I never had the chance to cook for my mom on Mother’s Day. From the age of 18, I lived more than 1,500 miles away. It’s too late now, but I’m certain these recipes would have pleased her (eating them, not cooking them). All five dishes have cheese in common—surprise!—but they’re light, quick to make and foolproof. If you have a mother or mother figure to cook for, grab an apron and seize the day.

Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Maple Sauce

These are the pancakes I dream about. With no leavening other than beaten egg whites, they are almost souffle like.

Warm Bruschetta with Asparagus and Burrata

On the short list for best brunch dish ever. Plus, it’s adaptable. Replace the asparagus with roasted tomatoes in summer, roasted mushrooms in fall.

Frittata with Asparagus and Sheep Cheese

I originally developed this recipe using broccoli rabe, but you can sub asparagus pound for pound. Leftover frittata is something to hope for. Slice it for a sandwich the next day with caper mayo or aioli.

Hearts of Butter Lettuce with Pecorino and Fava Beans

Serve this delicate salad with grilled salmon or lamb chops. You’ll need a sheep cheese moist enough to shave, like this one or this one.

Ricotta Mousse with Bittersweet Chocolate, Pistachios, Almonds and Orange Peel

Because the best part of cannoli is the filling. You can put raspberries in the bottom of your serving glass and then dollop the mousse on top. Or you can decorate the top with raspberries. Or you can enjoy this perfect dessert just the way it is.

Finally, a French cheese to love at a price we can like. It’s been a while since I’ve bought artisan cheese from France without flinching at the checkout counter. Of course you can find affordable Brie and Camembert at the big-box stores, but these cheeses are typically industrial, with quality on par with their cost. This beauty is a distinctive raw cow’s milk tomme, with a rustic natural rind, abundant aroma and an uncommon “double-textured” interior. The reasonable price is just one more of its many admirable features.

Tomme Crayeuse (tohm cray-yuhz) is a modern creation, a collaboration between a prominent cheesemaker in the Savoie region and a respected affineur (cheese ager). Its back story—as recounted to me in an email from French affineur Laurent Mons —is peculiar. The cheese evolved from a mistake, a flawed batch too acidic to ripen properly. But as Mons told me, perhaps tongue in cheek, cheesemakers never discard their mistakes. They send them to the affineur to fix.

In this case, affineur Max Schmidhauser and his caves in Annecy did salvage the defective batch, transforming it into a cheese not only sellable but desirable. Tomme Crayeuse—the “chalky” tomme—debuted in 1997 and was successful enough that other creameries began to produce it as well.

The cheese I purchased recently was made by Fruitières Chabert, and their site says it’s raw milk. Mons told me that producers today use exclusively thermised or pasteurized milk. I can’t untangle those claims, but no matter. The Chabert cheese was terrific, rustic in appearance, with a thick, rippled, crusty rind and aromas of cave, mushrooms and broccoli. The interior was semifirm, open and tender, with a rich butter color. The flavor was earthy and highly savory with a pleasing acidity.

A chalky interior is not usually a feature I appreciate in cheese. But Tomme Crayeuse is intentionally brittle—not chalky exactly, but certainly more friable in the middle than the creamy layers under the rind. The high acidity impedes proteolysis, the protein breakdown that makes cheese creamy. Caerphilly has the same layer-cake quality.

Sue Sturman, an American expert on French cheese who translates the French trade magazine Professsion Fromager, sent me some background on Tomme Crayeuse. Affineurs achieve the unusual texture, in part, by aging the wheel in a warm, humid environment initially, then finishing it in a colder cave. Aging is a minimum of 60 days but what I sampled recently seemed older than that.

In the hands of a good affineur, Tomme de Savoie can be compelling, but I’m disappointed more often than not. Tomme Crayeuse, its kissing cousin, has not disappointed me yet. Be sure to bring it fully to room temperature. “Once it warms up, it becomes something to treasure,” says Helder dos Santos, a Chicago-area cheese judge and a Tomme Crayeuse fan.

