Zuppa Molise

Nothing new to say about cheese this week, but tonight for dinner Shelly whipped up a fantastic soup, and the recipe is worth sharing.  Truth be told, we got the basic idea for this dish from good ole' Lidia Bastianich.  You know, this woman:

We recently saw an episode of her show, Lidia's Italy, in which she prepared two types of soups native to the Molise region.  But after we searched high and low for the recipes online and found niente, we decided to give it a go from memory.  The recipe that follows, therefore, is really some sort of amalgamation of Lidia's two dishes with Shelly's own personal touches here and there.

Ingredients:
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium-sized onion, diced
2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
1 bay leaf
1 large Idaho potato, cubed
3 tbsp. tomato paste
2 vine tomatoes, diced
3-4 stalks celery, diced
2-3 large chard leaves, chopped
1/4-1/2 lb. scallops
1/4-1/2 lb. peeled, de-veined med. shrimp
9-10 cups boiling water
1 chicken bouillon cube (optional)

1 1/2 cups tacozze (rough, square-cut pasta):
3 cups flour
3/4 cup water
pinch of salt

First, prepare the dough for the pasta.  Pour all three cups of flour into a food processor and add the water and salt until the dough is firm and workable.  Sprinkle with a little extra flour, knead dough for a minute and wrap with cellophane.  Set aside in the refrigerator for at least a half hour.

In the meantime, dice and cube the vegetables.  Then, in a large pot, sweat the onions in the olive oil over medium-high heat and add 1 tsp. of salt.  Toss in the potatoes and add the bay leaf, then stir in the remaining tsp. of salt and allow the onions and potatoes to carmelize.  After 5-6 minutes, clear away a spot in the bottom center of the pot and spoon in the tomato paste.  Let the paste simmer (Lidia calls it "toasting" the paste) before adding the vine tomatoes, celery and chard.

Once your vegetables are hot and coated with tomato paste, pour in boiling water (we boiled it in our tea pot).  Stir a few times and let it lightly boil for about an hour so as to reduce to approximately half the original liquid mixture.

Meanwhile, sprinkle flour over a flat surface.  Knead the dough and cut it into four equal-sized rounds.  Roll each round into a flat, 1/8" thick rectangle.  Using a pizza or pasta cutter, cut the rectangles into small squares, approximately 1" x 1" each.  Coat the squares with a little extra flour and set them aside, then repeat the process with the remaining three rounds.  Set all the fresh pasta aside until the liquid mixture has reduced.

Once the soup has reduced enough, season to taste (more salt? a little pepper?).  Then add the scallops.  After 2 minutes, shake any excess flour off the fresh pasta and add it to the soup.  After 2 minutes, turn off the burner and add the shrimp.  Let the scallops and shrimp continue to cook for 3 minutes or so before ladling.

Here's what our finished product looked like:

Great with a glass of dry white wine.  Buon appetito.

Where do the days go?  It's been over three weeks since my last post...

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I've simply been a bit lazy.  On the other hand, I am back into the thick of teaching, and on top of that, a nasty cold has been pestering the Wilson-Waldvogel family.  Who wants a big hunk of cheese when their nose is stuffed up and their taste-buds don't work?

But as soon as we began to feel better, we purchased a few tasty wedges from The Bedford Cheese Shop: Cato Corner's Hooligan and Andante Creamery's Tomme Dolce.

We've wanted to try Hooligan ever since we read Thorpe's mouthwatering analysis of it in The Cheese Chronicles.  But Thorpe is just one of many experts in the field who have celebrated the brilliance of Hooligan.  Another master cheesemonger/purveyor, Patricia Michelson, has this to say about it in her epic, Cheese: The World's Best Artisan Cheeses:

Elizabeth MacAlister and her son Mark have been making cheese since 1997; they have 13 different styles, which are seen in cheese shops and restaurants on the East Coast...Hooligan is a salt-washed-ring cheese with a lovely rich, buttery texture to the pate and patches of white and gray molds on the rind.  The pungent aroma on the orange, slightly sticky rind gives way to the sweet and savory flavors...

