Bresaola with Mascarpone + Sour Cherry Spread

     Uniting a few of my favorite flavors into a surprising post-dinner hit is undoubtedly a tiny thrill.  I'm sure by now it's no secret how much Mascarpone is adored in these parts.  Which today's paring just reinforced.  Matched up with Creminelli Bresaola and Dalmatia Sour Cherry Spread, Mascarpone plays quite nicely. 

The Mascarpone gives a cushioned, lactic mouth feel to soften the sour edge of the cherry and bring out it's sweetness.  While the Bresaola adds a wine like note with its subtle herb and rich bloody/iron tang.  Trust me, this simple (and slightly messy) arrangement brings the ol' "sweet and salty" classic flavor combo to a decadent grown-up level.

Bloody Mary Week: Classic B.M. w/Fire Roasted Tomato Olives + Bresaola

    Today's Bloody Mary garnish has no cheese in it.  I know.  That's pretty weird.  But bear with me, here.  For Charcuterie makes a strong appearance.  Particularly Bresaola Piccola from Creminelli Fine Meats.  
    I'm not much into eating beef, however this air-dried eye of round is amongst my favorite pieces of charcuterie.  The salt and pepper profile of the beef blends well with the spicy-tomato of the Classic Bloody Mary.  Meanwhile the olives provide their astringent vegetal flavors paired with a fire-roasted tomato filling.  All together this topping lends a smokey, vaguely peat-y, roasted note to the cocktail as a whole.  

Fire Roasted Tomato Stuffed Olives w/Bresaola

Green Olives, pitted

Fire Roasted Tomatoes,  in oil

Bresaola, sliced paper thin

• Drain and pat dry olives
• Drain tomatoes(Set aside the oil. It makes an awesome drizzle for arugula salad or chicken breast.) cut width wise into thin strips.
• Stuffing these olives is fairly easy.  I found that folding up the tomato piece and just poking it into the olive worked fine.  
• String your stuffed olive and Bresaola slices onto a skewer in an ascetically pleasing way.
• I also suggest taking a little nibble of garnish before sipping the cocktail.  Though, I'm sure that goes with out saying.

Enjoy!

    (Responsibly)     

For the Classic Bloody Mary recipe see The Board and Wire post here!

(Oh and one more thing.  That little bit of something dangling off the skewer is called a flower pepper.  It's a real scorcher!)

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Casalingo Salami

    So it seems I haven't made enough time for that other area of specialty foods dear to my heart.  Charcuterie (or Salami).  Now Charcuterie is really the Luigi to cheese's Mario.  As Bourdain is to Ripert.  You understand.  They are meant to occupy the same culinary space.  As most cured meat also developed in tandem with a cheese.  In a time when finding creative ways to preserve food was of utmost importance.

Continued after the jump...

Picnic Food.

Monday Afternoon Pizza

365 Whole Foods Market Garlic Naan Crust, San Danielle Prosciutto, Crave Bros. Fresh Mozzarella (ciligene size), Mitica Capricho de Cabra w/Black Pepper, Divina Fire Roasted Tomatoes in Oil w/Garlic & Herbs, 365 Whole Foods Market Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
(plus freshly cracked salt and pepper)

This is what I made after bemoaning how I wasn't motivated to make lunch for myself.  I agree with what a friend told me recently.  I always seem to be more motivated to cook if it involves cooking for other people.  Recently my lunch consists of anything that can be easily scooped onto saltines or is already in tupperware.
Classy.

So, yeah, motivation.  Evidently I have it.

Christmas Eating is Serious Business.

I promise there were no reindeer sweaters in the making of this blog entry.  Seriously.  I don't think the Christmas Eve guests would have stood for it.  Instead I chose to impress them with a selection of awesome food rather than a polyester Santa hat.  Judging by the silence (and occasional bickering over choice bits) after I brought the cheese board out I believe my Xmas lay out was a delicious hit.
Being that I had been working non-stop for two weeks at my day job Cheesemongering I decided cooking for the holiday was right out.  I wanted to be predictable.  Because my predictable is other peoples holy-crap-this-is-the-best-thing-I've-ever-put-in-my-face.  Yeah, it's like that.
I would like to say what I fed my friends last Saturday was the culmination of many hours of contemplation and planning.  It wasn't.  I wrote it out on the back of a receipt while cramming half of a chicken salad sandwich into my gob (i was hungry. don't judge.)  Still, I'm fairly smug (obviously) about the amazingness I call my Christmas Cheese Board 2011.  Sure, this trio and respective tasty bits could have been put together by anyone (not to mention given a more creative name).  But I am here to take the credit.

