Category Archives: Cheese

A Guy Named Carlos, A Lot of Crab, & A Cheesy Time

Posted on by 4 comments

A wall sconce at Maria Maria. (Photo courtesy of Robby Skog Photography)

Musician great Carlos Santana opened a fifth locale of his Maria Maria restaurant late last year in Danville.

Serving “Nuevo Mexican” cuisine, it features dishes such as chicken and mole tortilla casserole ($15), grilled skirt steak with nopales salad $(19), and mixed wild mushroom fajitas ($15).

No telling how often you might spot Santana, himself, there. But he did put in an appearance earlier this week to meet and greet media.

Cheesemaker Allison Hooper and friend. (Photo courtesy of Ms. Hooper)

Cheese aficionados will want to head to the Pasta Shop in the 4th Street Market Place in Berkeley, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m, Jan. 15.

Allison Hooper, author of “In a Cheesemaker’s Kitchen,” will be on hand to sign copies of her book, discuss the world of cheese, and offer tastes of her luscious creations.

Hooper, of Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery, will be joined by other artisan cheesemakers at this free event, including those from Bellwether Farms and Cowgirl Creamery, who also will be offering samples of their cheeses.

Read more

The Country’s Oldest and Priciest Cheddar

Posted on by 25 comments

A one-of-a-kind cheese.

A very special gift arrived from a very special friend last month.

A block of vivid orange, it’s believed to be the oldest, most expensive cheddar in America.

Made with utmost patience by award-winning cheese-maker, Hook’s Cheese Co. of Mineral Point, WI, it was a holiday gift from my friend, Karen Herzog, a food writer at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

When Karen first wrote about this special cheese for her newspaper, it created a sensation. NPR, CNN, CBS News, Yahoo News, and newspapers around the globe picked up her story about this cheese that had been aged 15 years and was selling for $50 a pound.

Good things always come in small packages.

Yes, a 15-year-old, cow’s milk, sharp cheddar. That’s like half a century in wine years and an eternity in dog ones.

Read more

Gawking at Goat Cheese

Posted on by 19 comments

The unusual rind on Capricious goat cheese.

Take a close look at this rind. Come on. Closer, closer.

How can you not gawk at a cheese with an exterior that’s almost burlap-like in color and texture?

Have you ever seen the likes of this before? I know I haven’t.

Capricious is the name of this wondrous goat cheese.

And I have cookbook authors Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein of the RealFoodHasCurves blog to thank for this discovery.

The duo were in San Francisco earlier this year, when they stumbled upon this glorious cheese sold at the Cowgirl Creamery shop in the Ferry Building that’s made by Achadinha Cheese Company of Petaluma.

The milk for the cheese comes from the Pacheco Family Goat Dairy that’s been around since 1953. Five years ago, owners Donna and Jim Pacheco, started making cheese, too, from the milk from their 1,400-goat herd. After Mark and Bruce raved about it to me, the Pachecos were kind enough to send me a small sample of the cheese to try.

A different kind of goat cheese -- dry, crumbly and aged.

The Capricious sells for $29.95 a pound. That may sound pricey, but not when you realize all the love and work that’s gone into it.

The cheese is completely handmade and hand-rolled. Each wheel is turned daily to endure even mold coverage, then washed and rubbed down with olive oil to protect the interior of the cheese as it ages anywhere from three to 10 months, depending upon the time of year and the amount of butter fat in the goats milk.

Read more

An Ode to Cowgirl Creamery Cottage Cheese

Posted on by 18 comments

Cottage cheese that will change your mind about cottage cheese.

My early recollections of cottage cheese are not the best of ones.

Like so many of you way back when, I ate it — but not happily.

It was, of course, diet food, associated with canned cling peach halves or bare burger patties alongside a forlorn leaf of iceberg lettuce. We ate the white, creamy curds because they were supposed to be good for us, because we were counting calories, because we wanted to feel virtuous.

We certainly didn’t spoon them into our mouths because we wanted to.

But I do now.

That’s because I’ve discovered a cottage cheese that actually makes me revel in eating cottage cheese. It’s the clabbered cottage cheese crafted by Cowgirl Creamery of Point Reyes Station.

It starts with organic non-fat milk from Marin County’s Straus Family Creamery. Clabbered cream (similar in taste to creme fraiche) is then added. The result is a creamy, rich cottage cheese. Unlike the standard mass-produced ones that have a sort of sour milk-taste to them, Cowgirl Creamery’s has a pure, fresh milky flavor.

Read more

A Dreamy Meal of Pizza and Soft-Serve

Posted on by 24 comments

Pizzeria Picco's Margherita.

We came for the pizza. We stayed for the soft-serve.

After all, when no less an authority on Italian cuisine than Mario Batali declares in a national food magazine that the Margherita pie at Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur is the best in the country, well, one must high-tail it over there to try it pronto.

My hubby and I finally did (hey, it is a hike from the South Bay).

A cyclist, my hubby got a kick out of how so many of the pies are named after bikes, including the “Specialized” (Hobbs’ pepperoni, house-made sausage, tomato, mozzerella, and basil), and the “Seven” (oyster mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan, pecorino, and oregano). Since his nickname is Meat Boy, he opted for the “Cannondale” (house-made sausage, roasted peppers, spring onion, mozzarella, and basil; $13.50). I, of course, went for the Margherita (tomato, basil, house-made mozzarella, parmesan, and De Padova extra virgin olive oil; $10.95).

Vanilla soft-serve with olive oil and sea salt. Unbelievably good!

Since the pizzeria itself is teeny-tiny and it was a beautiful, warm evening in Marin County, we sat outside at a wrought-iron table. The Pizzeria is adjacent to the larger Picco Restaurant, which has a more expansive menu. Both were started by long-time Bay Area Chef Bruce Hill.

Read more

« Older Entries Recent Entries »