You know, I took some Barely Buzzed up on vacation on a whim. It’s a cheddar with espresso and lavender on the rind and while we usually have it in stock, I haven’t bought it for personal use for awhile.
I’d forgotten how good this cheese is! ! Bitter! Floral! Sharp! Buttery! Yum
Here it is “aging”. It’s the one with the dark rind:
Remember, this is cheese with stuff on it not cheese with stuff in it
Right before I left town, instead of packing, I went to go see Kurt Timmermeister do a reading at Omnivore. I got there super early so after visiting the pet store next door and buying a couple of road treats for Schnitzel, I wandered in about a half hour before the reading was going to start.
No one was there except the woman working the store and one other guy. It was at that moment that I realized I had no idea what Kurt Timmermeister looked like. We have a mutual friends who I know from the ‘80s in ways completely unrelated to cheese so I knew it would be a great time to introduce myself, but I also didn’t want to be that idiot asking every white dude who walked in, “Are you Kurt?”
Compounding this was the fact that though there was a large pile of books, they were standing in front of them so I couldn’t subtley go up and look at the author photo. Kurt clearly wasn’t forced to have his cover on the photo like me.
I even thought about snapping a surreptitious photo and texting it to our mutual friend but then the book worker asked him a question and used his name, so I knew I’d be ok.
In fact, we had a good 10 minutes to get acquainted before anyone else arrived. I was going to buy his book no matter what, but I can say now that Kurt is a super smart and sweet guy. We talked Seattle and about our mutual friend’s new store, about Vashon Island, about his book publishing experiences and tour. Pretty much everything except cheese, really.
Yesterday I finally got a chance to crack his book. I can tell already that it’s a book I will need to force myself to read slowly because it’s so exciting for a behind-the-food book fetishist like me. I haven’t even gotten to the cows yet and I am enthralled. I will do a full review when I finish but for now I will give you one paragraph that thrilled me:
”Little by little I came to be unable to eat at my own restaurant at all I told no one, especially not customers. It was a humiliating position to be in. I couldn’t see the possibility of changing the restaurant into a more health-conscious business – the financial pressures were too great. The guy who sold hot baked goods from a tiny storefront had been replaced with a restaurateur disgusted by eating at his own establishment. My relationship with food had been shaken…”
Don’t you want to read more? Here’s a link for buying
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I was exhausted last night. I never sleep well on my first night of vacation (which we spent at a hotel) and our first night at our rental place on the Oregon coast was filled with trying to adjust the heat (down)* and adjust to sleeping on a smaller bed than we are used to.** So, when the property manager called us on the house’s landline at 12:30, we were both dead asleep.
I am a coastal boy at heart though, so when the property manager said a tsunami was heading straight for us, I fully admit panicking a little, assuming we had minutes, not hours. Either way, by the time I woke up enough to comprehend the warning, I knew I wouldn’t be going back to sleep, even if my first suggestion was, “Ok, the wave is supposed to hit at 7? Let’s pack, go back to bed, and set the alarm for 5.”
Instead, like many of you, we sat glued to the (well, one of the four) TV for the next few hours, watching those horrible Japan videos over and over and some very good local news from Portland. At around 4:30 the reverse 911 call told us to get up and get out and at 5 the tsunami sirens went off with recorded “evacuate immediately” messages. Cop cars roamed the streets looking to wake folks up. Both Laurie and I went back and packed a few more items into the car. After being lulled by hours of TV, the sirens gave us another hit of adrenaline and off we went to find the tsunami shelter.
If we were locals, we probably never would have left. Or we at least would have gone back to sleep for a bit.
Indeed, the noticeable absence of lights and rush from the neighbors gave me pause at I packed the car at 4:45, but who was I – with no real, local knowledge of the area and decidedly in the tsunami inundation zone – to argue with the official warnings? It is my firm belief that tourists and non-locals should not cause hassles for the local volunteers and first responders by being stupid, so we left. But really we could have driven a quarter mile up the hill and waited it out with no danger to anyone. Of course the shelter — the local elementary school — did have bathrooms and coffee, and that was nice.