Look for Tomme Crayeuse at these retailers:
California
Cheese Cave (Claremont)
Cheese Store of Beverly Hills
Davis Food Coop (Davis)
Gourmet Corner (San Mateo)
McCalls Meat & Fish (L.A. and Santa Monica)
Rainbow Grocery (SF)
Say Cheese (SF)
Sunshine Foods (St. Helena)
V. Sattui (St. Helena)
East Coast
Concord Cheese Shop (Concord, MA)
The Gourmet Shop (Columbia, SC)
Monger’s Palate (Brooklyn, NY)
Orrman’s Cheese Shop (Charlotte, NC)
Park Slope Food Co-op (Brooklyn)
Truckle Cheesemongers (Richmond, VA)
Van Hook Cheese & Grocery (Jersey City and Montclair, NJ)

Why is it so hard to find ricotta salata these days? This salted and pressed Italian sheep cheese used to be more present, and I almost always had some on hand for shaving into salads—especially spring salads with fava beans, asparagus or beets. It’s a must for pasta alla Norma but I grate it on pasta sauced every which way. It’s moister than pecorino romano so it makes the dish creamier. Now it is scarcer than it should be, given that it’s neither costly nor rare. I suspect retailers don’t appreciate its brief lifespan and end up throwing away a lot. (I have some thoughts about that.) The last time I asked for ricotta salata at a cheese counter, the clerk recommended mizithra instead. A helpful suggestion, but how similar are they?

Country of origin

Ricotta salata is a specialty of southern Italy, especially Puglia, although it’s now made all over Italy. Mizithra (or myzithra) is Greek and associated primarily with Crete, although it’s produced throughout the country.

What it is

The two recipes are largely alike. You start with whey left over from making a hard cheese. You add milk, heat it and soft curds float to the top. That’s ricotta. Then you drain, press, salt and age the ricotta until it’s firm enough to grate. Most of the ricotta salata and mizithra I find is made from sheep’s milk (or, more rarely, water buffalo milk) but creameries use all milk types. The typical format for ricotta salata is a small log or cone; a whole mizithra resembles a misshapen ball.

How it tastes

In my experience, ricotta salata is moister, less salty and less sharp than mizithra. You can shave it with a cheese plane and the slices don’t crumble. Mizithra is stronger in flavor, more peppery and too dry to shave. For shaving, Greek manouri is a better choice than mizithra. As a grating cheese for pasta, mizithra works, adding a sheepy, salty, slightly sourish flavor. Fun fact: Spaghetti with mizithra and browned butter is the most popular dish on the menu at Old Spaghetti Factory. But at my house, mizithra is rarely the top choice.

Retailers, please give us more ricotta salata. We pledge to use it more often, grated and shaved. We’ll store it wrapped in wax paper in a sealed container, and if it gets a little surface mold, we won’t freak out and complain to you. We’ll just scrape off the mold and carry on.

Below, a favorite spring recipe and more ideas for using ricotta salata when you encounter it.

In Memoriam
With deep sadness, I share news of the sudden passing of Rick Lafranchi. One of the kindest people in the cheese business, Rick was co-owner of California’s Nicasio Valley Cheese, a family business. With his cheesemaker brother, Scott, Rick introduced several farmstead cheeses, inspired by the family’s Italian-Swiss heritage, that have become cheese counter staples: Formagella, Tomino, Foggy Morning, San Geronimo. I’m glad he lived to see Nicasio Square take a blue-ribbon at last summer’s American Cheese Society awards. Rick was a greatly admired industry leader, a gentle soul who always had time for my questions and said yes to every request. He leaves a big hole in our American cheese family.

Golden Beet, Fennel and Avocado Salad with Ricotta Salata

Adapted from San Francisco: Authentic Recipes Celebrating the Foods of the World by Janet Fletcher (Oxmoor House).

• 8 medium beets, preferably golden or Chioggia beets

  Lemon vinaigrette:

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice

• ¼ cup finely minced shallot

• Kosher or sea salt

• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1 teaspoon Vietnamese fish sauce

• Freshly ground black pepper

• 1 large or 2 small fennel bulbs, stalks removed, halved

• Ricotta salata cheese

• 1 large avocado

• 2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Remove the beet greens, if attached, leaving 1 inch of stem to avoid piercing the skin. Save the greens for another use. Put the beets in a baking dish with 1/4 inch of water. Cover and bake until a knife pierces them easily, about 1 hour. Peel when cool enough to handle, then set aside to cool completely.

Make the vinaigrette: In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice, shallot and a generous pinch of salt. Let stand 30 minutes to allow the shallot flavor to mellow. Whisk in the olive oil and fish sauce. Season with pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Slice the beets very thinly by hand. Put them in a bowl and toss them gently with about one-third of the dressing, taking care not to break up the slices. Make a bed of the beets on a large platter.

With a mandoline or V-slicer, slice the fennel paper thin. Put the fennel in a bowl and dress with about one-half of the remaining dressing, then scatter the fennel over the beets.

With a vegetable peeler or cheese plane, shave ricotta salata over the fennel, using as much as you like. I use about 3 ounces.