She goes on to suggest pairing this raw cow's milk wonder with an Alsace-style wine.  We served it up with olives--

--and a light red, and it didn't disappoint, even in the wake of our colds.  A special thanks to our friend Lauren, who stopped in to Michelson's shop in London, La Fromagerie, and picked up a signed copy of Cheese for us.  Lauren, like all of Cato's Corner's cheeses, comes from the great state of Connecticut.

But cheeses from Andante Dairy come from the West Coast--Petaluma, California, to be exact.  There the master cheesemaker, Soyoung Scanlan, crafts a wide variety of artisan cheeses made from goat and cow's milk supplied by two neighboring dairies.  Scanlan is a rockstar of sorts in the cheesemaking world, and, if tomme dolce were the measuring stick, then rightfully so.

All of Andante's cheeses are named after musical terms or notations, something Scanlan does to pay homage to her past life as a musician.  "Dolce" is no exception, but its name also tell us something else about its production process, which is summed up nicely in this excerpt from an article by a San Francisco food critic:

Using brandy and a plum conserve ... she created a wash for her wheels... It's not uncommon to rub wheels periodically with brandy or grappa to help seal the rind and flavor the cheese, but fruit conserve?

Scanlan washed the wheels with her brandy-conserve mixture every other day at first, tapering off as the 9-pound wheels matured. Released at about 6 months old, the tomme has a thin, even, immaculate rind with some surface mold and a uniform ivory interior with many small openings...

On the tongue, Tomme Dolce is semi-firm and smooth, with a judicious balance of sweet and salt. The aroma suggests caramel, garlic and aged beef, and it just doesn't quit...

Spot on.  I highly recommend it.

A Whirlwind...of Cheese!

It only took about 18 days, but I'm finally feeling like a New Yorker again.  I've been honked at on the BQE, elbowed on a crowded E train, and glared at for snapping intrusive photos with my phone at Whole Foods.  But darn it, if you're going to buy a piece of Parmesan this big--

--and push it around like a baby in a stroller, then I should have the right.  Right? 

Anyway, I always feel particularly New Yorkery every September, when the brutal summer heat yields to cool fall breezes and the promise of a kaleidoscope of beautiful foliage in the parks and to...tornadoes...?  Yep, if you didn't catch the news this week, then you missed the (now confirmed) fact that two tornadoes touched down--one in Queens, one in Brooklyn.  Our neighborhood, fortunately for us, was pretty much unscathed by the storm.  But how about this for a segue: while those twisters might have passed us by, we've been caught up in our own whirlwind...of cheese!

Before school started, we made a quick trip up to Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont, where we camped along the pristine shores of  Branch Pond.  There we enjoyed cooler temperatures, the company of our good friends, Melinda and Attila, and, of course, a well-composed cheese plate:

Who says you can't nibble on a nice Comte and a good Stilton before roasting some meat on a stick?

And speaking of well-composed cheese plates, we chanced upon a nice one at The Richardson in Williamsburg:

Counter-clockwise from left: toasted raisin-walnut baguette, prosciutto, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog, dates, and toasted sourdough baguette.  Yes.  Awesome.

What struck me the most--and what might strike you--were the portions of cheese.  We couldn't finish them.  And these two cheeses are indeed worth finishing, and they come with my highest recommendation.   But I can do no better than Liz Thorpe:

"[Cabot Clothbound] doesn't even smell like cheese and certainly lacks the tangy sharpness I expect of American cheddar.  Instead it has the pleasantly musty smell of a damp root cellar full of old potato bags, plus a meaty, jerky whiff.  Inside, the pale straw-colored paste has been masterfully pressed smooth...it has a signature candied flavor...with salt...a sweetness that just hangs there, and the first bite is like baked potatoes, tight in their papery jackets, with melted lumps of sweet butter tucked and melting inside..." (Cheese Chronicles, pgs. 119-120).


