Cheese Plus celebration in San Franciso

Cheese Plus is a well-known fromagerie in San Francisco. They’re celebrating their shop’s third birthday

Here’s the announcement from Cheese Plus

To celebrate our 3rd anniversary we’ll be hosting our Summer Solstice Food Festival on Saturday, June 21st from 11AM - 6PM.

More than 2 dozen local Bay Area food artisans will be on site throughout the day sampling their unique and wonderful products.

Janet Fletcher (James Beard award winning food writer for SF Chronicle) will be in store from 12 - 2PM signing her latest book, Cheese & Wine, a guide to selecting, pairing, and enjoying; and our knife sharpening service will be on-site to sharpen your knives and instruct you in the sharper side of life.

Here’s a sneak peak of a few food artisans on site:

  • Paul Bertolli’s delicious sausages and salami from Fra’Mani
  • LaLoo’s Legendary Goat Milk Ice Cream
  • Bellwether Farms Farmstead Sheep Cheese
  • Allison McQuade’s authentic, tasty Chutney’s
  • Redwood Hill Sonoma Goat Cheese
  • Live Music, and much, much more!!

Festivities begin at 11AM and continue to 6PM.

Cheese Plus is located at 2001 Polk Avenue in San Francisco. Their phone number is (415) 921-2001.

French cheeses at the Paris Bread Festival

This weekend, the entrance to Notre Dame in Paris smells a lot better. The annual Fête du Pain features fresh bread baking, classes for children, demonstrations, and a large display of French cheeses.
Fete du Pain - Paris 2008
The festival will continue on Sunday. It’s geared for the younger bread lovers, so take the children with you.

Fête des Fromages in Rocamadour, France

Fetes des fromagesFood festivals are always fun. You’ll find obscure dishes (garlic ice cream at the Garlic Festival), pseudo-celebrities (William Hung at the Artichoke Festival), beauty queens, and some really great food to eat and buy.

Rocamadour is a small town in France that features an annual Fête des Fromages in May. It’s the largest cheese fair in Southern France, with over 50 producers arriving to share their products.

The Travel Signposts Blog describes a cheese from this region:

This village has a cheese named after it, i.e. Cabécou de Rocamadour or more commonly known as “Rocamadour“. Since being awarded the AOC label in 1996, the producers have abandoned the name Cabécou as it’s too generic and hence today the cheese is just called “Rocamadour“. This also enables them to differentiate Rocamadour from the many Cabécou that exist. Rocamadour can be eaten at the various stages of maturation. Rocamadour (cheese)When it’s between 1 and 2 weeks maturity it has a subtle acidic aroma and a slight nutty taste. As the “affinage” progresses, these characteristics mature and become more pronounced.
Fête des Fromages - Rocamadour, France</cite>

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Bleu D’Auvergne, a mild french blue cheese

Bleu d'AuvergneBlue D’Auvergne is a milder blue cheese than its nearby cousins in Roquefort. It is creamy, smooth, and cooks/melts easily. It may not have the punch needed for a hearty blue cheese souffle or sauce, but it is great to eat in salads and by itself.

Artisanal Premium Cheese has a great description of it on their site:

Bleu d’Auvergne is a name-protected (Appelation d’Origine Controlée, AOC) cheese from the Auvergne region in south-central France, where it has been made since the middle of the 19th century. Bleu d’Auvergne is made in the traditional manner from cow’s milk and features blue veining throughout. Its moist, sticky rind conceals a soft paste possessing a grassy, herbaceous, and (with age) spicy, pungent taste.
Blue D’Auvergne Cheese - Artisanal Premium Cheese

Salad with Blue D’Auvergne tartine

Salad with bleue d'Auvergne
Recently, i had this salad with tartine at a small brasserie in Paris. The beauty of this dish lies in its simplicity.