With a large metal spoon, scoop the flesh of the avocado half from the peel in one piece. Put the avocado half cut side down on a work surface and slice thinly crosswise. Arrange the avocado slices attractively on top of the salad. Drizzle with as much of the remaining dressing as desired (you may not need it all), then top with the minced parsley. Serve immediately.

Serves 8

I went a little crazy at the cheese counter the other day and came home with more than I usually buy at one time. So, at the end of a simple dinner that night, Doug and I had an over-the-top cheese course. Miraculously, we had the same favorite. A new import from Spain, it had all the features I seek: captivating aroma, pleasing texture, proper salting. That it played well with the red wine on the table earned it some more points. I’m excited to introduce you to this unusual newcomer and try to build its U.S. fan club.

Years ago, when I was on the San Francisco Chronicle food staff, the food section had a young intern named Andy Lax. After his internship, Lax took a sales job with a new Northern California cheese distributor and helped that company, Fresca Italia, grow. Lax now lives in Madrid and Fresca Italia’s portfolio is slowly starting to include some of his Spanish finds. Pata de Mulo is one such discovery, matured in the cellars of Cultivo, a highly regarded Madrid cheese shop with affinage expertise.

Several creameries produce Pata de Mulo (“mule’s leg”), a traditional sheep cheese from the area around León. The one imported by Fresca Italia is from Praizal, a family farm and creamery. Pilar Blanco makes the cheese with her nephew; her brothers provide the raw sheep’s milk. They milk Assaf sheep, a prized Israeli breed that is becoming established in this region of Spain.

The cheese’s whimsical name refers to its shape—a flattened log weighing about 4 pounds. You’ve seen this format before. Patacabra, from goat’s milk, has the same peculiar shape, produced by gentle pressing. A thick slice is eye-catching on a cheese board.

Cultivo babysits the cheese for two to four months, and whatever they’re doing, I hope they keep doing it. The natural rind is thin and handsome, with a riot of multicolored molds. The pale ivory interior has small openings and a delicate mushroom and cave aroma. I love the texture—tender and creamy—and the subtle flavor of nuts and artichoke.

Oh, to live in Spain where this fabulous cheese costs about $12 a pound. Here you will likely pay closer to $40 a pound—a hefty tab but worth it to experience such expert craftsmanship.

Look for Pata de Mulo at these California retailers: Market Hall Foods (Oakland), Milkfarm (Los Angeles), Oliver’s (Santa Rosa area). Paradise Pantry (Ventura), Sunshine Foods (St. Helena) and V. Sattui (St. Helena).

And now for some bad news: We have lost another American artisan cheese producer and another independent cheese shop.

Keith Adams, proprietor of Alemar Cheese and Wm Cofield Cheesemakers, announced recently that he is ceasing operations. Adams launched Alemar Cheese in Minnesota in 2009 but moved production a couple of years ago to Sonoma County, California, where he was making Cheddar under the Wm Cofield brand. Alemar’s Bent River was a popular Camembert-style cheese, and I admired it, but his McKinley Cheddar never quite got traction.

Covid was the turning point, Adams told me. “The way I grew Alemar was demo-ing a lot, and with Covid there was no more demo-ing.” Even today, says Adams, Covid’s impact persists in “fewer mongers, less excitement about new things and a general gravitation toward cheeses that can be Cryovac’d.”

Equally troubling is the closure of DTLA Cheese, a much-admired Los Angeles merchant. In a tearful Instagram reel, proprietor Lydia Clarke and chef Reed Herrick said the 12-year-old shop’s last day is April 17. “We have reached the point where we have to close the doors,” they wrote in an accompanying post. They didn’t offer any specifics, but I can only imagine that in a city with high rents and labor costs, you have to sell a boatload of cheese to pay the bills.

The notion that cheeses have seasons is less valid than it used to be, but springtime still says goat cheese to me. On small French farms run the traditional way, goats give birth in early spring. Once the kids are weaned, there’s abundant milk for cheese—for all those delicate fresh chèvres and, a few weeks later, lightly aged creations like the one pictured above. Breeding advances and sophisticated aging rooms have altered this pattern, but I still associate the warming weather with creamy, tangy goat cheese. And any day now, wineries will begin releasing their 2025 Sauvignon Blancs and rosés—the ideal chèvre companions. Add a baguette and a handful of olives and your cheese course is done.

La Fromagerie P. Jacquin, the 80-year-old creamery behind the lovely Bûche de Luçay (above), specializes in goat cheeses in the Loire Valley style—mostly small format with ashed rinds or bloomy rinds. For French customers they make the raw-milk classics like Valençay and Sainte-Maure de Touraine; for the U.S. they send pasteurized adaptations. In my experience, Jacquin cheeses are exceedingly well made and usually manage to survive the voyage in good shape. The Tommne de Chèvre Grandmère Adrienne is a particular favorite.

