Tag: seattle foodie
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Get Your Goat with Queso Ibores
One of the most frequent requests we receive at my cheese counter is for raw-milk goat cheese. While there are plenty of raw-milk options among our cow’s milk cheeses, there are ridiculously few options in the sheep-and-goat set. We recently brought in a cheese to help fill the void—and add a bit of color to…
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CSAs: A New Way to Get Cheesy
Step aside, grocery stores and online shopping. The CSA is here! You may already be familiar with the acronym CSA as it relates to fruits and vegetables. CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture,” and it is a way for folks to buy shares of a local farm’s harvest. Think of it as everyday people helping…
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Can Dogs Eat Cheese?
Google search trends will tell you that pet owners aren’t sure whether to feed their cats and dogs a lot of things.[i] The reason for that is dogs, cats, and other animals metabolize foods differently than humans. So not everything that we love to eat is something they should eat, even if they seem to…
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Happy New Year!
Happy 2021, faithful readers! You may have noticed that I didn’t post very often in 2020 (although I do hope you didn’t notice), and I certainly wrote many more posts than I actually published. I’ll blame that on pandemic-related anxiety; I know I wasn’t the only person who felt 2020 was a tough year. 2020…
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Burrata: Bathing Beauty of the Cheese World
Luscious, voluptuous, silky, oozy, creamy butteriness. If you aren’t already turned on to Burrata, you should be. Hailing from the region of Puglia, Italy, this gorgeous little cheese’s name means “butter.”[i] Burrata is a member of the pasta filata family of cheeses: those stretched-curd cheeses related to Mozzarella, Oaxaca, and Provolone. Yet in a twist,…
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Tasting Notes: Métier Brewing Company Beers and Cheese
This year has wrought its share of terrible things, but one bright spot in the darkness is the beautiful foods that are still being produced for us to enjoy. Just as animals don’t stop producing milk, plants don’t stop growing and people don’t cease needing to eat—even when lives are threatened by a pandemic, social…
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How to Pair Cheese and Beer
The first beverage pairing that comes to mind for many cheese eaters is wine. But humans have been eating cheese with both wine and beer for a very long time. Humans started making cheese between 6500 and 6000 BCE.[i] Then they started making the oldest-known wines in 5980 BCE[ii] and the first beers around 5000…
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How Small Creameries Hang in the Balance of Quarantine and Coronavirus
(with Links to Support Local Producers) It was a drizzly Friday afternoon in mid-March when Lynn Swanson received the call that Seattle’s farmers markets were closing. Lynn was distraught about the news for good reason: she makes sheep’s milk cheeses on the farmstead creamery that she and her husband own on about 80 acres of…
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A Wisconsin Cheese Journey: Part 2
[This is a continuation of a three-part series on the Cheesemonger Invitational Winners’ trip to Wisconsin in October. You can read the first part here.] After two nights in Madison, I found myself charmed by Wisconsin. The landscape was not as boring as I imagined it would be, the people were friendlier and more open…
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Lost Peacock Creamery: From #ThatFarmLife to Fabulous Farmstead Cheese
In a recent post, I briefly explained the difference between artisanal and industrial cheeses. But among artisanal cheeses, there are also differences. There are cheeses that boast of being ‘farmstead’ cheeses, and there are those that are simply ‘artisan’ or ‘specialty.’ Artisan cheeses should be made by hand, or with as little help as possible…
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How to Pair Cheese & Chocolate for Valentine’s Day (or Any Day)
Cheese and chocolate pairings don’t always work. But when they do, the combination can be magical. I will admit that I haven’t always been a fan of putting cheese and chocolate together (in fact, I have admitted it before). But here I am, a person who co-teaches cheese and chocolate pairing classes at Theo Chocolate…
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What It’s Like Competing in the Cheesemonger Olympics
Last month, on January 13 and 14, I competed in the olympics of cheesemongering. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen posts about the Cheesemonger Invitational (#cmisf). The invitational usually happens twice a year, during the Fancy Food Show. The winter edition is in San Francisco in January, and the…
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A Resolution for 2019 That We Can All Do
It’s that time again: out with the old, in with the new; a fresh start; a renewed sense of [insert deep internal need/desire here]; time to lose weight, get more sleep, be more productive, and do it all. Did someone say “New Year’s resolution?” Now, I don’t know too many people who actually set New…
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8 Weeks of Celebration Cheeses: Week 8
We have made it to the end of my “8 Weeks of Celebration Cheeses” series—and subsequently to the end of 2018. If, like me, you are scratching your head and wondering where the time went, just know that it tends to fly when you are having fun—as you should be when cheese is a part…
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The 12 Days of Cheesemas
[Originally published on December 18, 2016; revised December 12, 2017.] In honor of the holiday season that surrounds us, I give you the gift of poetry and music. Tomorrow is the twelfth day of Cheesemas. If you have not yet gotten all of your Christmas cheese together, I hope you will take inspiration from this…