It's Not You, It's Brie

New York: Feeling the Dairy Love

by kirstin on May 8, 2012

Milk & Glitter: Prospect Park Market Day

Milk & Glitter: Prospect Park with a 5 & 9 year old.

Well folks, I’m fresh back from a visit to New York. And once again after a visit to one of my favorite cities in the world, I’m surprised that I feel refreshed. I always thought beach vacations, long afternoons spent reading at French cafes, and camping were the things that were supposed to refresh, and that New York, with its crazy hours, constant foot traffic, and millions of things to do all at once, would always exhaust. Yet I feel revived. Of course it may have to do with the fact that I was visiting rather than actually living in the city.

Fetas from around the world at Brighton Bazaar Eastern European market, Coney Island

Anyhow, I had a hell of a time. Seeing my wonderful friends, experiencing the cheese culture and industry, walking around admiring the blossoms around Central Park (this was the first time I was in New York at spring- oh la la!), and eating and drinking at some of my favorite places replenished my soul as stealthily as it diminished my wallet. It was all worth it. I miss it already.

Brooklyn Dogwood

Here’s a little photo diary of my time in Manhattan and Brooklyn. First time using my IPhone camera on a trip!

Our "sad puppy" face.

Hanging out with Hannah, 5, and Claire, 9. My favorite girls in Brooklyn (Claire’s glittery shoes above).

I was super happy to go to the Edible Manhattan Good Dairy event while visiting (thanks, Lucy’s Whey!). The event was delicious, sold out, and in true Manhattan fashion, had door men.

The hot ticket- Good Dairy.

The fabulous Lucy's Whey girls at Good Dairy, Grace and Amy

Momofuku Cereal Milk, Good Dairy

Andy Marcelli of Marcelli Family Abruzzo Cheese & Eataly

Milk Punch with local bourbon, Good Dairy

Milk Punch with local whiskey, Good Dairy

Across the Pond with cornichon, Lucy's Whey, Good Dairy

The New York Diary Princess with the Murray's folk, Good Dairy

I was also in town for a cheesemonger meet-up. I got to see all the NYC dairy folk I know, like the lovely Murray’s Chef Fromager Tia Keenan, more of Grace and Amy, more of Andy, and … many, many others. We gathered in the Beecher’s basement and feasted on fried cheese curds and cheeses that are hard-to-come-by on the west coast.

Beecher's Selections: Ascutney Mountain, Cato Corner Brigit's, Jasper Hill Moses Sleeper

Then I hit up some other events that weren’t related to cheese, like a normal person (it wasn’t difficult, there was always gelato, great coffee with cream, or something deliciously distracting like bone marrow nearby).

At the Cindy Sherman show, SO not being used as a decoy so my friend could take a pic of Chuck Close behind me.

Prune- I've been wanting to go to this place since my NYC culinary externship in 1999. The bone marrow, not the salad, was mine.

St John the Divine visit

Ricotta almond gelato at Eataly

Meeting my awesome editor for the first time at Café Henri in the west village

Hannah (age 5) has better boots than I do. This is her second pair.

Maybe I’ll come up with a list of dairy things to do while in the city one of these days. In the meantime, have fun creating your own!

What do you like to do while in New York?

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Ham & Dijion Grilled Cheese with Compound Butter and….. Apricot Browned Butter Granola

by kirstin on May 2, 2012

It’s recipe time again. I am one of eight bloggers to have been asked (hired) to create recipes involving my second favorite dairy product ever after cheese- butter. We all know that cheese is #1 on this blog, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the main reason I include bread in my life is to serve as a vehicle for my butter. I am also a butter freak.

Anyhow, I’ll be creating 2-4 new recipes for the Go Bold with Butter blog every month, and I’ll share them here. Check out the rest of the blogger recipes too- there are some awesome ones. I’ll post the ones that include cheese on this blog and then link to others that don’t (so there won’t be too much non-cheese cross pollination). We’ll get you your cheese recipe fix again. I’m actually pretty excited about this- I love creating recipes, and this gives me the perfect opportunity to do more of it.

Ham & dijion grilled cheese with tarragon compound butter

It’s recipe time again. As I divulged in my last recipe post, I am one of eight bloggers to have been hired through a partnership between Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and America’s Dairy Farmers to create recipes involving my second favorite dairy product ever after cheese- butter. We all know that cheese is #1 on this blog, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the main reason I include bread in my life is to serve as a vehicle for my butter. I am a butter freak.