We drove back about 4 hours later, right before the official all-clear. By then Schnitzie couldn’t stop barking at the people walking their cats on leashes*** and half the parking lot had cleared out. We were cold and tired. When we got back , everything was just like we left it and – in the day light — less scary.
The waves were still a little big and ominous though, I was drifting in and out of sleep, still worried about being back just enough to start me awake every couple of minutes. Finally, someone on TV said that the tsunami warning was back down to an advisory and I drifted off to three hours of solid sleep.
So yeah, I’m fine. Laurie’s fine. Schnitzel’s fine. Not much really happened here.
Japan’s not fine though. Those were some pretty scary scenes…
*Central heating set at 68 degrees? I doubt there are a week of days where our apartment reaches 68. Central heat makes me think I’m in a convection oven.
**Everything else about this place is better than our apartment. We just sprung for a King bed a couple of years ago and it’s hard to go back.
*** no judgment
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In seclusion. Working on a book proposal. No, I can’t tell you what it is.
I will give you a hint though. It involves cheese.
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Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Inc.
8418 Excelsior Drive
Madison, Wisconsin 53717
cc: Governor Walker, Senator Fitzgerald, House Speaker Fitzgerald
James Robson, President
Stan Woodworth, Vice President
WMMB,
The current Wisconsin budget crisis has caught the attention of many people outside of Wisconsin. The proposed budget, as it stands right now, seems to many of us as an unprecedented and undeserved attack on one of the most basic rights of organized labor: the right to collectively bargain. Customers at our store have been asking about what they can do. Some have even brought up their willingness and desire to boycott Wisconsin products if this current budget passes.
You know me. You know I have been a long-time supporter of Wisconsin cheese and that we carry a lot of it, especially for a California supermarket. I have no wish to stop carrying any of your numerous cheeses that we have on our shelves. (It varies of course, but right now we have about 40 different cheeses from about 15 Wisconsin cheesemakers.) I love Wisconsin cheese.
However, if this current budget passes it will make Wisconsin a bad word among many people who shop and who work in our store. Since you are in the marketing business, you can well understand that the kind of result a political decision like this can have in many of the cities that sell a lot of specialty cheese. You know that it doesn’t take much of a decline in sales for a perishable food to lose its place on the shelves; that’s the nature of the business. It doesn’t even require an organized boycott, just the change in consumer perception from Wisconsin being a “friendly state of cheese lovers” to “that mean-spirited state that hates unions and teachers”. Because I care about Wisconsin dairy farmers on a personal and professional basis, I do not want to see that happen.
For the good of Wisconsin cheesemakers I personally ask that you put what pressure you can bear on the legislature to not pass a budget that strips organized labor of their rights. This is an issue that goes beyond Democrat or Republican and beyond state lines. Taking a budget crisis (that many see as manufactured for this purpose) as an excuse to end the right to collectively bargain is wrong.
This is not a threat. I am not speaking for my workplace because, as a cooperative, my workplace is a democracy and does not have an official position on this issue. What I am saying is that the Wisconsin state budget has ceased to be a local issue. What happens next may very well affect every business in the state. Since Wisconsin’s most visible business is cheese, I think you owe it to your members to take a stand against this budget.
Thank you,
Gordon Edgar
Cheese Buyer
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Tagged cheese, food politics, labor, unions, wisconsin, wisconsin milk marketing board
How could judging the SF Food Wars Mac and Cheese contest not be awesome? I did a lot of great events with my book, but I think this judging gig may have been the most fun. 16 macaroni and cheeses to taste? And the one vegan entry dropped out? What’s not to love?
I’m from a casserole culture, and as casseroles go, I will say I like my tuna noodle casseroles a little better than my mac and cheeses, but it’s a pretty close fight. Being an, ahem, cheese professional, I suppose I should switch my allegiance publicly to mac and cheese, but often mac and cheese is functional, a way to clean out my fridge of all those cheese samples and odds and ends.
Compared to other contests I’ve judged, this was a pretty loose: no score sheets, no comments, just eat and compare. Hey, you could even talk to other judges! Which was great because I was judging with Heidi Gibson from the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen and Tamara Palmer, “Resident Judge”.
