know I will never take a triple-crème for granted again. 

Cheese'n Beer Catechism

On Wednesdays, I’ve been skipping down to the Italian Market to enjoy the best kept secret: DiBruno Bros. hosts a free cheese-and-beer tasting. This draws the local cheese geeks and beer nuts out of the woodwork from 5-8, and if you play fly-on-the-wall, you can pick up some good tips…on local restaurants, on books, on which cheeses are perfectly ripe.

This week DiBrunos hosts Lancaster Brewing Company, right out of Amish country. Their Milk Stout and Amish Four Grain look particularly interesting, but mostly I’m curious to see what the cheesemongers pull out of the cave. Two weeks ago, I sampled a wedge of peanutty Red Hawk and a gulp of Troegs chocolate stout, and I went weak – weak, I tell you – in the knees. The combination tasted like a boozy Snickers bar. Last Wednesday, I melted for some perfect Taleggio, paired with Iron Hill Pilsner.

If the tasting whets your whistle, head down to the Royal Tavern for a smoked-gouda burger, and if you find youself eying the truffled popcorn – go for it. It’s perfectly salted, lightly buttered, and wickedly truffley. Confession: for two days, I ate it for breakfast.

For more cheese’n beer goodness: put a big fat circle around Friday, April 30, when the Fair Food Farm Stand in Reading Terminal Market launches its Cheesemaker Happy Hour (4-6). Shellbark Farms’ Pete Demchur will join Sly Fox for some brotherly love.

Cheese Penpals

Word came this weekend that Amy Strauss received her cheese gift box, part of my stink-a-versary give-away. Amy requested some Prima Donna, one of my faves. I hope she is enjoying every toffee-like bite on this rainy day here in Philadelphia. Me? I'm at work, airing out my office.

Yep, my wine fridge (which serves as a cheese cave) has become a little whiffy over the course of the semester. In fact, this morning the custodian came by to ask me if I had noticed my "mold problem." I was a little embarrassed to tell her that it was from storing cheese in my office. Looks like I'll be investing in some air freshener.

Shadfest Cheese Picnic

Yesterday I woke up to my cheese-packed fridge and decided it was time to plan a picnic. The sun was out, the cherry trees along my block were in bloom, and the park near my house was hosting a music festival, the much-loved Shadfest – named for the fish that used to lurk in the waters of the Delaware River. Now the Delaware is mostly populated by floating beer cans, but the neighborhood has revived its connection to the water, and Shadfest has become our mini Woodstock, drawing live bands, dog lovers, Frisbee players, and bike nuts (who appreciate the valet bike-parking service). Oui, c’est vrai.

I had a lot of triple crème cheeses in the house, so I called up Aimee, a.k.a. the Triple-Crème Freak. 

I also phoned Louise, because she wears fabulous shoes. She’s a veg-head, and I had some vegetarian cheeses in the crisper, namely Andante Dairy’s Rondo, a gorgeous mixed-milk puck speckled with tarragon and pink peppercorn. “Louise,” I said, “I have a cheese that will make your Australian heart melt.” Louise, who is from Brisbane, said, “Ooo, I quite fancy that.”

Along the way, we ran into Joe and Roddy, my local connection to cheese markets of the Northeast passage, i.e. Datillo's. 

And then my buddy Mike and his fire-haired boy appeared, and so our little picnic became an impromptu cheese party. 

We nibbled on Minuet, Largo, Rondo, and Acapella – to the backdrop of Birdie Busch and the Strapping Field Hands. Music to the ears and mouth. 

Acapella

Permit me to continue my goat cheese tutorial. I have eaten the ash puck of all ash pucks, a yeasty goat cheese from Petaluma, California made by a classical pianist. In fact, every cheese made by Soyoung Scanlan is named after music, but Acapella – it’s something else. It is the most lyrical cheese I’ve ever eaten. Thanks to the folks at DiBruno Bros. for inviting me in yesterday for a nibble of this new arrival.

Scanlan makes cheese for Thomas Keller, of Napa Valley’s French Laundry and New York’s Per Se. You won’t find her cheeses, sold under the Andante Dairy label, at very many cheese counters, but they appear on best-of lists compiled by dairy-lovin’ celebs like Janet Fletcher. Some of Scanlan's other cheeses include Metronome, Minuet (a gorgeous triple crème), and Rondo (a mixed milk bliss-inducer dotted with pink peppercorn and tarragon).

Of the four Andante cheeses I tried, Acapella was the stand-out, not just because it was rolled in ash and Penicillium Roqueforti – I know, I know, my weakness – but because it was so distinct, so quirky. Imagine eating a cheese that tastes like the smell of fresh bread dough rising in your oven under a wet towel. Andante’s even got the same springy consistency – when you push down on it with a finger, it pops right back up. 