Cheese Clockwise from Top Right: Taleggio, Pierre Robert Brie, Stilton Blue. Meat: Soppressata (far), Prosciutto di Parma

 This plate consisted of three rather different cheeses: Taleggio, Pierre Robert Brie, and Stilton Farmhouse Blue.  If there is such thing as "sexy" cheese I feel like Taleggio is the bar by which other cheeses are measured.  It is an Italian cows milk washed rind cheese with a mottled orange crust that has a pervasive salt and earth aroma (like a 70's porn star. see, sex-ay.) Its chewy insides bulge with a romp of toasted hay, yeast, and more than a touch of beefiness.
The Taleggio was set as the anchor of my plate.  The other cheeses were chosen as compliments for the anchor, if you will.  Their bright acidity was used to combat the fatty palate-stomping abilities of the Taleggio.  Stilton Blue, hailing from the English county of Derbyshire, has a high singing salty acidity tempered by fruit and grassy notes from its long days in the aging caves.  The Pierre Robert, a fabulously fluffy wheel from Seine-et-Marne, also kept the acidity high but with a more refined texture close to that of mousse echoing with earth and lactose.  While both cheeses were little shining stars on their own, each played fabulously in the supporting role.
To keep my guests stomachs happy and to help the cheese shine even more I chose a few meats, nuts and a good crispbread as companion.  The Framani Sopresatta and Proscuitto di Parma made the classic salty-&-sweet paring with any of the cheeses.  The Marcona almonds also played a similar role but added a delightfully surprising varience in texture.  My favorite go-to cracker of all time, 34 degree Crispbread Black Pepper, made a stand-by appearance.  I admit, more than once I just had a cracker by its self.  I really could down (and have) a whole box of those peppery delights.  (The Quicos (i.e. Fancy Corn Nuts), well, those were just there because they're tasty.  They got to sit by everyone else because I felt bad for them.) So go forth and use Christmas Cheese Board 2011 outright or to inspire your own spread for the New Year Holiday.  Here a little bubbly, too, would not be found amiss.

My other favorite part: the kickin' nutcracker knives from Ian's Mom

I have to share this. Knitted for me by my Uncle. More on this amazing gift here.

Cheese. Meet People. People. Eat Cheese.

I have had a many years long love affair with cheese.  Ever since the Herve Mons class was given for my Whole Foods Market (WFM) Specialty Team, of which I was but a Team Member, at my Ann Arbor, MI store I have been hopelessly in lust with the stuff.  I won't wax poetic about knowing since childhood that cheese was my destiny (add dramatic flair here).  Because I didn't.  Cheese, until about 4 years ago, was a tasty condiment, right up there with ketchup, or a festive treat ala the Pepperidge Farms holiday cheese ball.  I did live for that cheese ball every Christmas, however.  Hardly the grounds for an adulthood cheese obsession.  
Frankly I had always thought my true calling was in academia.  Slogging through grading papers or lecturing on the finer points of the French Revolution.  It wasn't until having hauled my life across the country to be with the man of my dreams and a few unfulfilling jobs later that I resettled into the life of a Cheese Monger.  It was then, and really only then, I realized that what I loved doing (selling, eating, talking about, sharing cheese, etc.) could be a legitimate living.  I can have my cheese and eat it, too! (harhar)
Thus, here I am.  Shouting from my proverbial mountain top about all things curdy and delicious.  Lets be reasonable here though.  I cannot start a blog about cheese without filling you, dear reader, in about all the wonderful things associated with cheese.  Heavenly micro brewed beers, spicy compotes, more-than-your-average-Ritz crackers, shamefully good charcuterie...oh the list could go on and on.  My capacity to talk endlessly about food is only slightly less than my daily intake of oxygen.  That is to say it is vast.
Here I fully intend to channel the enthusiasm for cheese that causes my mothers eyes to glaze over after 15 minutes of steady verbal stream.  I bring you my best of cheese. Even my worst of cheese.  Blogging is, in essence, about opinions. When it comes to cheese, boy do I have them.
I also welcome your comments, ideas, and cheese you can't live without.  Without the reader this blog remains just another Internet foodie backwater.
So here's to the beauty of a good wheel of the moldy stuff in all of it's satisfyingly delicious forms.

What I'm Currently Eating. Rogue Creamery's Crater Lake Blue

The sun comes up over Cheese Island at The Mighty Arb where I got my start.