Anyways, I’d say that I would have been happy eating a full plate of almost any of the dishes served to me. When one is put in the position of judging, you have to make some distinctions that you would never make if you were eating at a friend’s house, or even a restaurant. Side by side, one dish being a little more bready, or a little too salty is much more obvious than in real life. After tasting them all, and then re-tasting some of our favorites though, we were pretty unified in our decision that the Boffo Cart “Vermont Cheese Forest” was our favorite.
Here it is all nestled snuggly in its maple-sugar bacon nest:
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I will say that our 2nd place winner: Fowl Mouthed Ladies “Quack and Cheese” (with duck confit) stopped me in my tracks when I first tasted it. I would have been happy if this had been the winner as well. Our 3rd place winner: JazzyB’z Recipez “Pork Belly Mac” was really the most classic version we had, at least to us. I think Heidi was the one who suggested that if we did this again there could be prizes for classic vs. freestyle.
The People’s Choice winner was one of our favorites too. SF Delicious Catering made “Smoked Up Mac” that came with habanero-infused olive oil on the side and little jalapenos on top. Super good:
I really loved the pickled accompaniments with the runner-up People’s Choice award. I can’t figure out how to make a cent or euro symbol with my keyboard but they called it “The Crusty Vermonter” even though they admitted using mostly Velveeta after they won their award. Debbie Does Dinner’s Butternut Squash Mac ‘n Cheese is also worthy of mention for making the one I would most likely copy for home use. I don’t cook a lot of meat at home, but I do love some squash and hazelnuts!
(People’s Choice Winner, People’s Choice Runner-up and the Butternut Squash cooker looking like she wants to kill me for taking her picture which I didn’t notice until I uploaded the pics at home)
Here’s the Photographer’s Choice winner. It sure looked good:
So anyways, an awesome time was had by all. If anyone out there is having cheese or cheese-oriented cooking contests, I’m available as a judge. Especially if there’s free beer.
Look how happy Laurie is with her plate of food!
The SF Food Wars “Return of the Mac” event was just about as crowded as you’d expect for an event that sold out in under 3 minutes.
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So, how long do you think it took for a Persian-American customer to (rightfully) be all, “WTF with this “Persian” “Fetta” from Australia?”
I have no idea why they call it “Persian”. I mean, as opposed to our other Australian marinated feta, this one is made with cow milk which seems less Persian than most other soft, brined cheeses. Supposedly, its been marketed that way in Australia for years. In fact, there was a lawsuit about whether or not Yarra Valley owned the name “Persian Fetta”. They lost. I also found an amusing debate on the internet from 2007 about whether this feta had anything to do with Persia/Iran. The consensus seems to be, “no”.
I bought these because the cheese is good and it’s one of those dirt-cheap mistake cheeses, 8.8 oz cans we are retailing for $2.99 ea until they are gone. But, the same way I wouldn’t sell the “French” Yogurt cheese that was made in Wisconsin and won’t sell the “Marin Cheese Company” Feta that’s made in France, I avoid misleading labels. We are making it very clear that it’s actually from Australia, but I’ll be glad when it’s gone… even though the can is actually very cute and I bought some myself. We carry this cheese regularly under a label that just calls it marinated feta.
Oh, and the question in the first sentence was a trick. The answer was negative five minutes. The customer saw me opening the box. I hadn’t even gotten it on the shelf yet!
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So, I miscounted. I actually did 34 events. Sheesh, just reading this list makes me tired.
20. 6/8 Alexander Books, SF I will fully admit that I don’t get downtown much. Alexander Books does lunchtime reading downtown and I never knew it until they asked me to read. A great, interested crowd materialized out of nowhere and disappeared just as fast at the end. A great way to spend a lunch break
21. 6/11 Readers Books, Sonoma What a beautiful place to read. Outdoors right off the town square. This is a great little bookstore and a very food-knowledgeable crowd. And, since it was in the North Bay, friends of my parents showed up.
