Last week we saw anti-cheese billboards in New York, and this week we're hearing about curbing the promotion of cheese to children in Ireland due to cheese's nutritional value. It's a rough few days for cheese. The Irish Times has the story:

The Department of Agriculture has raised concerns with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) about a proposal to restrict the advertising of cheese to children on television.

In 2009 the BAI commissioned a consultation document on the advertisement of food and drink products for children.

The report recommended that Ireland adopt the “nutritional profiling” model used by the UK, which includes a restriction on cheese.

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, Starbucks is planning to sell beer, wine, and cheese at 25 locations by the end of the year. The Washington Post has the story:

Bringing happy hour to Starbucks Corp. may be easier said than done.

After experimenting with alcohol sales at six West Coast stores, the world’s largest coffee-shop chain said yesterday that it will sell beer and wine in as many as 25 locations by the end of the year. Starbucks, which has 10,700 U.S. cafes, will also sell fruit-and-cheese plates and focaccia with olive oil.

The strategy is part of a broader experiment to find ways to lure Starbucks customers and even non-coffee drinkers into stores during slow periods of the day, especially afternoons and evenings.

Animal Husbandry author Laura Zigman is wondering what is up with bad cheese being in as many dishes as possible, and she's got a video to go along with her frustrations:

Do you ever wonder about cheese?

Not cheese in the French sense of cheese:

A really expensive hunk of something smelly with a few plain crackers and slices of ripe pear on a plate of pretentiousness.

But cheese in the American sense:

Buffalo cheese wings and cheese soup and cheesy bread sticks and cheesy dipping sauce with a side order of cheesy fries and spicy cheese chips with cheese on top?

What is our national obsession with fake cheese?

Read more

If you're keeping up with the news, you already know about the cruise ship Costa Concordia that ran aground last week off of the Tuscan island of Giglio. Sixteen passengers perished as a result of the accident, and now the major task is to remove this giant ship without causing an environmental disaster. This is where cheese comes in.
NPR has the story:

If the decision is made to junk the Costa Concordia, the salvor would likely remove it by cutting the vessel into smaller, manageable parts — though with a 1,000-foot ship like the Concordia, manageable is a relative term — and hauling them off piece by piece.

In past removals, SMIT has used a giant cutting wire coated with a material as hard as diamonds that is suspended beneath the vessel and then raised to slice it through.

"The Dutch call it a cheese wire," Umbdenstock says.

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.

This endive appetizer is a delightful start to a meal, and the blue cheese provides a nice flavor boost to the mildness of the endive.

Gordon Edgar recaps the wonders of the newest Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Sounds like a hoot and a holler...or maybe just another day in the Fancy Food filled life of Gordon Edgar:

Oh, Fancy Food Show… Always pretty much the same and yet always a must-attend event.

Back in Ye Olde Dayes, when we were trying to build a cheese department, we roamed your aisles looking for cheese to stock our shelves. I’m still getting “VISIT OUR BOOTH!” mailings from people whose product I tasted once over a decade ago and never brought into the store. Back then a lot of folks wouldn’t even talk to us because we looked too weird or they’d never heard of our store. Now, I seldom visit a booth where I don’t already have an appointment.

That’s probably better for my stomach. No more of the freestyle grazing that means coffee on top of salsa on top of prosciutto on top of chocolate on top of “gourmet” pigs in “artisan” blankets…

Adriana Velez blogs about being momentarily deceived by Kraft's new commercials, and lines up the five cheese food products she hates to love:

I got all excited when I first saw the new Kraft Make Something Amazing commercial. Yay, someone is actually encouraging us to cook real food from scratch! How exciting! And then I watched the commercial more closely. Despite the twee song by Canadian indie band Mother Mother and the sun-drenched shots of families and hipsters frolicking around their kitchen playing with food, what did I spy? Lots of American cheese slices.

Harrmumph, a commercial for processed cheese foods disguised as a commercial for cooking?

Read the full post here

Madame Fromage has some qualified advice on how to make a cheese plate worthy of the PBS series Downton Abbey:

I can’t seem to get enough of the PBS series, Downton Abbey, and neither can you. This became clear at the Cheddar class I taught on Friday night at Tria’s Fermentation School. It was a Masterpiece Theater loving crowd (lots of beards and one waistcoat); Lady Grantham would have fit right in.

By the end of the night, we’d eaten seven Cheddars, and there was hardly a crumb on the tables. After everyone left, I couldn’t help but imagine them settling in on their settees at home with a spot of port and an episode of Downton Abbey cued up for a nightcap. Since today is Sunday, and you’ll surely be watching, let me offer you a few crumbs of wisdom about building a Downton worthy cheese plate.

Nick Swardson, the comedian of Reno 911 fame and Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, was upset when he found out he was allergic to cheese. He had to quit the stuff, and it was not an easy road. Back in November he wrote about it:

I can’t have cheese anymore. I am allergic. Thirty five years I have spent on this planet without that knowledge. It turns out it makes me sick. Stomach and sinus sick. This is jarring news being from Minnesota where we are born with i.v.s of cheese and butter in our arms. Cheese is on everything in the Midwest. You could order a piece of chocolate cake and it would come back with Parmesan grated over it. My parents would have lived in a cheese igloo if they could have.

Peter Schrager at the Wall Street Journal investigates the case of the missing "Eli Manning" sandwich at Ike's Place in San Francisco:

At Ike's Place, the popular sandwich shop in San Francisco's Castro district, the city's top athletes are immortalized with sandwiches named after them. Hungry locals and sports-crazed visitors who have seen the restaurant on Travel Channel's "Man v. Food" reality show wait on lines that stretch for blocks to order the sandwich of their choice.

The Lincecum, The Steve Young, The Montana to Rice and The Barry B. are among the most popular items on the Ike's Place menu. And so is The Eli Manning.

The Eli Manning?

Ike Shehadeh and the Eli Manning—which has suddenly disappeared from the menu at Ike's Place, a San Francisco sandwich shop.