"A mouthful of Humboldt Fog is like tropical frosting: light and smeary but bright.  Sunny, with a lemony, citrusy tang.  That bloomy encasement softens the zest, though, so it manages to be herbaceous as well" (pg. 198).

But in any cheese vortex, there's bound to be a bad wedge or two.  Last weekend, for instance, we bought an awful quarter pound of Morbier at Fairway.  I've had the stuff before and loved it, but this particular chunk, to quote Shelly, "smelled like sweaty socks and tasted like rotting compost, but definitely not in a good way."  We tossed it out.

Finally, this morning we cruised the Williamsburg Greenmarket and picked up, among other things, a small wedge of Consider Bardwell's Rupert.  The bright yellow raw cow's milk is aged for ten months and, to be brief, has a dynamic fruitiness and a nice, nutty zing.  I'm excited to pair it with a little vino later today...

The cheese tornado will, of course, continue on its path--sweeping me and my cholesterol levels up along with it....

So Much Food, So Little Time...

For me, the return to Brooklyn won't be official until I've made sure that all my favorite neighborhood treats taste as good as I remember.  I'm talking about massaman curry from Amarin, pizza from Fornino, ice cream from Van Leeuwen, bahn mi and heaping bowls of pho from An Nhau...

...just to name a few.  I've spent much of the time that I should probably be writing or reading with a fork in my hand instead. But no, I don't regret a single bite.

Between meals, we've either been catching up with friends or cramming in as much culture, for a lack of a more specific word, as possible.  We've watched a few movies (that you probably saw two years ago), and today we caught the end of two great exhibits at The Brooklyn Museum: "Andy Warhol: The Last Decade," and "Kiki Smith: Sojourn."  No critic am I, but both installations made good use of the space, were well-paced, and--simply put--were entertaining.

Much of the Warhol show featured the 80's pop culture icons he collaborated and associated with (like Basquiat and Keith Haring) or those he interviewed for his magazine or television shows (like Nick Rhodes and Hall & Oates...need I say more?).  Whereas Warhol was pleasing on a visceral, guilty pleasure-sort of level, the Smith exhibit was delicate and thought-provoking.  There was something about Smith's pencil drawings on Nepal paper in particular that appealed to me.  Here's a good example:

Anyway, at the end of our visit we stopped in to the gift shop, where I picked up a cool little coffee table read called Food Lovers' Guide to Brooklyn.  The book, organized by neighborhood, gives  appetizing reviews/previews of many of the best restaurants and specialty shops throughout the borough.  What caught my eye immediately were the names of so many spots in my own neck of the woods that I have yet to set foot in.  Now the book will be a checklist of sorts, and I'll be sure to report my discoveries in future posts.

And, of course, our love affair with cheese continues.  This week's lone choice was a healthy-sized wedge of Spanish Iberico.  None of my pics turned out, so here's one I found on a quick image search:

The hard rind engraved with gray lines, or sometimes zig-zags, is typical of Spanish semi-soft cheeses; if I didn't know it was Iberico that I bought, I might mistake it for Manchego.  But whereas Manchego is mostly made exclusively from sheep's milk, Iberico is usually blended from the milk of the three major Western dairy animals: cow, goat and sheep.  But the cheese we bought did taste a lot like Manchego: a bit hazelnutty, pleasantly (and familiarly) milky-cheddary, with a little bit of tang and bitterness to the finish.  The paste had the perfect resistance to the teeth, and it was easy to slice up into small cracker-sized chunks.  You could cube it for a party tray or even melt it in a grilled cheese.

Okay, now I've gone and made myself all hungry again...  Until next week--

City Mouse!