Bûche de Luçay (say lew-sigh) resembles the more familiar Bucheron, which former cheesemonger Steven Jenkins, in his pioneering Cheese Primer, claimed was one of the first French chèvres to be exported to the U.S. He scorned it, describing it as mass produced and made with frozen curd. I was surprised to learn that Montchevre, a Wisconsin producer with French roots, has a registered trademark for Bucheron, which is now produced in Wisconsin. Perhaps that is why Jacquin has chosen to name its bûche (log) after a nearby village. It is made with fresh goat milk and hand-ladled curd, as you can see in this short video.

Just look at that softening Geotrichum rind and the oozy cream line underneath it. That’s what you want. The specimen in the upper image was quite ripe and the rind was starting to slip; even so, the interior wasn’t peppery. My notes call out the mushroom scent, tender rind, light texture and mild non-goaty flavor.

“It’s a shame that the period of most prolific production does not coincide with the period of greatest demand,” wrote famed French cheesemonger Roland Barthélémy in his Cheeses of the World. “You eat far more cheese in winter than when the weather is fine.”

Let’s work on that, folks.

Bûche de Luçay is widely available. Here’s a partial retail list.

This is the cheese of my childhood. What memories! The one-and-only choice for Mom’s mac and cheese, her whole cauliflower baked with cheese sauce and her oozy grilled cheese sandwiches (on Wonder Bread, no less). It’s so supple, and it melts like a dream. It was the only cheese in our fridge unless company was coming. On those occasions Mom traded up to Cracker Barrel. Artisan cheeses have come and gone, but this icon persists, celebrating a century in production in 2018. Sales were lagging until Covid but now are reportedly strong. You don’t need me to tell you this cheese should be a kitchen staple. Could so many Americans be wrong?

Just kidding, people. It’s April 1, after all. Alas, the preceding paragraph is true except for the implication that Velveeta is cheese. It is not. It’s a “pasteurized prepared cheese product,” according to the FDA. Growing up with it did me no harm and possibly set the stage for my eventual cheese awakening.

This first day of April is also the first night of Passover. To those who celebrate, happy holidays. You don’t have to be Jewish to love matzo brei, the Passover dish I crave most. Here’s my favorite (unconventional) way to make it.

Matzo Brei with Asparagus and Cheese

For me, the ideal matzo brei has some crusty, browned bits interspersed with creamy egg. Cook on medium-high if you want more crunchy parts or on medium-low if you prefer the dish softer and creamier.

• 6 asparagus spears

• 3 sheets of matzo

• 4 large eggs

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish

• Scant 1/2 teaspoon salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

• 4 green onions, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced

• 2/3 cup (about 2 ounces) grated cheese, such as Point Reyes Toma, Cheddar or other good melting cheese

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Bend the asparagus spears in both hands until they snap at the point where the spears become tough; discard the tough ends. Remove the pretty tips, then slice the remainder on the diagonal about ½ inch wide. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and prepare an ice bath. Boil the asparagus for 2 minutes, then drain and immediately chill in the ice water. Drain again and pat dry.

Bring a tea kettle of water to a boil. Break the matzo into smaller pieces, roughly 12 pieces per sheet. They don’t need to be identical. Put them in a sieve set over the sink. Slowly pour the boiling water over the matzo, tossing the pieces with a spatula until they are all well moistened. Let stand for about 5 minutes.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl with the dill, salt and pepper. Whisk in the green onions, the asparagus and the cheese. Stir in the softened matzo and toss with a spatula until it absorbs all or most of the egg and all the ingredients are well distributed.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the butter and swirl to coat. When the butter foams and begins to smell nutty, add the egg mixture, spreading it evenly. Let it cook without stirring for about 30 seconds so it browns on the bottom, then flip the mixture and begin to break it up with a spatula. Lower the heat if necessary to prevent over-browning. Cook as you would for scrambled eggs, stirring and flipping until all the egg is cooked to your taste. Divide among 2 plates, garnish with chopped dill and serve immediately.

Serves 2 generously

Doug and I were watching a favorite Italian cooking show the other night when I practically started hyperventilating. “No!” I shouted at the screen, as the Michelin-starred chef prepared to serve up his pasta. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! You just RUINED the dish.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The chef was spooning spaghetti with squid sauce into a hollowed-out round of cheese.

I’m not Italian but I’m firmly on board with the Italian prohibition against fish with cheese. I have no clue why this pairing is taboo, but the wrongness is so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t question it. Until I do. The chef’s transgression got me thinking about the times that I actually enjoy fish with cheese, because every rule has an exception, no? I came up with three.

