Cheese & Crack is a Portland, Oregon, food truck that breaks the mold. Rather than being the standard grilled cheese truck. Cheese & Crack offers pedestrians a dignified snack of cheese and crackers on the go. Their "lunchbox" comes packed with cheese, homemade crackers, honey, pickles, meats and other delicacies to makes them a mobile cheese board.

Cheese & Crack claims it serves "the cheese and cracker lunchboxes of your childhood: all grown up." That means sliced cheese (think Rogue Creamery's Oregon Blue)and charcuterie (spicy Coppa) served in a cardboard box with cart-made crackers (seeded, or a better-than-Ritz buttery style) and sides (pickled cornichons, plump green Castelvetrano olives, local honey sticks) chosen from adorable hand-printed slats hanging from a menu board.

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Ted Allen, star chef and host of Food Network's "Chopped," went on CBS' "This Morning," to demonstrate his delicious recipe for Scallops and cheddar cheese grits with chorizo. If you're looking for a hearty breakfast, Allen's your man.

The first time I had the Southern classic, shrimp and grits, was on-set during the filming of "Top Chef" in Miami, brilliantly prepared by Dallas-based chef Tre Wilcox in a taco truck. I've been hooked ever since. Here, the same idea, but with sea scallops -- also a sweet shellfish, and one that needs no peeling or deveining. Scallops are particularly friendly with salty, spicy pork, whether it's fancy Italian ham, good old bacon or, in this case, the spicy Spanish sausage that rounds out this dish.

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Newly minted Republican veep candidate Paul Ryan gave an emotional speech in Waukesha, Wisconsin, yesterday. At one point the Badger State native told the crowd, "My veins run with cheese, bratwurst, and a little Spotted Cow and some Millers." If there's a path to winning Wisconsin for the GOP this November, Ryan knows that path is lined with cheese.

Joking that half the crowd were his relatives, Ryan talked up his Midwestern roots and his love for his home state.

"My veins run with cheese, bratwurst, and a little Spotted Cow and some Millers," Ryan said, his voice cracking with emotion. "I even think ice fishing is interesting."

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

"Que Dios te serba las manitas” (may God preserve your little hands) is the utmost appreciation a ham hand cutter can receive in Spain.

In that country cutting a whole leg of ham by hand is an artful ritual; those who do it are called cortadores. Technique is the very essence of this art, so it is considered a kind of performance. I know cortadores who handle as many as 400 jamones a year, cutting them during celebrations, expositions, fairs, wedding ceremonies, and, yes, these days, even divorce parties!

We're on a mascarpone kick here at culture, and Joy the Baker's recipe for this mascarpone tart with figs and apricots caught our eye. Let us know what you think!

With this tart… praise God… for once in my life I was right on time. This darling is the perfect marriage of fresh figs and summer apricots. It’s a mash of the current season. It feels indulgent and expensive. Aaaannndd it’s dang timely! It makes me feel like the wonderfully flawed and tardy adult that I really am.

I like to start where everything should start… with a crust.

Read the recipe

Being a California dairy farmer is no walk in the park right now, with high feed prices and low milk prices. One farmer calculates he's losing 50 cents on every gallon of milk produced. The Sacramento Bee has the story:

California's dairymen are in an especially difficult position, because there aren't enough processing facilities in the state for all the milk that dairy cows here produce. Stringent permitting requirements often lead processors to build new facilities in other states, leaving California with an oversupply of raw milk. As a result, farmers are at a disadvantage in negotiating better prices from California processors.

Cypress Grove Chevre has put together this wonderful video that documents the making of Humboldt Fog, the beautiful goat cheese created by Mary Keehn:

Babybel faces angry consumers over the choice of words displayed on a complementary toy included with products. Attempting to capture youthful French slang, they ended up offending their audience by using the term "malade mental" or "mentally ill."

Toy inkpads featuring the term "Mentally ill holidays" were included as free gifts throughout July in bags of Mini Babybel, the round cheese with the iconic red wax coating.

In using the slogan "des vacances de malade mental," Babybel seized on the youth slang expression "malade mental," which means "extraordinary."

Babybel later admitted the slogan was not properly thought out.

Read the full story here

Photo by Like_the_Grand_Canyon

The Illinois State Fair is showcasing the dairy art of Sharon BuMann, butter sculptress extraordinaire, who is still in the process of carving a giant block of butter into a "butter cow." This year fairgoers are able to watch the artist at work as she puts in the last few hours:

“I thought it would be a fun idea,” said Sharon BuMann, who has been sculpting Illinois’ Butter Cow for the past decade.

She’s already put about 40 hours of work into the cow, including one all-nighter.

Not that that’s anything unusual.

“I usually pull at least one all-nighter before the cow’s completed,” she said.

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Although dairy companies in the UK have called off the milk price cuts that were originally scheduled to go into effect August 1st, dairy farmers are still hoping for more changes in the future:

Sarah, 36, who has a contract with Robert Wiseman Dairies, added: “The aim of the dairy coalition now is to get the remaining retailers to give the same commitment.

“We’re only half way through the battle. There is still no future in the dairy industry with the prices we’re being paid.

“At the end of the day we’ve got to find an income for our family.”

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