50 shades of food: Silky, smooth burrata

Pull up a chair and settle in for our 50 Shades of Food series, where we introduce you to mouthwatering, shiver-inducing, hot, sexy food porn. It's safe-for-work browsing, sure to get your heart racing and your palms a little sweaty, and the only drawback is a possible hunger pang or two after viewing.

In today's  photo, we celebrate silky, smooth, creamy burrata cheese. Daisy of the blog Daisy's World provided a shot of her burrata with pesto and roasted tomatoes on the vine. The tomatoes look just blistered, the pesto a vibrant green and the cheese a perfect, supple pillow of bliss. The bread in the photo is just barely visible, but one can easily fantasize about how this trio of love would taste spread on a toasty piece of baguette.

Daisy was inspired by the burrata and roasted tomatoes dish at Bottega Louie in downtown L.A.

"It's such a great combination of flavors and a little different from the usual tomato, mozzarella and basil combination," said Daisy.

If you'd like to get in on the food porn action, upload photos of your food to any of our food galleries --  What did you eat this weekend?; Our recipes, your kitchen; or Cheers! What are you drinking? -- and we'll be on the lookout for photos that make our eyes pop. You can also share photos with us on our Facebook page or on Twitter. Be sure to include your name, a description of the photo and any personal blog or Twitter handle you'd like us to give a shout-out to.

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Photo: Burrata with roasted tomatoes and pesto. Credit: Daisy of Daisy's World.

Cheese by the beach: Checking out Venissimo

A short block from the sand in beach-happy Belmont Shore, Venissimo is the perfect location for a gelato shop, or maybe a store stocking bikinis. But a great cheese store? That’s unexpected.

Yet that’s what the Long Beach shop surely is. I stumbled upon it last weekend while looking for a parking place. It’s tucked off of the main drag — 2nd Street — and you could easily pass it by if you weren’t looking. In fact, I’ve probably done just that a dozen times.

Not anymore. This tiny store has an amazing assortment of cheeses — 150 at any given time — as well as cheese-related accessories: dried fruit, honey, crackers, boards and baguettes from BreadBar. Best of all, there’s a friendly staff of cheeseheads who are there to help you.

The cheeses are well cared for and the staff really knows its stock. Everything I tasted was in perfect condition. And they do a great job of putting together combinations of cheeses for wine or beer matching.

Even if you’ve been around the cheese game a while, do ask their advice. You’re likely to turn up some wonderful cheeses you’ve never heard of. The revelation for me Saturday was Meadow Creek Dairy’s Grayson, a soft, washed-rind cheese with a buttery complexity that reminded me of the old Peluso Teleme. They also turned me on to a really lovely Roaring Forties Blue from King Island Dairy in Australia, lower in salt and more creamy than most blues.

Lisa Albanese is the manager of the 3½-year-old store, one of four Venissimo’s in Southern California — the others are in the San Diego area. "We’re a mom-and-pop chain," she says. "Long Beach was the brainchild to see if it would float outside of San Diego."

As manager, Albanese has a free hand to order the cheeses that she thinks will work for her customers. She tries to get in two new cheeses every week.

"Our customers go through everything from pretty pedestrian to much greater palates," she says. "With the 3½ years we’ve been open, we’ve been fortunate enough to see our regulars' palates grow. Now we have quite a few regulars who come in and just ask what’s new this week. That’s the fun challenge."

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50 shades of food: Warm, gooey jalapeño cheese bread

Pull up a chair and settle in for our 50 Shades of Food series, where we introduce you to mouth-watering, shiver-inducing, hot, sexy food porn. It's safe-for-work browsing, sure to get your heart racing and your palms a little sweaty, and the only drawback is a possible hunger pang or two after viewing.

This week we picked a photo that celebrates our love for fresh baked bread and cheese. Shulie Madnick of the blog Food Wanderings shared a picture and recipe for jalapeño cheese bread. A fresh, hot loaf of any kind of bread is, in itself, something to swoon over. Add swirls of gooey cheese and hot jalapeños and it's enough to make you squeal with delight.

"As you can see, I commit the same crime over and over again and slice the bread while it is still warm," said Madnick on her blog. "I need to be put on probation, but admit it, doesn't the gooey melting cheese look so scrumptious?"

Oh, yes, Shulie, we're head over heels.

If you'd like to get in on the food porn action, upload photos of your food to any of our food galleries --  What did you eat this weekend?; Our recipes, your kitchen; or Cheers! What are you drinking? -- and we'll be on the lookout for photos that make our eyes pop. You can also share photos with us on our Facebook page or on Twitter. Be sure to include your name, a description of the photo and any personal blog or Twitter handle you'd like us to give a shout-out to.

