Cheese

Mariah’s jealous because I got around to writing about Selun before she did. She says, “tell them that Mariah, lover of all things washed-rind and stinky, thinks this cheese is amazing! Be sure to put in the kind of adjectives I like!” So, in honor of my jealous friend and co-worker Mariah, let me just say that Selun is lusciously rich, intriguingly gooey, excitingly salty, subversively meaty, and dreamily stinky.

Okay, okay, I know the exclamatory bits were adverbs, not adjectives. Same basic concept, more or less, right? They modified my plain-Jane adjectives. And Mariah wouldn’t have just laundry-listed them like that; she would have organized them in some hypnotically lyrical sequence that would have compelled you to immediately march down to Rainbow and buy the damn cheese without even reading the rest of the post. She’s good that way.

So, back to Selun. Wow, this is really good! I should add that I, Jenny Schmenny, am often a pathetic coward when it comes to the washed rind cheeses, but I like this just as much as stinky-lovin’ Mariah does. It’s strong enough for the tough girls like her and mellow enough for the crybaby squirrels like me.

Selun comes from the village of Toggenburg in the St. Gallen region of Switzerland. It’s a smallish semi-soft wheel made with raw cow milk. The name “Selun” is tagged artfully spelled out in hayflower on the top of the wheel, along with a decorative crown-looking cipher.

We don’t have much, so try not to put this off ’til later. Look what happened to Mariah when she did that!

Heads up, my cheesey peeps, there’s another good deal coming down the pike! Redwood Hill made too many of their Camellia, so we’ve got a bunch at the low low low low price of $4.99 each. Usually they’re $8.99 each, so as far as I can see it, you can’t afford not to buy ‘em. If you’ve never had one, picture a tiny Camembert-style disc made from local goats’ milk. Soft, buttery, a little meaty, with a delicate little penicillum candidum rind that you can gobble right up.

Did you get your earthquake kit together? I sorted through mine recently, refamiliarizing myself with its contents. Turns out I’ve got everything but food, since all my edibles expired. I must go buy some more long-lasting sustenance. Maybe I’ll just throw a wheel of aged gouda in my backpack with a flashlight. But seriously, if you trust me about cheese, consider what I say about earthquakes. There will be one, and you don’t want to be stuck looting the corner store for Pabst and Ding Dongs.

Okay, that’s my last word about tectonic upheavals. I’m aware I’m misusing the cheese blog, and I’ll return to the subject at hand. Camellia. On sale. Come get.

Ah, Lingot, creamy goaty golden ingot, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways, starting backwards from a zillion.

…No, I’ve got to get back to figuring out how to fit a thousand pounds of Dante into seven hundred pounds of space in the cooler. I don’t have time to enumerate my entirely unquantifiable feelings about this lovely tidbit. Tender, light, and kicky (like a kicky little dance, not like a mean kick in the teeth.) The texture is dreamy: a delicately silky cake that’s starting to go gooey around the edges, and the rind is thin and delicious.

In other news, P’tit Basque is still on sale for an astonishingly low price of $9.99/lb. What an amazing deal! Think of how much of you could hoard! When zombies are staggering the streets of San Francisco, you’ll be able to lock yourself in your cheese cellar and survive in style. Don’t forget to keep some water and walkie-talkies down there. Your neighbors will probably be wanting to barter valuable goods and services. You’ll need the walkie-talkies so you can laugh at them and make happy cheese-chewing noises.

Which reminds me, if you don’t already have an earthquake kit, you should. Don’t procrastinate! You don’t want to be surprised by something so easily anticipated as an earthquake. Consider going to Neighborhood Emergency Response Training (NERT). It’s free, fun, easy, informative, and a good way to meet your neighbors. Seriously, every San Franciscan should have ample earthquake preparedness skills, and this is a great way to start.

Um. Anyhow. Cheese is fine, sends its regards.

…sigh…

Oh, the tragedy of short dates. Bubalis Bubalis Mozzarella and Bocconcini are at the end of their sell-by dates. They’re still great; rich, milky, a little strong, as only buffalo mozzarella can be. So we’ve marked them down from $7.49 and $7.99 each, respectively, to a measly $4.99 for either one. This will please you as much as it would pain me to have to pull them off the shelf tomorrow. So come today. Buy one, go to produce and get the prettiest tomato you can find, drizzle some olive oil on it all, and eat it as soon as possible. It’ll be delightful.