Number One: Bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese

These days I’m more likely to schmear Snøfrisk or Madame Loïk or Gina Marie Farmer Cheese on a bagel—they’re all lighter than cream cheese—but then I pile on the smoked salmon with no second thoughts. Yes, please, to fish with cheese.

Number Two: Caesar salad

Of course this classic makes the list. I would never — never – grate Parmigiano Reggiano on pasta with anchovies, but a Caesar salad without cheese and anchovies is likewise unthinkable. Go figure.

Number Three: Saganaki

A beloved Greek meze and one of my all-time favorites, saganaki makes the best case for seafood with cheese. Shrimp, tomatoes, feta, ouzo…it’s an unimpeachable combination, and the sharp brininess of feta is key. Indeed, it’s the only cheese that would work. Greek cooks also prepare saganaki with mussels, and I’m all in with that, too.

Shrimp Saganaki

Feta makes the tomato sauce creamy, but the splash of ouzo is the mystery flavor. The recipe is from Marmite Cooking Lab, a delightful cooking school in Thessaloniki where I took a class from owner Smaragda Makri. Serve with crusty bread or stir in some plump cooked white beans (such as Greek gigandes) before serving. 

• 1 dozen large shell-on shrimp (about ½ pound)

• Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 small red onion or ½ large red onion, chopped

• 1 fresh green Anaheim chile, halved lengthwise, seeded, then sliced crosswise

• 2 large cloves garlic, minced

• ½ serrano chili, minced (adjust to taste)

• 1-1/2 cups chopped fresh or canned plum tomato

• Pinch baking soda, optional

• ¼ cup ouzo, Pernod or Pastis

• 3 to 4 ounces crumbled Greek feta

• 2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley

Season the shrimp all over with salt and pepper and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large, heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the Anaheim chile, garlic and as much serrano chile as you like. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft, 3 to 5 minutes longer. Add the tomatoes, ½ cup water and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until the sauce is thickened and tasty. If it seems too tart, add a pinch of baking soda and cook for 1 minute; baking soda will mellow the tomato sauce noticeably.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the shrimp and cook for about 2 minutes on both sides, until almost done. Add the ouzo and cook, turning once, until the shrimp are hot throughout, about 1 minute. Transfer the shrimp and any pan juices to the tomato sauce, along with feta and parsley. Cover and set aside to cool a bit. Serve warm, not hot.

Serves 2 to 3

Temps are supposed to hit 90°F this week in Napa Valley, where I live, and it’s still technically winter. Forecasters say many states may experience record-smashing heat over the next few days. My advice: yogurt. I don’t have much appetite for cheese in hot weather, but yogurt salads and chilled yogurt soups have a lot of appeal. Yogurt is cool, tart and refreshing, and we know it’s good for us. But here’s a funny thing I’ve noticed lately about yogurt: Producers used to highlight how little fat their yogurt had. Now they boast about the opposite.

With full-fat dairy products getting more love from nutritionists these days, I’m seeing yogurt brands proudly declaring their elevated fat content on the label. One brand even has a QR code on the package so you can look up the milk’s fat content when the yogurt was made. Let’s hear it for full-fat yogurt, the best choice for these favorite recipes from Yogurt: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner by Janet Fletcher (Ten Speed Press).

Cucumber Salad with Yogurt, Golden Raisins, Walnuts, and Mint

Cucumber and yogurt salad (pictured above) is part of the repertoire in every yogurt-eating country, but for me the star recipe is this one. I love the burst of sweetness from the raisins, the crunch of walnuts, the coolness of mint. The salad complements grilled lamb, or you could serve it as part of a meze assortment with flatbread. I like to use the crisp, thin-skinned, nearly seedless Persian cucumbers that are about six inches long. Najmieh Batmanglij, the author of several Persian cookbooks that I admire, garnishes her version of this salad with dried rose petals.

I like the salad to have a thicker, creamier texture than I can get from plain yogurt alone, so I add a little Greek yogurt for extra body.

• 1/4 cup golden raisins

• 2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt

• 1 cup Greek yogurt (not nonfat)

• 1 to 2 cloves garlic, grated or finely minced

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish

• 1 teaspoon finely minced fresh mint

• Kosher or sea salt

• 2 cups diced Persian or English hothouse cucumber (no need to peel)

• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts

Put the raisins in a small bowl, add water to barely cover, and let plump for at least 1 hour. Drain.