At last, back in the city.  As promised in last week's post, I'm relaunching under a revised title:

City Mouse (Country Mouse)

The first part of the blog's new URL, mus urbanus, is Latin for "city mouse."  But for the record, I did consider calling it "Scott's Big Blog of Cheese."  In addition to sharing tasting notes on cheese, I plan on writing about the urban farming movement, trips to the farmers' market (sometimes called the greenmarket here in New York), (mis)adventures in at-home cheese making, and--if all else fails--good meals and great recipes.  So, without further ado, here's the first installment...

We drove into the inferno that is Brooklyn on Tuesday and unpacked and organized our apartment.  At the end of the day, we had enough time to reacquaint ourselves with one our most cherished New York activities: the weekly trip to the Red Hook Fairway.  And the best part of any trip to Fairway is a long, drawn-out, if not somewhat officious, visit to the cheese counter.  All of the mongers there indulge our questions and are more than happy to offer free tastes.

This week we settled on two quarter-pound wedges: Irish Cashel Blue and Chimay Trappist:

The Cashel Blue, in the back, is made from pasteurized cow's milk.  It has a wonderfully smooth, buttery paste with a little bit of grittiness in its pockets of blue.  Like most blues, its nose--as its finish--is minerally.  And the taste?  I'd say well-salted, milky, with a pungent fruity-metallicy bite as the blues crumble in your mouth.  In sum, it was great spread on a cracker, and I imagine it would be nice crumbled on a burger.  I recommend it.

The Chimay, front and center, is also a pasteurized cow's milk.  It's made by a farmers' cooperative in Belgium (it's full name, Chimay Trappist, is owed to the Trappist Monks who invented the recipe).  Its rind is washed with the famous beer, and the Fairway packaging suggests that you pair it; but it's quite nice even without the beer. The paste is a firm, almost gelatiny butter, and it is smooth, mellow and nutty to the tastebuds.  It smells milky, maybe a tiny bit ammoniated and animally going in, and--like the beer--it has a slightly bitter finish.  Also nice on a cracker or simply in fingerfulls by itself.

Yesterday morning we made another familiar fieldtrip--this time to the greenmarket at Union Square.  We escaped the oppressive heat under the shelter of Paffenroth Gardens' tent,--

--where we found some amazingly fragrant and colorful produce: peaches, baby melon, kale, garlic, and a pound of fingerlings--

--that'll go nicely with the whole bluefish and fennel we picked up at Fairway.  So far, I can vouch for the kale, which was full of flavor, and the peaches, which are as aromatic and delicate as they are juicy.  Paffenroth, by the way, is located in Orange County, New York, so its produce travels about 60 miles to the Union Square market.

Fair Enough

This just in: the Portage County Fair is fantastic. Earlier today we spent over three hours exploring the fair grounds out in rural Randolph. Most of that time I felt a strange kind of nostalgia for some part of my youth that never really existed...

Why did I skip out on this fair almost every August while I grew up here? What was I doing that was so much cooler than showing a prize angora rabbit or making a diorama out of garden vegetables?

Whatever. This was my chance to make up for lost time, so I made sure that we saw and did as much as we could while there. Here's every last detail of our visit:

10:10 am - Parked, paid admission ($4 for adults, free for toddlers), walked to the "goat" building. There we toured the county's collection of pygmie goats, Dutch Boer goats, and other show breeds. After a few minutes I asked a woman who seemed to be judging them: "Where are the dairy goats showing?" I think that's how you ask the question...

10:30 - Made our way over to the dairy goat competition, where we caught up with Gwenn and Abbe and their caprine-loving ilk. We watched Gwenn and her son, Milo, along with Abbe's daughter, Madeline, parade Goat Creek's two-year old milkers around:


The Goat Creek goats are, from left, the second (Rose), third (Daisy), and fifth (Ginny). These are the same goats Shelly and I practiced milking throughout July and August.

