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.