In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurts, garlic, dill, mint, and salt to taste. Add the raisins, cucumbers, and walnuts. Stir well, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately, garnished with more chopped dill; or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 hour. If you want to hold the salad longer, leave the walnuts out initially and add them just before serving to preserve their crunch.
Serves 4 to 6

Chilled Avocado and Yogurt Soup with Tomato Salsa

All the flavors of guacamole meet up in this creamy soup, with yogurt adding body and refreshment. Serve with pita chips or tortilla chips.

• 2 large avocados, ripe but firm

• 1-1/2 cups buttermilk

• 1-1/2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt

• 2 heaping tablespoons chopped cilantro

• 1 large clove garlic, thinly sliced

• 1/2 serrano or jalapeño chile, seeds removed for less heat if desired, or more to taste

• 1/2 teaspoon toasted and ground cumin

• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

• Kosher or sea salt

Salsa:

• 1 large plum (Roma) tomato, halved lengthwise, seeded, in ¼-inch dice

• 1/4 cup finely minced white onion

• 2 heaping tablespoons chopped cilantro

• 1/2 serrano or jalapeño green chile, seeds removed for less heat if desired, finely minced

• 1 small clove garlic, finely minced

• Kosher or sea salt

• Lime juice

Halve and pit the avocados. Set aside one-half avocado for the salsa. Put the remaining avocado flesh in a blender with the buttermilk, yogurt, cilantro, garlic, chile, and cumin. Blend until smooth. Taste and add more chile if desired, then blend again. Transfer to a bowl and stir in enough cold water to thin the soup to a pleasing consistency, about ½ cup. Stir in 1 tablespoon lime juice, or more to taste, and season with salt. Chill thoroughly.

Just before serving, prepare the salsa: In a bowl, stir together the tomato, onion, cilantro, chile, and garlic. Cut the reserved avocado half in ¼-inch-dice and fold it in gently, then season to taste with lime juice and salt and stir again gently to avoid mashing the avocado.

If the soup has thickened in the refrigerator, whisk in ice water to thin it to the desired consistency. Taste for seasoning. Divide among 6 bowls. Top each serving with a spoonful of salsa and serve.
Serves 6

People often ask me about the cheeses I buy at Trader Joe’s, the emporium famous for its bargains. Alas, the list is short. I buy my feta there—the store’s private-label Greek feta is excellent—but I’m rarely tempted by anything else in the cheese department. The crackers, however! I have fallen hard for TJ’s seedy Norwegian crispbread. These crunchy, grainy flatbreads are so good with fresh, spreadable cheeses—whipped feta, for one—and they make it easy to produce a platter of colorful crostini in minutes. Do you have a Persian cucumber in the fridge, or a handful of radishes, or some cherry tomatoes or even half of a roasted beet or some leftover cooked chard? Then let the improv begin. These two-bite crostini complement my preferred aperitivo and I can easily dispatch a half-dozen for lunch.

For the crostini pictured above I used Norwegian Snøfrisk but I often use ricotta, whipped feta or another fresh, rindless cheese. You can find some of my favorite fresh cheeses here. For whipped feta, just put a crumbled block in the food processor and pulse with enough extra virgin olive oil to make it creamy. Use Greek feta or French Valbreso, please; goat or cow feta won’t do.

I rummaged through the fridge and pantry for the toppings: some reheated chard with garlic; roasted golden beets with dukkah; and shaved cucumber with a few shakes of tajín.

Some other options:

• Avocado

• Roasted peppers

• Roasted cherry tomatoes

• Green onions

• Sliced olives

• Onion jam

• Prosciutto

• Pickled peperoncini

• Microgreens

I can hardly wait for fava bean season. A few sauteed fava beans and grated lemon zest on flatbread with fresh cheese will make the most beautiful crostini ever.

I made fresh ricotta last week for the first time in months and was reminded how easy it is. Forty minutes start to finish. I was admiring my handiwork at breakfast the next day when my husband said, “Too bad it’s not sheep milk.” Well, yeah. Until we move to Italy (not gonna happen), I’ll have to make our ricotta with cow’s milk, but I’ll enjoy every bite. The result is tender and sweet, and if you want to try your hand at it, you can find the recipe here and a video demo below. But ricotta produced the Italian way, with rich sheep’s milk, is the benchmark for me and—glory be—I just found some in San Francisco.

It's from Busti, a Tuscan producer, makers of the mixed-milk Morbidoso di Toscana that I raved about last summer. The producer calls it Ricottina, probably because it is small, about 8 ounces. You’ll demolish it in no time.

I found the Busti Ricottina (top image, with honey and poppy seeds) at Rainbow Grocery, where it’s available sporadically. Milk Farm in Los Angeles and Sunshine Foods in St. Helena also carry it when the distributor has some. It has the lifespan of a snow cone so it’s a challenge for shops. I love its moist, delicate yet sliceable texture and the slightly gamy flavor that confirms it’s from sheep milk.

