Joanne Weir is many things: a world traveler, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, a cooking teacher, a chef and a television personality. She spends six months of the year touring the globe sharing her extensive background with regard to food theory and technique, in particular Mediterranean cuisine and the regional foods of the U.S. All these elements come alive in her thoughtful classes as well as her delightful words and television series.

Joanne's recipe for blue cheese stuffed dates can be put to use anywhere from family dinners to formal cocktail parties, and it's simplicity makes it a win for both chef and consumer.

From Serious Eat's Slice, a very serious site about pizza, comes their most popular daily slices of 2011.

Top of the list is the super-skinny pie from Worchester MA's Corner Grille. Go Wormtown!

Think eggroll wrapper thin, or as thick as two to three stacked pepperoni slices. The crust is no kin to the crackery variety of thin bar pies popular on Massachusetts' South Shore. Elasticity and chew characterize this rare pizza specimen...

Slice presents 2011's most popular pizza

Most people will recognize Fabio Viviani from his appearance on Bravo's tv series Top Chef, where his charisma and unparalleled cooking style made him a fan-favorite and also led to his reappearance on Top Chef All-Stars. He now resides in the Los Angeles area where he owns Cafe Firenze, and Firenze Osteria. Alexandra, culture intern and long-time Fabio fan, was keen to ask him some cheese-centric questions.

Not enough artisan cheese! So says Jada Calypso Brotman in this article about finding good cheese and bad cheese in her local stores:

I have been known to throw fits about cheese, citified, hoity-toity fits that publicly I eschew and privately I pursue, defending my position alone in my head for hours. We who live in this veritable cornucopia of verdancy, overflowing with local organic meat, produce, grains and dairy, we who positively wallow amidst plump, cream-producing cows, are shockingly bereft of local artesanal cheese.

Madame Fromage is getting ready for her mother's visit, and the pressure is on. She's got some tips for anyone else in the same boat:

Everything I know about hostessing comes from my mother who was born in Geneva. To most, she was known as “The Frau” – she was a strict-as-nails German teacher in our midwestern hometown. To my brother and I, she was Julia Child crossed with Nancy Sinatra. She loved high boots, and she was always cooking.

My brother André and I were her sous chefs. In the ‘70s, we whipped cream for her gourmet club tortonis; in the ‘80s, our mother discovered the Moosewood Cookbook and we became her renegade vegetable peelers. When our mother entertained, the house had to be spotless, the lighting perfect. André and I cued the right records, served drinks (usually in costume), and made sure all the teak furniture legs were feather dusted.

Unexpected support for freedom to drink raw milk came from Ron Paul in New Hampshire the other day:

When about 500 voters packed into a New Hampshire town hall last week to hear Ron Paul speak, they saved their biggest applause for something no other Republican presidential candidate is talking about.

“I would like to restore your right to drink raw milk anytime you like!” Paul said to loud and sustained cheers in the historic Peterborough Town House.

It was an emblematic moment for Paul’s campaign, which is powered by his call for slashing federal government and expanding personal liberties, including the freedom to drink unpasteurized milk that the U.S. government brands “unsafe.”

Read more here

The Bovine has the story on this Rutgers Prof who has some passionate beliefs about raw milk, and isn't afraid to bring his thoughts to the students:

“Professor Joseph Heckman’s advocacy to legalize the sale of raw milk in New Jersey has made him the target of some harsh criticism. One Rutgers food scientist recently accused Heckman of championing a product that is potentially deadly.

But Heckman, a professor of soil science, is not backing down. He passionately believes in the benefits of raw – or unpasteurized- milk and said he has the scientific literature to back it up. He cites studies that have shown drinking raw milk helps to alleviate allergies and asthma.

“If we could find a pharmaceutical that could do what raw milk does there would probably be somebody out there trying to get it on the market and patent it,’’ Heckman said.

Here's a short BBC video of what happens to cheese before we eat it, and how it makes it to our Christmas Dinner Table:

Sales of cheese in the UK are higher over the Christmas period than at any other time over the year. Varieties such as blue Stilton, which is made in only a few dairies in Britain, remain particularly popular. Jenny Hill visited a dairy in Melton Mowbray to investigate how cheese makes it to the Christmas dinner table.

See the video at BBC.com

The FDA is not pleased with this Amish farmer who is selling his raw milk to customers who then take it to their homes across state lines, which is against regulations. Tension is building, and the Raw Milk Freedom Riders have some strong words:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) apparent war on Amish raw dairy farmers increased on December 6 when they filed a “motion for summary judgment,” with Pennsylvania judge Lawrence Stengler asking for a permanent injunction against dairy farmer Dan Allgyer to forbid him from selling fresh milk out of state. FDA regulation 21 CFR §1240.61
criminalizes any selling of milk intended to cross state lines.

Bake or Break finds a great new use for Mascarpone cheese--in brownies! 

I found this recipe ages ago and promptly printed it out so I could make it as soon as possible. Of course, when I found it earlier this week and remembered how excited I was to make them, I was forced to laugh at the fact that my initial excitement had been almost two years ago. Now, that either proves that I’m unorganized or that I have more recipes to try than I have time to make them. As I’ve always prided myself on my organizational skills, I’m going with the latter.