DiBruno’s Hunter Fike calls the cheese from Andante Dairy “amazing.” He favors Scanlan’s Minuet, a goat’s milk triple crème that is so tender and mild you could cry. I like a cheese that haunts me, and Acapella does that. It hits notes I’ve never tasted in a goat cheese; even the smell of it – I have a tiny wedge in my crisper – makes me shiver, makes me want to put on some Tallis Scholars and lay down on the floor in the dark and just hum.  

Sea Smoke

Over the weekend, I hosted an all-goat blow-out. Really, I just wanted to show off the glorious work of Amazing Acres’ Debbie Mikulak, a new artisanal cheese maker from Elverson, Pa. whose pristine chevre has every cheesemonger I know talking.

Debbie makes unusual goat cheeses – her Sea Smoke reminds me of Humboldt Fog, the famous ashy streaker from California’s Cypress Grove, but Debbie’s version has a bloomy rind, which lends an Alice-in-Wonderland-like quality to this delicate, pleasing cheese.

Picture Humboldt Fog as a mochi ball, and you’ve got the texture down – a veil of damp, slightly gummy bloom serves as the surface here. Sea Smoke looks like a magic mushroom, a cave formation, a doorknob into an underworld of talking caterpillars and rabbits.

The texture is dense, moist, and a little chalky – crumbs settle on the tongue, like cloudcover. The taste is slightly floral at first, with a mild tang, and a flourish of pepperiness at the end -- think watercress. The layer of vegetable ash is mostly tasteless, but there's a woodsy cleanness to the whole package – it’s a spring dream. I like it best with blackberries and strawberries, as dessert.  For a light supper, it would go well with sautéed fiddleheads and a glass of Prosecco.

Debbie also makes Banon, a denser cheese she wraps in grape leaves and soaks in brandy – a nod to the French, who popularized this adorable, giftable cheese in Provence (the French use chestnut leaves and eau de vie). Debbie’s version is firmer than the French varieties I’ve tried, but really delicious, a perfect appetizer alongside almonds and a glass of Cote-du-Rhone.

I’ll be writing about Debbie’s cheeses for the next issue of Grid Magazine. I also mentioned her goat cheese in a recent segment of “A Chef’s Table” on WHYY, Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate -- it's at the very end of the program, listen-to-able at the link. I guess I’m turning into something of a Sea Smoke evangelist, but then…you know, I have a thing for bloomy rinds and ash.   

If you live in the Philadelphia area, look for Sea Smoke and other Amazing Acres cheeses at Fair Food Farm Stand, DiBruno Bros, and Quince. (You might want to call first, since supplies are limited.)

Here are a few scenes from Debbie’s goat-cheese debut, beginning with a photo of her and husband, Fred Bloom.  

Maidenhead

New Jersey and cheese? I never thought I’d put the two together, but then my friend Albert (of Messy & Picky fame) texted me about Maidenhead. I saw the pics on his blog – here was a cheese that looked like a rusty wicker basket – and I got very excited. When I heard it was washed in Flying Fish beer, I lost my shizzy.

Maidenhead has a cool story – it’s made on a sustainable farm, called Cherry Grove, in Lawrenceville, NJ where the cheese facility is run solely on a wood fire supplied by brush from local tree surgeons. This is a true farmstead cheese, which means that the maker uses milk from his own animals, not from other sources. It’s both organic and raw. Rah rah rah to that -- I love the depth of flavor that you get in unpasteurized cheese.

Let it be known that I took this cheese to my Food Writing class this week, as a bonus tasting – they have been very brave (last week they sampled Purple Haze, Parm, and a raw whiskey-blue) – and at least one of them could not handle the stink. Maidenhead smells like a cow stall, true, but it’s just delicious.

Imagine eating a chicken leg on a tire swing, and you’ve got the flavor notes. There’s a strong rubbery, gamey taste, initially – which sounds awful, I realize – but then it mellows, filling your mouth with sublime avocado. Wild. It’s a long-lasting, quasi-exotic ride – a little bit farmy, a little bit Costa Rica.

Cherry Grove makes about 7 cheeses, including an arrestingly salty blue, called Shippetauken, and a buttery Piedmont-style washed-rind cheese that melts like a dream, Toma Primavera.

I have a little crush on Cherry Grove Farm, not just because it has a purdy website but because it's so welcoming to strangers – there are tours and a farm stand. One blue-sky day, I will wend my way over the PA line to buy a wedge of Buttercup Brie and some free-range pork. Mmmm, I smell a farmstead breakfast sandwich.