In my dreams, we will one day have enough dairy sheep in this country to make sheep ricotta a cheese counter staple. I may not live long enough. In the meantime, a good domestic cow’s milk ricotta (such as Bellwether Farms or Calabro Hand-Dipped will work in any of the following recipes and is what I used for testing. I hope these dishes—all personal favorites—bring some new flavors to your table in the weeks to come.

Whipped Ricotta Board

Express yourself with the toppings for this shareable antipasto.

Star Bread with Feta, Ricotta and Mint

Practice now so you’re ready for Easter.

Baked Ricotta-Stuffed Zucchini

A favorite Calabrian recipe for zucchini on the small side.

Ricotta Mousse with Bitttersweet Chocolate, Pistachios and Candied Orange

Think of it as cannoli without the shell.

Caramel Ricotta Flan

A make-ahead dessert for spring dinner parties

One of the biggest hits in my World Cheese Tour class last week was Deer Creek’s Imperial Buck, a four-year-old bandaged Cheddar from Wisconsin. It was so creamy, so mellow, so well balanced between savory and sweet. My experience with traditional bandaged Cheddars is that they rarely improve after 18 to 24 months. They start to dry out and lose their allure. How did this cheese manage to stay so moist and inviting for so long?

Well, I now know the answer, more or less. An unconventional aging method explains this wheel’s impressive lifespan. Comparing Imperial Buck to a fine clothbound English Cheddar is “apples to oranges,” but we can still admire the qualities that the American maturing method produces.

To be clear, Deer Creek doesn’t make any cheese. Company founder Chris Gentine is a licensed cheese grader, so he knows a good wheel when he tastes one, and he’s a genius marketer. Deer Creek contracts with others to make cheese, and then Gentine determines which batches to release young and which might benefit from extended aging. Kerry Henning, a Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, made the wheel I served in class last week—a wheel born November 11, 2021.

Until I encountered Imperial Buck, I thought Cheddars were either bandaged (with cheesecloth) and matured with access to air, or they were aged without air in sealed bags. Many connoisseurs would say that aerobic aging yields more complexity, but it’s labor intensive to manage the rind that develops. Rinds have to be monitored and brushed to control mold, and the cheeses have to be regularly flipped.

Bag aging is easier but slower. There’s no rind to fuss over, and no back-breaking flipping. Moisture stays in (and moisture is money). What’s more, vacuum-sealed Cheddars can hang in the cellar for a year, three years, even a decade. They transform at a snail’s pace.

For Imperial Buck, Henning and Gentine chose a hybrid approach that’s more common in Wisconsin than I knew. The 22-pound wheels are wrapped in cheesecloth, then waxed. The wax is more permeable than a bag, but it likewise inhibits mold and rind development and slows moisture loss. Before it goes into the cellar, the waxed wheel is nestled in a poplar box, like a giant hatbox, to preserve humidity.

Initially I couldn’t understand why you would wax a bandaged Cheddar. Do you want the air or don’t you?

“Wisconsin Cheddar makers love doing this,” says Gordon Edgar, cheese buyer for San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery and the author of Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese. And he is persuaded that waxing a bandaged Cheddar enables a distinctive flavor trajectory. “I have a 5-year Red Barn on our counter that is also made this way,” says Edgar, “and it absolutely ages differently than a Cryovac Cheddar or a more traditional clothbound like Monty's.

Sophie Gentine, Chris’s daughter and herself a licensed grader, told me that her dad talks about flavor “leapfrogging.” A Cheddar that underwhelms at 24 months may render you speechless two years later. “It’s the weird magic of cheese,” says Sophie. “Those flavors just compress. The butter flavors become more like butterscotch, the caramel becomes more toffee.”

Like many popular American Cheddars, Imperial Buck veers to the sweet side. It is nutty and caramelly, not grassy and tangy, thanks largely to Gentine’s choice of cultures. Let it sit on your tongue to experience its creaminess. A malty brown ale or Belgian-style abbey ale complements its toasty notes. Add some sturdy bread, pickles and hard-cooked eggs for a perfect ploughman’s lunch.

Although igourmet appears to be temporarily out of stock, the online merchant does typically offer it. Ask to be notified when it’s back in stock. It’s also currently available in California at Andrew’s Cheese in Santa Monica and Smallgoods in La Jolla and will soon be available at Sunshine Foods in St. Helena.

