Cheese, Fromage, Formaggio, Queso
Cheese is wonderful. Alive like wine. The flavor and texture are the result of the passion and skill of the cheesemaker, the quality of the milk and the diet and geographic home of the cow, sheep and or goat. The best thing is, cheese can be served anytime and for any course. It goes well in salads, melted on top of soup, in pasta, on a hamburger, in an omelet, as a pre-pastry course in a formal menu or for desert. I once worked for a Chef who served a lamb chop with a melted disk of goat cheese on it and a quenelle of tapenade on the side. I was skeptical. Yea...try it.
Finally, after many years of living in a vacuum in the United States, we have joined the rest of the cheese loving world and are importing and producing great artisan cheeses. Thanks in large part to Steven Jenkins. With his 1996 book, Cheese Primer, the demand for local and chain food markets in the US to offer real cheese, not the industrialized orange plastic that was sold here under the lie: cheese, has skyrocketed. I had the pleasure of working with Mr. Jenkins as an assistant during one of his cheese classes in NYC. I've been a devotee of fine cheese ever since. In his classes, the group had the opportunity to taste many outstanding offerings. The most important aspect I took away from the experience though, was advocacy. He empowered and motivated us to DEMAND quality artisan cheese from our local markets. It worked. I was in a large corporate grocery store recently and there was a cheese counter that contained the likes of Roquefort, Gruyere and Morbier. This was unheard of twenty years ago. From the local cheese shops well stocked with once unattainable offerings, up scale food shops to chain grocery stores, we are now able to enjoy one of the great foods of the world.
The next time you have some quiet time on a Saturday afternoon, tear off a hunk of baguette, slice it open, smear some demi-sel butter on it, place a healthy slice of Comte or Emmental in it, pour a glass of Cotes-du-Rhone, flip on Dave Brubeck's Take Five and enjoy. You'll understand.
