www.sfdine.comDECEMBER 2009

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i havE chEEsE, i havE winE. now what do i do?

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a bit of BLUE HEAVEN found in a rEmotE cornEr of MARIN COUNTY

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Where This Stuff Comes from

Publisher Tuan Phan

editor Amanda Dee Meng

AssistAnt editors Korin Sanchez

Grayce Frink

Victor Meng

designer of heArt Patricia Keller

designers of soul Amanda Dee Meng

Haily Stowe

Blaire Laurente

leAd Picture-tAker Amanda Dee Meng

Photo sidekick Victor Meng

coffee Wench Laure Risher

comic relief Chase Meng

contributors Farmstead Cheese

Company

Sunday Herald

Whole Foods

Ambiance

Bodine

Printers BPS Printing Co.

Published by Wonderful Printers

725 29th St.

San Francisco, cA 94104

blue cheeseWho knew you could have your cheese and eat it too!?

We’ve Got the Blues: Point Reyes Original BlueExploring sleepy Marin County.

Give Me More WineFind wine and cheese pairings for the perfect party.

Blue MoonMaybe the moon is made of cheese...

Let the Holidays BeginWondering what to do for the holidays? We have the answer.

edit

oria

l staff

Cover photo by artzone, Flickr

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HURRAH. Mould is back and blue cheese is enjoying a minor revival. After years of parmesan, mozzarella and goat’s cheese with everything, there is a return to things pungent and veiny in kitchens

around the country.It’s not that stilton, dolcelatte, gorgonzola, the rather humbler danish

blue and exquisite farm cheeses such as Humphrey Errington’s dunsyre blue actually disappeared. It’s just that they were eaten as a course on their own, with bread or oatcakes, not used as a cooking ingredient. But fashions in food, as in everything else, are cyclical, and blue cheese is this week’s snakeskin ankle boot: a great way of adding a bit of va va voom to the culinary equivalent of a pair of black trousers.

It would be a waste of the very finest of blue cheeses to mash them up, mix them with yoghurt and pour them over a salad. Or melt them over a hamburger. But the cheaper danish blue, or the crumbly remains of a well-spooned stilton, are ideal for a winter salad dressing. The crushed cheese should be mixed with natural yoghurt, sour cream or fromage frais, seasoned and sharpened with lemon juice if necessary, to make a winter salad of mixed leaves, watercress and perhaps some slivers of carrot into a light meal. The addition of a baked potato makes it a substantial one and the same dressing, possibly with more cheese, will sit very happily inside the potato. Or just mash in some chunks of cheese, for a stronger hit.

These are powerful tastes and assertive textures that need something stodgy, sharp or sweet to keep them company and blue cheese has a particular affinity with pears. Locket’s savoury—toast, watercress, pear

and sliced stilton baked until the cheese melts—came from a London restaurant, appeared in Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book and has been doing the rounds ever since. Similar ingredients can be arranged into a salad of peppery greens, slices of pear, cubes of starry dolcelatte or gorgonzola, croutons and a vinaigrette dressing.

The Italian blues make an easy sauce for pasta or gnocchi—just chop dolcelatte or gorgonzola into small cubes and stir in right at the end. Parsley and black pepper make perfect finishing touches. Make a quick salad, or cook some green vegetables as well, because these cheeses are seriously rich and too much can be stultifying.

Which is, of course, part of their appeal. Gary Rhodes serves huge T–bone steaks with stilton butter. It’s a full–on plateful, but where’s the harm in that for a special treat? It’s not as if you wear your snakeskin boots every day.

blue cheeseSunday H

erald, The, Feb 20, 2000 by A

nna Burnside

Photo by Blue Cheese Board, Flickr

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We’ve Got The Blues:

Karen HochmanJuly 18, 2006

Point Reyes Original Blue

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Wine lovers long to visit California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys, but cheese lovers should consider a pilgrimage to Marin County. It’s a luscious blue cheese that will be

championed by those who love great blues. Bob Giacomini, whose family began making farmstead dairy products in northern Italy more than 100 years ago, has been milking cows on his Point Reyes dairy ranch since 1959. In 2000, Bob, his wife and their four daughters founded Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company with a mission to produce the nation’s premier brand of high-end blue table cheese—and they made the first vat of Original Blue. Today, they still create only that one beautiful cheese plus an irresistible Original Blue Dip & Dressing.

