All in a days work

Here comes Joe...
"I hate to ask you this, but can you come out because someone is asking for La Tur and for Epoisses and we don't have any."

It is the week after New Year's Eve...I'm not going to lie... I had almost nothing of any real interest to offer (I thought) and I can't make the boat or the plane get here any faster, but surely there is something. Oh, and parents visiting from Montreal- no less. Thanks. Steaks just multiplied.

I did it. I was brash...I took a survey and worked with what I had...by the end his mother was kissing my cheek. We ate three cheeses. Two were exactly the same cheese, Coupole from Vermont Butter and Cheese, Co., but three weeks apart in age and another just the same, Le Chevrot mini, but smaller and French. This a supreme moment of opportunity that almost never appears but yet sheds so much light. With some cheeses you must seize the day...because tomorrow it will be different. Even I almost never take the time to do just what we did which was eat from young to old....from east coast to Loire the exact same cheese. The fudge gives way to hay and hazelnuts and then to game and must. How long does it take..when and with what restraint and force and finish if at all. Madame from Montreal prefers the older from Vermont. My vote was with the Le Chevrot.

Then later Patti arrived after watching an episode of something on the Food Network about a blue cheese and bacon pizza. She didn't want something mild, yet she reached for Maytag. I was going to let her go...I trust her instincts. We dove in instead. Amish Blue, Gorgonzola Piccante then, Rogue Crater Lake and then Rogue Anniversary...and hell why not the Rogue with Leaves? We really went at it so much so we lost track of the objective. Hullo? What is the point? Bacon. It must work with the bacon. Gorgonzola Naturale, naturally.

The cart before the horse: Nouveau Pairing

So, I'm cheating. Sorta.

I'm prepared- that sounds a little more respectable.

I brought home Persille du Beaujolais- a blue matured by Herve Mons. Sure- I could have waited until Friday to have a morsel along with this year's Beaujolais Nouveau but, there is nothing stopping me from having it today and I'm so happy that I did.

I could qualify it by saying, "It is a blue for beginners," but I won't stop there. It is mild, yes but more like a cherub. Sans the salty and spike of flora this one swoons of grass and fruit. I'm drinking it with a lazy day syrah from the central coast which is fine but, I do indeed think it will champion what is usually drink for ceremony. The curd is tender and the veining sparse. Ebbs and flows of perfume across your palate.

Beaujolais is for beginnings. It was my entry into wine. I was smitten and now in retrospect embarrassed for how long I reached for it. It got me through many research papers, casual critiques turned sour and home sick phone conversations. It wasn't distinguished but, I didn't know it. It was premature but, so was I. I will revel in that rather than revile it.

Now, I drink it in ceremony. Its fun...and now I have a cheese that can better the ceremony of Friday and better today, this ordinary Wednesday.

It can be purchased on sale for $19.99/lb at Whole Foods Market.

All the things I could have done, but didn't

Nancy announced herself to me, on this busy afternoon. She wanted Pecorino Ginepro. She makes polenta every Friday and this is what she came to fetch. "I will happily cut some Ginepro for you but, I do have Montasio and I want you to try something that is new to me," I said. Trugole from the Alpine range in Italy was not new to her and she lavished me in the geography of this cheese. Yes, yes the Val d'Aosta is closer to France and tastes close to the ground but, Trugole is kin to a Swiss raclette but, more mineral and bright. "Aaagh, perfect for polenta," she said. "It is Friday," she relished.

What else arrived today: Some yummy washed in chablis, Detroit Street Brick from Ann Arbor, Mt. Tam.....all the little luxuries from Prairie Fruit Farm.

Still I was exhausted and I knew I still had an heirloom tomato on the counter at home AND a roasted chicken, too. I didn't want to be slap dash but, I knew a couple of gestures could make it a meal.

On my way out I tasted three wines. A chenin blanc, a pinot noir and HEY MAMBO. I grabbed the HEY MAMBO not even thinking it would work but, it was yum and I could hang on to it for the right thing.

I grabbed a cucumber, hericot vert and some pre-prepped breaded goat cheese. Tossed some nicoise olives in a tub and headed for the door.

Insert holiday traffic here and once home a couple of splashes of rose. Watched half and episode of season 2 of the Sopranos...now I'm ready for supper.

I'll spare you the gross details but, warm breaded goat cheese with a nicose chased by a splash of HEY MAMBO is perfect. That olive lingering with the tangy goat transcends the MAMBO. This table wine is now boutique!

The cucumber was never used. It wouldn't have been right.

Ahem: is that my left or your left?

The waiter placed the cheese board down carefully and announced, "On the left is Roxanne and the right Kunik." Poof! In a beat he was gone to attend to another table.

I reached for my knife and cut into the Roxanne. With little or no resistance and little or no drag I cut through a third of the morsel. I put the tip of the knife loaded with bloomy rind and delicate chalky paste directly into my mouth. Maybe a day or two shy of perfect ripeness this cheese still defied everyday physics. One of those moments when you add another adjective to list of what milk can be as a texture. Have I just laid a fine goose down comforter with a 400 thread count shell across my tongue? Were fairies with butterfly wings serenading the clover and grasses before the sheep grazed? Where had those huge dense fat molecules gone? Curious.

I tore a piece of bread to clear my palate and resisted the rose at 11 o'clock. Let me not complicate things. My dinner companion had started with the other cheese. He cut from 9 to 3 o'clock and taken a greater portion of paste to rind ratio. Bad manners dear dinner companion. I held my tongue. Not the time to digress for a minor infraction of etiquette.

I cut from noon to 6 and picked up the firm paste brebis. I wanted to get every bit so I nibbled carefully all the way up to the rind just shy of pushing it in, too. I am still suffering from allergies; I knew I am still impaired but was still cognisant of the felt that lingered in the finish.

My dinner companion stated, "It has that 'thing.' What is that 'thing'?"
"Lanolin," I replied.
"Gimme the menu," I asked.
Where had it gone? Where was it? Did the waiter retrieve it unnoticed? Boy was he swift. I repeated to myself the waiters introduction. "On the left is Roxanne and on the right is Kunik."

We moved on. Our other food arrived. Another round was ordered and soon the table was crowded with new plates: crust topped with canelli beans, pine nuts, tuna and greens dressed with sweet balsamic, beer battered onion rings with a spicy creamy dipping sauce and fried smelts with crisped lemon, chimichurri and spicy aioli hanging out underneath. Quickly the cheese was but a memory.

Cut to this morning. Stove top espresso in my cup and the internet at my disposal. It took me seconds to Google Roxanne and Kunik. And what I discovered put me at ease. Kunik is a mixed milk (cow and goat) cheese made in the Adirondacks at a farm called Nettle Meadow. The existence of fairies in the meadow was not confirmed by the internet but it certainly was not denied. Roxanne is made by Leslie Cooperband at Prairie Fruit Farm in Champaign, Illinois from the milk of her La Mancha Nubian crossbreed sheep named Roxanne.

With relief it was clear; Kunik was on the left (my left) and Roxanne was on the right (my right).