Common misconceptions about buffalo mozzarella include, but are not limited to:

1. Any fresh mozzarella in water is buffalo mozzarella. Nope. Plenty of them are made with cows’ milk too.

2. Aren’t buffalo extinct? The short answer is that bison no longer thunder across the American praries. But this doesn’t come from bison, it comes from bubalis bubalis, the water buffalo!

3. I can get some tomorrow for the same low price. No you can’t. Come today.

Well, any of you who read the news or check your receipts know that prices are rising for food.  Cheese is no exception. Considering the amount of imported cheese you folks buy, you’ve probably noticed the dollar is at a historically painful rate (for those of us living in the USA).

 

As the main cheese buyer I’ve been trying to get some volume deals to ease this pain.  Though we can barely fit ‘em in our backstock cooler, we just got in 70 cases of Petit Basque that we are selling for $9.99/lb.(reg. price is $19.99/lb)  This is a Basque sheep milk cheese (made by the same folks who make the Istara Ossau-Iraty, our best-selling sheep cheese) that is sweet, nutty, and rich.  It makes pretty much everyone happy. Better get it while it’s here.  This is one of the best deals we’ve had in years.

 

If you can’t find it, just look for Creepy Timmy, the Petit Basque mascot. You’ll know Timmy when you see him.

 

(Please note, because the super-low sale price, we can’t give a discount for buying by the wheel.  Sorry.)

 

 

 

Ok, so its been a while since I’ve written a blog about my favorite cheese of the moment. Since we have been super busy with the SBC coupons (see the back of your SF yellow pages for the June coupon) and my dear co-worker Ms. Schmenny has been vacationing, I’ve been cutting cheese with no time to write. Here I am to make amends.

Its Spring, time for some seasonal cheese loveliness! My cheesy love of the week is definitely Cowgirl Creamery’s seasonal cheese SF Drake. Its washed with wine and topped with a bit of pomice; the grape leftovers from the winemaking process. Its not quite as stinky as a Red Hawk, more oozy, creamier and sweeter even with a delicate pungency. I bought a wheel for my friends who have a 16 mo. old baby and forgot what it was like to have fabulous cheese in the house. They devoured it, rind and all, declaring that the rind was unexpectedly delicious. Finger licking kind of yumminess. Ok, so its pricey. But, if you are in need of pampering yourself with something amazing Organic and local, SF Drake is your cheese.

What could be a more useful cheese to a cook than gruyere? Yes, it’s that traditional fondue cheese, but it is undeniably versatile. From quiche to French onion soup to (dare I say it) a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, gruyere is the cheese for all your decadent savory recipes. My absolute favorite right now is the Swiss Cave-aged gruyere. It is so oniony sweet, like caramelized onions, with a nutty, meaty richness. It’s so complex that I sound like a wine person every time I talk about it. Admittedly, I have a bias against American Cheese, (the pasty orange stuff that sticks to the roof of your mouth and tastes like some weird combo of plastic, cardboard and stale crackers), but, I’m not really a cheese snob. Growing up on government cheese (a.k.a. American) as a necessity made me yearn for something, not just better, but, wonderful. Swiss Cave-aged gruyere is a wonderful culinary masterpiece of flavors. It’s a Monet, a Moliere or Beethoven’s 9^th, of cheese. Sometimes, when a cheese is this good any attempt at finding the right adjective, analogy or metaphor for flavor just falls flat. When the sweet, nutty, fatty richness coats my tongue so perfectly, why do I need words?

p.s. This cheese is also amazing with a dark beer, hearty red or fruity white wine.

I hope you’re not allowing my ludicrous lyricism to distract you from the content of my posts. Cheese is what matters here. I am just a vehicle.

So, without further ado or unduly extraneous adjectives, let me introduce my favorite fromage du jour*, French AOC** Chevre d’Or . It may not look big, but it sure tastes big. This is one of those goat cheeses that gets a caramely quality as it ages. It’s dense, sweetish, salty, a little grassy (more like hay than grass), and really wonderfully hearty. The rind is very thin and delicate; you hardly notice you’re eating it. One tiny slice of Chevre d’Or will leave a smile on your face for a long time. Although I’m a great fan of gluttony, I hardly feel it’s necessary to scarf down a whole wheel of this precious stuff at one sitting; you can savor it in a liesurely manner.

*I don’t speak French. If you come to the counter and goad me into trying to pronounce French cheese names, my linguistic butchery will surely make you shudder in delighted horror. I’m here for your amusement, oui oui.

**AOC stands for Appellation d’origine contrôlée. Wikipedia can explain it more accurately than I.