The salad consisted of greens, tomatoes, walnuts, and olives. A tartine was made with a slice of Poilâne bread, smothered with Blue D’Auvergne and placed under the broiler for a minute or so to melt the cheese. This was then cut into smaller pieces and placed on the salad.

The bite sized chunks of cheese and bread made the salad a great meal. Try this for dinner tonight.

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The infamous cheese rolling competition

This reminds me of soap-box derby races on crack. The guy in fluorescent yellow steals the show. But what about the poor cheese?

Cheeses of France - the ultimate pocket guide


French Cheeses: The Visual Guide to More Than 350 Cheeses from Every Region of France

French Cheeses: The Visual Guide to More Than 350 Cheeses from Every Region of France has traveled with me to Paris a dozen times. It’s dog-eared pages are filled with notes about flavors, shops, and memories.

This book will tease you with its complete coverage of French cheese. No matter where you are in France, you’ll never be able to find more than a small fraction of the selection. The author describes not only the mainstays of cheese culture but also the tiny fromageries who have made cheese for 400 years with a dozen sheep on the family farm.

I’ve often used the book to start conversations at the shops, pointing to the desired cheese and asking the clerks if they had the selection. One time, a distinguished lady came up behind me and in a very amused Parisian accent said “How cute, he’s got a cheese book.”

If you haven’t guessed, this book is less of a cook book and more of a tourist guide. You’ll enjoy the descriptions and easy to understand maps and symbols. This is a required book for any cheesies bookshelf.

Forget the wine, it’s time for beer and cheese

A selection of cheeses Taste, a San Diego cheese shop, announced their biannual beer and cheese tasting party will be held next week, April 11 and later on April 29 at O’Briens pub.

Cheese 101 - Beer and Cheese Pairing will feature the following combinations:

  • Ballast Point Yellowtail with Haystack Mountain Sunlight
  • Maredsous 8 with Comte
  • North Coast Pranqster with Mahon Curado
  • Malheur Brut with Ardrahan
  • Chimay Red with St George & Roncal
  • Aventinus with Roaring 40s Blue

The cost is only $35 per class.

It’s like watching a wheel of cheese ripen

Cheddarvision.tv is indeed a live webcam of cheese ripening in England. The West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers have set up this riveting display of ripening to launch the celebrity-hood of this particular round. You can even watch a time-lapse video on You Tube:

Rouxbe - Online video recipes of the highest quality

If you love watching cooking shows on television, you’ll love the new online video recipe web site Rouxbe.com. The name is a take-off of a roux, the base for a white sauce. The site gives you unlimited access to their video recipes for the first 30 days and you can join their premium service for more video demonstrations.

Rouxbe’s videos and recipes are top-notch! These are HDTV super hi-def compared to what you normally see on the internet. Here’s a nice video recipe example: Panna Cotta with Stone Fruit.

Here’s a snippet of the recipe:

Panna Cotta with stone fruit

Panna Cotta with Stone Fruit Compote

This Italian classic, is perfectly balanced with a fresh stone fruit compote

Active Time: 20
Total Time: 3 hours
Serves: 6
Step 1: Starting the Panna Cotta

  • 1 whole vanilla bean
  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • 1/4 tsp. table salt
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 1/2 tsp. gelatin powder (approx. 1 package)
  • 1/8 cup milk

To start the Panna Cotta split the vanilla bean in half length-wise and scrape out the seeds. Using a small pot add the cream along with the salt and powdered sugar and bring to a gentle boil over low heat. While the cream heats up pour the gelatin over the milk and mix well and set aside. Once the cream comes to a gentle boil, immediately turn off the heat and remove the vanilla bean and discard. Now add the gelatin mixture and whisk until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a medium sized bowl and let cool to room temperature stirring occasionally.


The full recipe can be seen at Rouxbe.com

Vintage Cheese Signs in a Paris Flea Market

old food signs at the Marche aux Puce - Port de Vanves

I found these cheese signs while shopping at the Marche aux Puce - Port de Vanves in Paris. They sold for approximately $3 each.