Anyhow, I’m creating 2-4 new recipes for the Go Bold with Butter blog every month, and I’ll share them here too. Check out the rest of the blogger recipes- there are some awesome ones. I’ll post the ones that I’ve created that include cheese on this blog and then link to others that don’t (so there won’t be too much non-cheese cross pollination, in case there are tender dairy hearts reading).

Here goes:

Ham & Dijion Grilled Cheese with Compound Butter

I’d never turn down a grilled cheese sandwich for lack of innovation. In its most fulfilling, basic, loving incarnation, bells and whistles would just get in the way. Sometimes all you want is a heck of a lot of melted cheese between two incredibly buttery pieces of toasted bread.

Other times, you want a little extra oomph with your cheese. When I want to move beyond my childhood favorite’s most basic delicious form, I involve ham, Dijon mustard and herb butter.

Pick a good ham- maybe applewood smoked, maybe just a basic cure, but choose one with few preservatives. The Dijon can be whole-grain or smooth, whatever your tastes dictates, and the herbs should always be fresh. If you can’t find tarragon, substitute chervil or sage. Keep any leftover compound butter for future cooking- adding a dab of it to finished sauces or pastas is a simple way to enhance a dish.

Recipe

Grilled Cheese with Herbed Butter, Dijon and Ham

Serves 4

Herbed butter

3/4 cup butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

½ teaspoon ground pepper

Grilled Cheese

4 teaspoons Dijon mustard

8 pieces Italian or French batard bread, sliced ½ inch thick

8 ounces grated Gruyere-style cheese

8 ounces thinly sliced ham

2 teaspoons room temperature butter

salt to taste

Mix the butter, herbs and pepper together in a small bowl until blended well. Set aside.

Butter one side of four pieces of bread lightly with the herb butter. Spread a teaspoon of Dijon over one side of the remaining slices of unbuttered bread. Each sandwich will get one buttered slice and one Dijon slice. Portion out the cheese, 2 ounces per sandwich. Put 1 ounce of grated cheese over each sandwich’s buttered slice and 1 ounce over the Dijon slice. Then, put two ounces of ham over whichever slice you’d like, then close the sandwich so the ham is in the middle.

Lightly butter the outside of the sandwich slices with the herb butter, being sure to cover all the way to the crusty edges of the bread.

Melt 1 teaspoon butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Place the sandwiches in the pan and press down firmly with a spatula. Reduce heat to low and sprinkle the sandwiches lightly with salt. Flip when the first side is golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add another teaspoon of butter to the pan, and repeat with the second side. The sandwich is ready when both pieces of bread are golden brown and the cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

Apricot Browned Butter Granola

Apricot Brown Butter Granola:

linked here.

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And They Called Them Stinky

April 11, 2012

Stinky is relative. My fainting friend — who admits the only cheese she’ll eat is fresh burrata or mozzarella and who made me keep all cheese I purchased while visiting her on the balcony where she couldn’t smell it — has a very low tolerance level for stinky cheese. Let’s classify it as zero on a scale of 1 to 10 (I still love her though; she sends me home with jars of her granmother’s quince jelly). My stinky tolerance level is 8. Another friend’s level is 13.

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Writing a Book: Proposal & Prepublishing

April 5, 2012

People ask all the time, “how does one write a book?” Well, to start, it’s correct to ask “how does one,” because one writes it- alone. Holy bejesuses it gets lonely writing a book. During the last two months while I was writing the first draft of my manuscript, I didn’t go out, I pretty much ate only the recipes I made for the book, and only saw people when they came over to test recipes. I

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Don’t Call it a Come Back: Cheesy Recipes Return

April 2, 2012

It’s been a while since I posted recipes on “It’s Not You, It’s Brie.” When I get busy, as freelancers often do, I fall out of the habit. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking or cooking with cheese, it’s just that sometimes when I’m absorbed in cooking, especially as a release, I forget to wipe off my cheesy kitchen fingers and record what I’m doing.

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Southern Cheese & Whiskey Fever

March 28, 2012

Southern cheese, my friends, has arrived. Or rather, it has been thriving, and the rest of us are finally noticing its presence. This last Sunday I taught the Cheese School of San Francisco’s first Southern Cheese & Spirits Class. Quite an honor. It was great. We ate. We drank. We marveled at the jug of corn whiskey.

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