New York Restaurant Slang: NYT presents the clean version
August 9, 2012 - 6:32pm | by wfertman
Trivia hound Ben Schott has a new piece in the New York Times explicating some of the more family friendly terms and codes used in the restaurant trade.
The list dwells on lingo specific to certain restaurants, and my personal favorites on the list include Union Square Cafe's "with a story," meaning lots of conditions on the order, the understandably unattributed "artichoke," an attractive female diner, and The Dutch's indiscriminate use of "the guy" for any object, as in "take the guy (the broom) and sweep the floor."*
Little Baby's Ice Cream is Creepy
August 8, 2012 - 9:30am | by eilis
If you're looking to sell some product, you might as well give up right now because Little Baby's Ice Cream has everyone beat with this commercial.
...And by that I mean they've created a disturbing ad that makes Little Baby's Ice Cream look even creepier than it sounds. Check it out.
Affinage and Exploration - So begins my journey with MonS Fromager-Affineur
August 5, 2012 - 12:52pm | by taryn
So it begins.
I find myself sitting in an unfamiliar room in a small village in east-of-central France, staring into an abyss... which coincidentally looks a lot like an iPad screen. I have two months ahead of me, to learn and and grow and ponder my existence. What brought me to this point in my life?
Paola's Answer to Excess Ricotta
August 3, 2012 - 7:52pm | by kate
My cheese friend Paola recently made a visit to Vermont and together we visited
Maplebrook Fine Cheese in Bennington.
The folk at Maplebrook were very generous and gave us plenty of cheese to take home. I thought I would share a photo that Paola sent me of how she served their Hand Dipped Ricotta. Here is what she said:
"Given all the ricotta I came back with from Maplebrook, I decided to do something different but fast and simple, also adding in some other ingredients purchased on the road.
Fresh ricotta on a bed of handmade granola (Lucy's brand from Maine - very good) and drops of maple syrup from New York and topped with more granola.
It is my dessert tonight as i am watching the Olympic games :)"
What a great idea.. Thanks Paola!
ACS 2012 Award Winners—the best cheeses in America!
August 3, 2012 - 6:10pm | by Laurel
Here they are, the 2012 American Cheese Society Best in Show winners, chosen from out of 1,711 entries and 122 categories:
Best in Show: Beecher’s Handmade Cheese Flagsheep, from Seattle, Washington.
2nd Place: Valley Shepherd Creamery Crema de Blue, a cave-aged, farmstead sheep’s milk blue from New Jersey
3rd Place: Emmi Roth USA Grand Cru® Surchoix, produced in southern Wisconsin in the traditional manner, in large copper vats.
Letter from Raleigh part 2: Awards in a few minutes!
August 3, 2012 - 4:33pm | by LaurelAs I posted earlier today, the entire culture crew is in Raleigh, North Carolina, cheesing at the 29th annual ACS conference. In addition to Day Three highlights, we'll have an exclusive on the Best in Show winners (out of 1,711 entries, and 122 categories), just minutes after they’ve been announced, so stay tuned!
Today’s been another whirlwind of seminars interspersed with networking and socializing with friends old and new (and lots of cheese nibbles in between). My favorite seminar thus far was a panel on “Romance & Reality: Translating Cheese Info. For Consumers.” The next time a cheesemonger shoves a sample in your mouth before answering your questions, bear this in mind: sometimes a cheese is so amazing, it defies description. Tasting is often more effective than mere words.
Letter from Raleigh: ACS conference highlights
August 3, 2012 - 2:30pm | by Laurel
The entire culture crew is in Raleigh, North Carolina, right now, OD’ing on dairy, and I’ve been tasked with providing all y’all with a daily rundown of the 29th annual American Cheese Society conference. Here's a highlights reel for Day One.
Although many of us were in transit August 1st, early arrivals had the option of partaking in additional-fee events such as the Chapel Hill Farm-to-Market tour, a Curds & Beer: Raleigh-Durham Pub Crawl, or, for the truly masochistic, the inaugural Certified Cheese Professional (CCP) exam.
Things really kicked off on Thursday, with a brilliant keynote address by Colorado State University Professor of Animal Science and author Temple Grandin, one of the world’s most accomplished, high-functioning autistic adults.
Downtown in Raleigh
August 1, 2012 - 1:17pm | by kate
ACS has arrived in Raleigh! Here are some photos from the cheese-centric farmer's market as well as the freshly stocked cheese cases at Whole Foods Market.
Bonne chance to all the examinees who took the first ever certification test and I look forward to celebrating with you later!
Exporting Jobs, Importing Cheese
July 30, 2012 - 2:56pm | by sarah-begley
The issues that come up during presidential elections involve food, directly or indirectly, more often than it would seem at first glance. For starters, there’s the obvious stuff: the morality of Bloomberg’s soda tax, the Broccoli Argument against Obamacare, and the question of extending expensive farm subsidies, to name a few. But questions of food are embedded in many other issues as well. You can’t talk about food politics without talking about regulation of businesses small and large, environmentalism, and even states’ rights (think of California’s foie gras ban).
Recent Activity (home cheesemaking)
July 28, 2012 - 2:53pm | by cheese_taster_2012
Since our first tasting of the Jasper Hill Cheese, I have been busy with my photo shows and HOME cheese making.
There have been several styles of cheeses made from my kitchen.
I have been experiencing a slight temperature consistency problem with my min-fridge "cheese cave" over the past couple of years in my cheese making. My cave has been running a little too cold for the cheese affinage (aging), average 50 to 55 degrees. Different styles of cheeses may require a slight variation in temp for ageing, some as low as 40 - 45 degrees which works quite well in the mini fridge but 50 - 55 is more difficult to obtain.
