Category Archives: Cheese

An Ode to Cowgirl Creamery Cottage Cheese

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.

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A Dreamy Meal of Pizza and Soft-Serve

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.

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Take Five with Howard Bulka, A Chef Possessed By Pizza

 Chef Howard Bulka sits outside the Palo Alto site that will be transformed into his artisan pizzeria.

After six years of meticulously crafting sophisticated dishes at Marche in Menlo Park, Chef Howard Bulka turned his back on that last year.

He walked away — for the lure of pizza.

Bulka, 50, is still a partner in Marche. But his passion, energy, and creativity aren’t focused on high-end dining anymore. After years of working at white-table-cloth restaurants, Bulka has refocused his sights on down-home eating. It’s all about pies, Pecorino, peppers, and pancetta now.

Howie’s Artisan Pizzeria, presently under construction, is expected to open in the Palo Alto Town & Country Village this summer. For those keeping track, it’ll be in good company next to Sur La Table and two doors down from Kara’s Cupcakes.

Bulka, who lives in Redwood City with his wife and their 7-year-old son, proudly showed off the site to me, with its beamed ceiling, and tiered, 50-seat dining room. He pointed to where the gas oven will be installed to cook the pizzas that will be topped with his own housemade sausage and mozzarella, as well as Fra Mani artisan salumi, and Florida Gulf shrimp. And don’t forget the Straus soft-serve ice cream that will be swirled inside home-made waffle cones.

We talked about why this former executive chef of Silks in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco, who had cooking stints at La Toque in the Napa Valley, Square One in San Francisco, and Chez Panisse in Berkeley, got so seduced by flour and water.

Q: This is too funny, but you and I share something in common. We both received economics degrees from San Francisco State University. Of course, I never ended up using mine, opting to use my journalism degree instead.

A: Here’s something even funnier. I started as a journalism major in college. I wrote for the high school newspaper. But in college, I lasted all of three days doing it. I really can’t write. It’s a horrible chore.

In high school, you might get two weeks to write a story. In college, they sit you down at a typewriter and tell you that you have 15 minutes to write something. It was never going to happen.

I went from that to something really practical. (laughs) That was another huge mistake. Economics is not practical.

Q: So in this day and age, with our generation experiencing the likes of an economy we’ve never witnessed first-hand before, you don’t ever regret you didn’t become an economist?

A: Sometimes I regret I wasn’t a venture capitalist. (laughs)

In my senior year in college, I just knew I wanted to be a chef.

Q: You’re not antsy about opening a restaurant in this sickly economy?

A: I’m not scared. Because of the location, and the type of restaurant I’m doing, I think the economy will actually work in my favor. If people are indeed trading down, I think I’d be a good trade-down option.

Q: So we have David Chang in New York going from working at Cafe Boulud to doing modern Korean street food at his mini Momofuku empire. We have Dennis Leary in San Francisco leaving the elegant Rubicon to open his own little diner, Canteen, and an even teenier sandwich shop, the Sentinel. Now, you. Why are so many fine-dining chefs turning to super-casual instead?

A: Part of it is the economy. Clearly, you’d be foolish to open a fine-dining restaurant now or next year, as these things tend to run in 10-year cycles.

It’s also changing tastes. Someone once said to me that the more sophisticated one becomes, the simpler your tastes become. The older I get, the more enamored I am of finding that great bowl of noodles or that great pizza, not some great foam.

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Ricotta Revisited: Part 2, The Pasta Sauce

As-easy-as-it-gets penne with ricotta sauce.

You know how you always seem to have leftover hot dog buns after cooking hot dogs, and leftover hamburger buns after grilling burgers?

Somehow, I always seem to have leftover ricotta after baking, too.

My new favorite repository for excess ricotta is Mark Bittman’s mind-blowingly easy “Penne with Ricotta, Parmesan, and Peas.” It’s from his classic book, “How to Cook Everything” (Wiley).

It’s so easy that you can make it blind-folded, while chewing gum, reciting the alphabet backwards, and patting your stomach in counter-clockwise strokes as you balance on one leg.

OK, maybe not that easy. But almost.

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Ricotta Revisited: Part 1, The Pound Cake

The best pound cake you'll ever make.

Whenever I bake, my husband’s co-workers are usually the lucky recipients of the goodies.

I load him up with the fresh, sweet treats to take to the office. And when he comes home in the evening, I await to hear what verdict has been rendered upon them.

Usually, they get the thumb’s up. But for one co-worker, there has always been a qualifier associated with them.

Ramin will happily nosh on one of my muffins or cupcakes. Then, he’ll tell my husband, “This is good. But when is your wife going to make that pound cake again?”

Apparently, this happens with regularity.

It doesn’t matter if it’s chocolate-chunk cookies or cinnamon-sugar dusted banana bread that I’ve made that week. Ramin will enjoy it, but deep down, he’s longing for the ricotta pound cake.

Since I can’t stand to see a grown-man in pound cake-pain (definitely not a pretty sight), I made him his beloved pound cake two weeks ago.

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