22. 6/23 Get Lost Travel Bookstore, SF Another place I read at that later went out of business. The owner was a regular customer for years and this was one of my favorite bookstores in SF. I never missed a visit to Get Lost before I went anywhere on vacation. Lee’s partner got a job in another state that he couldn’t turn down so it’s understandable why they closed up shop. But they are very much missed. Get Lost was one of my favorite things in San Francisco.
23. 7/12 18 Reasons, SF with Laura Werlin Great little space for food talk Doing an event with Laura was fun. Our different styles worked together well and we had fabulous cheese.
24. 8/2 Encuentro Café, Oakland Very crowded and I kept it short because people were hungry. They made an amazing glossy, color poster for the event. This place is part-owned by a co-worker’s wife and a bunch of Rainbow workers who live in the East Bay showed up. Encuentro is a terrific veggie restaurant and wine bar and after I was done some folks called me over to talk about vegan cheese.
25. 8/24 Calf and the Kid, Seattle, WA OMG, my ears popped on the airplane so I couldn’t hear, I was snotty from judging 100 cheeses during the day, and the restaurant next to the cheese shop had their music on way loud, but this was an awesome event at an awesome shop. Up the Cheese punks!
26. 8/26 American Cheese Society Conference, Seattle Usually these kinds of sit down signings suck, but this was completely rewarding. It was great to be in a crowd of peers who (at least the ones who approached me) appreciated my book. If my book had been unpopular here, I would have considered it a failure. Satisfying and fun!
27. 9/18 Skylight Books, Los Angeles I fell in love with this bookstore. I wanna write another book just so I can read there again. Hopefully this time my car won’t die on my way home. Oh, and reading in front of a stack of Ellroy’s new book was hilariously ironic.
28. 10/7 Litquake at Book Passage, SF I’ll be honest, I didn’t sell many books here, but I had an awesome time. It was a crowd that cared deeply about writing and food and who laughed at all the right parts of my reading. Litquake is really a fun thing to participate in because it really does bring out the book lovers.
29. 10/23 Cheese Plus, SF Back behind a table trying not to take things personally. At least I got to hang out with Sasha Davies for a couple of hours. The Cheese Plus events are really fun places to be, I wish we could do these kinds of things at Rainbow, but we just have a pee-soaked alley, not a busy pedestrian street.
30. 11/2 SF Public Library RADAR Reading Series This was me, Novella Carpenter, Dori Midnight, and Chelsea Rae Klein and woah, what a packed house and diverse readers/artists. My only reading that included queer goth cemetery porn on the bill. Probably the youngest crowd I read to (my crowds were usually 35-50 years old I would guess). I had to explain what Reagan Cheese was and break the news that the Frugal Gourmet was likely a child molester.
31. 11/7 Pt. Reyes Books Pt. Reyes, CA I got to share the reading with Jill from Pt Reyes Farmstead Cheese and I think we encouraged each other to tell cheese gossip in public. I won’t repeat it here, but the folks who were there enjoyed it for sure.
32. 11/12 Oakland Museum of California (Lonely Planet), Oakland I got to sample out cheese and work with my old buddy (and co-worker) Rana. They made awesome trip itineraries for local cheesemaker visiting. The bookstore there is fabulous and the crowd that attends these free Friday night events is full of real people. I would do another event here in a second.
33. 12/18 Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, SF Ha. I actually did a book signing at the store. I had meant to do a reading at some point but we don’t have a good space for it. It was really weird standing behind a table at the store and not selling cheese. Still, it was a good thing even if I did get a little mocked by co-workers. My book made a great holiday gift!
34. 12/12 18 Reasons Book Club, SF I was honored when 18 Reasons made my book their book for December. The folks there all had read it and had interesting questions. It was a real treat to do this kind of event where people already know your book. I would love to do more of this in the future because it was a lot less answering of questions I get at work (“What’s the best way to store cheese?” was asked at every event) and more about themes in the book. A wonderful experience.
The only problem with all these events was that Schnitzel didn’t like that I was away so much:
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Tagged Cheesemonger -- in store sighting, cheesemonger -- the book, readings
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 