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-- Jenn Harris

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Photo: Jalapeño cheese bread. Credit: Shulie Madnick

New York postcard: Di Palo's in Little Italy and now online

Whenever I’m in New York City — and downtown — my feet seem to head all by themselves to Grand Street and Di Palo's, the 87-year-old Italian deli (newly organized and expanded) where I stock up on Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano and bottarga from Sardinia.

Usually one of the family is behind the counter, either one or both brothers Lou and Salvatore, their sister Mariem, or Lou’s son Sam, now the fifth generation of the Italian family that immigrated from Basilicata in 1903. 

Buying cheese is a ritual here: You taste, you compare Parmigiano Reggiano of different ages and seasons. I bought the superb spring Parmigiano — far too little of it, I realized when I got home. I keep breaking off little chunks of it to have with a glass of wine just before dinner.

When I stopped by in early May the pecorino Romano was exceptional, milky and salty-sweet with just that edge of sharpness which makes the sheep’s milk cheese so distinctive. I bought a big piece. And then I bought another for a gift. 

How can I not see spaghetti cacio e pepe ("cheese and pepper") in my future? I’m a purist, though. No butter: just finely grated Pecorino and lots of cracked black pepper. See how to make it on the link below.

The big news, handed over casually as I was gathering up my package, is that DiPalo is now online at www.dipaloselects.com, which means I don't have to wait for my next trip to New York to buy more Pecorino Romano. It's listed at $12.99 a pound and I’ll have to pay for shipping. But still, that's about the cost of one plate of pasta in a restaurant. 

Di Palo's Fine Foods, 200 Grand Street (at Mott Street), New York, N.Y. (877) 253-1779; www.dipaloselects.com

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At Farmshop: Breaking open the 85-pound Parmigiano

When an 85-pound wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano from the Cravero family of affineurs is opened, "it's really, really beautiful," says Farmshop market manager Emiliano Lee. "It's almost like looking at a cliff, all these rocky crags where the curds were when you've taken the wheel apart, and those little bits that fall out of the center are the gold right there."

On Saturday he cut into a wheel of Parmigiano aged for 30 months in vaults in Bra, Italy -- also, coincidentally, the home of Slow Food, and "it doesn't get much slower than aging cheese," says Lee, who uses several various knives to coax open the cheese. "The Craveros have been maturing Parmigiano-Reggiano [a process called staggionatura] for generations now. It's practically currency there. They're experts who spend their days tending to the cheese in what's basically temperature- and humidity-controlled aging caves where it's turned regularly and wiped down and paid attention to, and they know when it's ripe. With a wheel that big it's a little difficult to tell. It's not like a wheel of brie where you can pick it up and feel it."

The flavor and texture of the Parmigiano -- delicate but full-flavored, creamy, so buttery it melts in your mouth -- "speaks to the hand that Cravero has in the aging. You want to have it on the table with a bottle of wine or glass of beer. It's going to be hard not to eat it by the chunk."

Farmshop, 225 26th St., Suite 25, Santa Monica, (310) 566-2400, www.farmshopla.com.

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Photo: Emiliano Lee with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Credit: Farmshop

Covetable: Cheese boards made from reclaimed floorboards

Grace Bonney's long-running blog Design Sponge alerted me to these wonderfully quirky cheese boards from Brooklyn wood artist Ariele Alasko. A sculptor trained at Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Alasko makes her cheese boards from salvaged floorboards at her Brooklyn studio. I love the way she allows each piece of old wood to express itself in the board’s shape and the way she uses the wood’s grain.  

“Everything I build is made of 100% recycled and salvaged materials,” she explains. “Most everything is found, meaning that materials are not always plentiful and everything is one-of-a-kind. Sometimes it takes a month before I come across more usable material, but hey, that's what keeps this interesting!”

Go to her virtual shop to see all the cheese boards she’s brought into the world.

Each comes with a tag advising buyers on how to care for their floorboard cheese boards:

— Don’t get me too wet

— You can oil me with walnut oil or butchers-block wax (but I will get slightly darker in color)

— Eat lots of cheese on me!

View her shop here, where cheese boards run $55 to $90. Or contact her at aalasko@yahoo.com to discuss the possibilities.

Also, if you find yourself in Pacific Grove sometime, check out the restaurant interior she built for Il Vecchio, her family's traditional Italian restaurant. The menu of mostly Roman dishes looks promising. And they're using her cheese boards, if you want to get a closer look.

