The same purchase provided the high and low moments on Planet Cheese last week. The high was finding Vermont Creamery goat feta at Oxbow Cheese Merchant in Napa, my neighborhood shop. Vermont Creamery makes some of my favorite bloomy-rinded goat cheeses (Bijou and Bonne Bouche among others), and a sublime cultured butter as well. But I didn’t know the creamery made feta.
Read moreKatie’s Creation →
She's not yet 30, but Katie Hedrich is already a rock star in the American artisan cheese world. The daughter of Wisconsin dairy-goat farmers, Hedrich made headlines at the age of 25 when her aged goat cheese, Evalon, scored 99 points out of 100 to become the 2011 U.S. Championship Cheese. The win propelled the Hedrich family to build its own creamery—the winning cheese was produced in borrowed space—and take a deep dive into cheese.
Read moreFlory’s Story →
With raw milk from their 30 Jersey cows, the Flory family of Jamesport, Missouri, is making one of the country’s finest Cheddars. I first tasted Flory’s Truckle at the American Cheese Society conference last year, and finally a few of these handsome wheels have arrived on the West Coast.
Read moreAntipasto Presto
“The main object of an hors d’oeuvre is to provide something beautifully fresh-looking which will at the same time arouse your appetite and put you in good spirits,” Elizabeth David wrote. The eminent English food writer, who died in 1992, had simple tastes but no tolerance for mediocrity. Alice Waters adored her. (I was a lowly cook at Chez Panisse Café when David came in for lunch.)
David believed that a good hors d’oeuvre includes something raw, something salty, something dry or meaty and something gentle. I always think of this when I serve fava beans with pecorino. Although David barely mentions this antipasto in her book on Italian food, it has all her required parts: raw favas, sea salt, aged cheese (although young pecorino works, too) and fruity olive oil. You dip the peeled favas in oil and salt and alternate with a nibble of pecorino.
Bellwether Farms Pepato, a peppercorn-studded sheep’s milk cheese from California’s Sonoma County, is magical with favas. Inspired by Italian pepato, Bellwether’s rendition is moister, less salty and less acidic—just as cheese maker Liam Callahan intended. Following Italian tradition, Callahan uses raw milk and animal rennet—increasingly rare choices here and in Italy. Animal rennet is expensive and a vegetarian turn-off, but Callahan is convinced it improves the outcome. He also stopped waxing the wheels a few years ago, so the cheese develops more concentrated flavor.
Released at about four months, Pepato has a firm, crumbly, butter-colored interior. Personally, I don’t eat the peppercorns, but I love the floral aroma they contribute. Pepato has a subtle fruitiness and a tangy, sour-cream finish—an appealing contrast to sweet favas. I also enjoy it shaved in a salad with butter lettuce and fava beans.
Look for Bellwether Pepato at Rainbow Grocery, Cheese Plus, Bi-Rite Markets and Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco; Oliver’s Markets in Santa Rosa; Big John’s in Healdsburg, Oakville Grocery; Whole Foods Sonoma; and Pasta Shop in Oakland and Berkeley. Pour a lean, minerally white wine—I’m loving the 2013 Massone Gavi—and use a good olive oil. Now is the last hurrah for fresh fava beans so seize the moment.