Original Blue is a creamier style yet full-flavored blue cheese. Different than, but evocative of, a Gorgonzola dolce, it could almost melt in your mouth. It has a pronounced blue cheese character with a lovely tang, but no harshness or bite that keeps some people away from blues. It’s a luscious blue cheese that will be championed by those who love great blues, and can be approached by those who have been overwhelmed by the sharp-ness of other blues. People who find Roqueforts too pungent and Stiltons too strong may find blue bliss here.

the secrets of success

Many products have a “secret recipe”: Original Blue’s is guarded by Master Cheesemaker Monte McIntyre, a relocated Iowan who has been making blue cheese for more than 15 years. The secret to Original Blue lies not only in a recipe, but in a combination of geography and other factors that produce a unique end product.

The Grade A raw milk† comes from a closed herd of 250 Holstein cows that graze in the hilly green pastures overlooking Tomales Bay, a long, narrow finger of water created by a peninsula that separates the Pacific Ocean from the mainland. Since Original Blue is a farmstead cheese, this imparts the distinct taste of “terroir”‡: the cows’ milk reflects the flavor of the terrain. Animals from the same herd moved ten miles away to graze would produce a different-flavored cheese.

†Raw (unpasteurized) milk retains more flavor, but by law must be aged 60 days or more to kill any harmful bacteria that might be present in the unpasteurized milk.

‡Terroir, pronounced ter-WAH, is the French word for soil, land or terrain. The term is used to convey the larger concept of “a sense of place,” its specific soil, geology, aspect, altitude and microclimate—the sum of the effects of the environment on the creation of what is grown there.

Bob, his wife and their four daughters founded Point Reyes Farmstead

Cheese Company with a mission to produce the nation’s premier brand

of high-end blue table cheese

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fActors of QuAlity

The coastal fog and the salty Pacific breezes that drift in from the bay impact the vegetation that is eaten by the herd, as well as help cure and age the cheeses.

Time is a human-added factor that influences the outcome: cheesemaking begins within two or three hours of milking. The cheese is made from the freshest possible milk. The milking starts each day at 2 a.m. and then the cheesemaking begins. Starter cultures, kosher salt, Penicillium roqueforti (the mold that creates the blue veining) and rennet (the coagulating enzyme that creates curds) are then mixed into the milk. After the curds separate from the whey, the whey is drained off and the curds are “hooped”

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It’s a luscious blue cheese that will be championed by those who love great blues

into forms to create individual 6-1/2 pound wheels. The cheese is all natural: the milk is hormone-free, contains no preservatives, bleaches or whiteners, and is made with microbial rennet. It’s a luscious blue cheese that will be championed by those who love great blues. Bob Giacomini, whose family began making farmstead dairy products in northern Italy more than 100 years ago, has been milking cows on his Point Reyes dairy ranch since 1959. In 2000, Bob, his wife and their four daughters founded Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company with a mission to produce the nation’s premier brand of high-end blue table cheese—and they made the first vat of Original Blue. Today, they still create only that one beautiful cheese plus an irresistible Original Blue Dip & Dressing.

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Like wine, cheese is a living, breathing food. Cheese’s moisture continues to evaporate as it ages*; the goal when storing cheese is to allow it to continue to breathe

and retain its natural moisture. Most cheeses should not be wrapped directly in plastic wrap: it cuts off their ability to breathe and can alter the taste and texture. Waxed paper and parchment are the preferred wrappings. Retailers use plastic wrap because their cheeses turn over quickly, and because it is the most efficient way to display it to customers. In general, cheeses are sold at peak “ripeness” and you should buy no more cheese than you plan to eat within a few days. Original Blue has staying power if you follow these directions:

*Aged, dry cheeses, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano, have a much longer shelf life since most of the moisture has evaporated.

Caring for your Cheesecheese is a living, breathing food

Keep the Original Blue foil in place

Wrap the cheese in clean wax paper after each use

Then place in a resealable heavy plastic bag to protect smells from migrating

Store in the refrigerator’s dairy compartment (cheese likes a stable environment—each time you open the door the temperature in the front of the refrigerator and on the refrigerator door shelves changes)

Spread the

this Holiday

Season.

Tis the season for sharing and caring. Our creamy, delicious blue cheese is the perfect way to get the cheer started. So come on in, sit by the warm fire and reconnect with all those you love this holiday season with this wonderfully delectable treat.

©/TM blu di bufala Formaggio, Incorporated 2009