I wish I knew how to wield a hammer and saw the way Alasko does.

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Photos: floorboard cheeseboards. Credit: Ariele Alasko, Brooklyn to West

 

Make a trip for cheese: California's Artisan Cheese Festival

California's Artisan Cheese Festival will take place March 23-25 in Petaluma, Calif. The sixth annual event draws artisan cheesemakers, cheese experts, brewers and wineries from all over for a weekend of seminars, demonstrations, tastings and pairings.

The three days of cheese will also feature farm tours around Sonoma and Marin counties, a cheesemaker dinner featuring chef Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards Grill in Napa, a Lagunitas Brewery tour followed by a six-course, cheese-filled meal with beer pairings and a brunch hosted by Zazu's Duskie Estes, winner of last year's Cochon 555.

Participating artisans at this year's festival include Cowgirl Creamery, Marin French Cheese, Laura Chenel's Chevre, Bleating Heart, Bellwether Farms, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery, Valley Ford Cheese Co. and Weirauch Farm & Creamery, among many others.

Tickets are $45 per person.

745 Baywood Drive, Petaluma, (707) 523-3728, artisancheesefestival.com.

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Credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

Farmshop to open artisan market Jan. 29

Farmshop in the Brentwood Country Mart is welcoming a new addition to Jeff Cerciello's restaurant and bakery: a full-scale artisan market.

The market, comparable in size to the restaurant itself, boasts a deli, cheese and charcuterie counters, products such as Jessica Koslow's Sqirl preserves and seasonally inspired prepared foods. Also stocked on the market's shelves are California wines, craft beers and housewares from L.A. favorites including Heath ceramics.

Managing the floor is Emiliano Lee. With years of experience working as a cheese monger and manager (and even a "fresh foods wrangler" who sourced sustainably farmed produce) while working at Liberty Heights Fresh in Salt Lake City, Farmshop's new hire knows his cheese.

Lee, a Bay Area native, is thrilled to launch a market filled with foods crafted in California. The advocate brings farmstead American cheeses to Farmshop's cheese counter from Oregon and Vermont but mainly from California producers such as Bellwether Farms, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, Cowgirl Creamery, Cypress Grove Chevre, Marin French Cheese, Franklin's Cheese, Vella Cheese, Laura Chenel's Chevre, Andante Dairy, Garden Variety Cheese and Bleating Heart.

With the market in place, Cerciello and team are working to add an educational component with dinners, tasting events, cooking demonstrations and book signings on the horizon.

The artisan market at Farmshop will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

225 26th St., Suite 25, Santa Monica, (310) 566-2400, farmshopla.com.

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Photo: Farmshop's artisan market. Credit: Spencer Lowell

Get your groove on: New flavored goat cheeses from Cypress Grove

Cheeseheads know Cypress Grove Chevre mainly through its flagship Humboldt Fog, a creamy, richly flavored ripened cheese with a distinctive blue line of vegetable ash running through the center. Certainly, that is one of America’s great artisan cheeses, but Cypress Grove does more than Humboldt Fog.

There are other ripened cheeses, such as Bermuda Triangle and Truffle Tremor, and the longer-aged Lamb Chopper and Midnight Moon. All great cheeses, but among my favorites are the fresh goat cheeses the creamery also makes, both the plain chevre (called Ms. Natural) and most especially the Purple Haze, flavored with lavender and fennel pollen.

Just lately creamery founder Mary Keehn has added a couple of new flavors to her repertoire: Sgt. Pepper, flavored with different chiles, and PsycheDillic, flavored with dill pollen and dried dill leaves. If you’re noticing a certain thread running through the names, well, Cypress Grove is located in Humboldt County.

The fresh chevres run about $6.50 for a quarter-pound disc and are available wherever fine cheeses are sold, as well as through the creamery website. Order the Flashback Six-Pack Special through the creamery website and you get all six fresh chevres plus a pair of tinted granny glasses for $75.

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Photo credit: Cypress Grove Chevre

 

Golden State-shaped cutting boards

A Brooklyn-based husband-and-wife design duo made state-shaped cutting boards for their wedding last year and, after lots of oohs and aahs, decided to turn their craft into a business venture on Etsy.

The cutting boards are made from Plyboo, a butcher block architectural plywood made from 100% rapidly renewable bamboo. They can be cut to resemble any state -- even Maryland (see below) -- featuring a heart engraved over wherever you call home. Sold for $40 each, the boards can be purchased at etsy.com/shop/AHeirloom.

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Photo credits: Amy Stringer-Mowat