11:00 - My mom met up with us and we roamed stall after stall filled with the county's finest farm animals: sheep, pigs, cows--


--rabbits, chickens, turkeys...even ducks. Because today was the first day of the fair, many of the animals, like this cow, were in the middle of some sort of beauty treatment in preparation for show. For another example of the kind of primping that goes on, this is what Gwenn was up to when we arrived at the dairy goat competition:


11:30 - We explored the farm supply area, which included plots for several tractor dealerships and an antique tractor exhibit. My favorite tractor of all-time, I've decided, is the depression-era McCormick Farmall. Perhaps you'll agree:


Cool machines. Once Rheinhart had his fill of them (well, once we yanked him away), we walked over to the endless sea of carnival food vendors: gyros, burgers, Italian sausages, snow cones, french fries, elephant ears, candied apples, and the list goes on and on...

12:00 - Sat on a picnic bench near the grandstand and chowed on our own high-cholesterol choices: corndog for Hart, onion rings and a slow-cooked ox sandwich for Shelly and me.

12:30 - Toured the Hubbard building, which houses, among other things, the county's biggest and science-fictioniest fruits and vegetables, like these pumpkins--



--and these cabbages:


For the scale of the lower cabbage, think over-sized basketball or, say, a small beach ball. Or Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

12:45 - Took Hart for a spin on the carousel, then on a ride called "Crazy Bus." He had fun, but was also a bit scared. Introduced the little guy to skee ball, then Grandma Pam won him a prize car at the magnetic fishing pond game.

1:00 - Walked all the way back through the fair grounds and out to our car. Nap time for Hart, and the official end of our 2010 summer farm adventure. A strange but satisfying end.

* * *

So what now?

Well, I've enjoyed writing this blog, readers or no. I'd like to continue...

So next week, after we return to the city and get settled, I'd like to "re-launch" under a new title: City Mouse (Country Mouse). I'll be posting about encounters with the urban farming movement; experiences at the green market; tasting notes about good finds at Fairway and the Bedford Cheese Shop; trials in at-home cheesemaking; other such nonsense.

Stay tuned...

Hay & Cupcakes

It's over. Our summer-long internship with Lucky Penny Farm & Creamery has come to a close. On Thursday, Shelly worked at the creamery from 10-4, helping Abbe with a batch of feta. I stopped by mid-afternoon to take one last look around. We celebrated with cupcakes--


--and compulsory farewell photos--


--before exchanging hugs and making our exit. We were sad to go.

The facility has undergone quite a bit of change in just a few short months: a fresh coat of exterior paint, a new (well, reclaimed) walk-in freezer, donated washer & dryer and like-new refrigerators. In the next several weeks Abbe and Anderson will convert a spare room into an aging facility. If all goes according to plan, they will begin to wash and turn wheels of tomme there as it ages for market later this fall.

At 5 pm we had one last appointment at Goat Creek Farm. As we pulled up the gravel driveway we could literally see and smell the final chore awaiting us: fresh hay--cut, dried, piled up in neat rows--waiting for us to scoop it up and bale it.

Jonathan loaded his 70's-era New Holland Baler onto the back of his Kubota and attached the hay wagon onto the back of the Baler. Then we climbed aboard the wagon and steadied ourselves, ready to pull fresh bales and stack them on the wagon. After a few hours of dusty, sweaty work in the heat, this is what I looked like:


For 7 years now I've made a living teaching Latin and English. In that time I've forgotten how good it feels to finish up a few hours of manual labor.

At last we said good-bye to all the animals and, of course, to Gwenn and family, and we called it a day.

...but this is not the end of Country Mouse! We've been convinced to stay a little longer and check out the Portage County Fair. Both Gwenn and Abbe work with the local 4-H club, and their kids will be showing goats. So we have a small promise to keep next Tuesday out at the fair grounds. I've been told that our county's fair is one of the "last authentic fairs" around, so I'll be sure to post. Until then--