I hate bearing bad news, but Central Coast Creamery has ceased production. This acclaimed California enterprise, launched in 2007, pulled the plug late last year, selling its creamery and everything in it to a paneer manufacturer. If you loved Central Coast cheeses as much as I did, this development is beyond discouraging. So long to Dream Weaver (above right), Holey Cow, Faultline, Seascape, Ewereka (above center) and Ewenique, not to mention the award-winning aged sheep cheeses from its sister brand, Shooting Star Creamery. I have long viewed proprietor Reggie Jones as having both cheesemaking prowess and good business sense. Something doesn’t smell right in artisan cheese land if even Jones can’t see a way forward.

“Costs keep going up but the market can’t bear any more price increases,” says Jones. “The margins kept shrinking and the workload didn’t go down, I can tell you that.”

Jones, a former culture salesman, seemed to be dialed in to consumer preferences right from the start. His earliest creations—many of them Gouda- or Cheddar-style wheels with a creamy texture and sweet flavor profile—sold briskly and won numerous American Cheese Society awards. Dream Weaver, a supple washed-rind goat’s milk cheese, filled a wide-open niche. A few years ago, Jones and his youngest daughter, Avery, launched Shooting Star Creamery to make sheep cheese. Avery, then 15, won a blue ribbon in her first ACS competition—for Aries, a sheep wheel that went on to place third overall. Dad and daughter followed that success with Shooting Star Leo, a superb soft-ripened sheep cheese (above left) and Capricorn, a promising goat blue developed when the creamery’s sheep milk supply dried up.

“We were the last one making aged sheep and goat cheeses in California,” says Jones, whose milk suppliers kept folding no matter how much he paid them. “We’ve gone through five producers of sheep milk in six years.” Last July, Shooting Star’s sheep milk source announced that 2025 was its final season. Jones wasn’t sure he had the energy to keep scrounging for milk. 

Central Coast wasn’t tiny; it was a medium-sized artisan producer. But it was trapped in a difficult middle spot, with more production capacity than independent shops alone could handle yet not enough to satisfy chain grocery stores.

“You get to a certain level, and you can’t get to the next level,” says Jones. “Look at grocery stores. It’s all the same cheeses. It’s not interesting at all. These grocery chains are catering to only the large producers that can give them big deals. There’s no spot for smaller producers in the grocery aisle.”

Nor did he want to pre-cut and vacuum-seal his cheese in precise-weight packages. “After Covid, that’s what all the stores wanted,” says Jones. “It’s not the same cheese as when it’s fresh cut off a wheel. Plus, all the push for flavors in cheese. That’s not what we want to make.”

Jones’s comments reinforce what I’m seeing in chain grocery stores in Northern California, where there is surely one of the most eager cheese audiences in the nation. The selection is banal and always the same. Some small chains like Central Market in Texas aim a lot higher with their cheese departments, and I don’t understand why their sophisticated approach can’t be scalable and profitable.

Jones did not sell his brands or his recipes, and he will continue to operate two Central Coast Creamery deli and cheese shops in the Paso Robles area. One of the sites has a small production facility, so we may not have seen the last creations from Reggie Jones yet.

Apart from the challenges of dwindling milk supply and rising costs, Jones faced another dilemma: no family succession plan. Avery is in graduate school in Nebraska, studying for a doctorate in paleoecology. One of her older sisters is a lawyer in San Francisco and the other is a financial adviser in Manhattan. What slackers.

“No one’s there to take on the business,” says Jones, a bit ruefully. “And I get it. I want my strong daughters to forge their own paths and help change the world.”

Goats are having a moment—especially baby goats, the newest TikTok celebs. One TikTok account, @goatdaddys, has more than four million followers for its videos of kids (the goat kind) doing the goofy things that they do. But it hasn’t always been thus. In the 19th century, goats in America were despised and deplored. They roamed San Francisco and New York City eating people’s hedges and outraging the gentry.

Today, goat cheese is a multibillion-dollar business in the U.S. and demand for goat milk far outstrips supply. How did this formerly low-class ruminant manage its makeover? I learned so much about goats, goat milk, goat cheese and American history in Tami Parr’s engaging new book, Goats in America: A Cultural History. I spoke to Parr recently via Zoom to dive deeper into some of the book’s content. Here’s our condensed conversation:

Goats have had a roller-coaster existence in this country—from being a public nuisance that needed eradicating to starring in the 1916 Rose Parade. When was the high point for the lowly goat?

There was such a moment in the early 20th century when America started to turn to goats as a savior of humanity. It was because of goat milk, which was perceived as free of bacteria, specifically tuberculosis bacteria. That was when goats broke away from all the negativity. But I would say we’re reaching another high point now, in terms of cute baby goats on social media.

And their lowest point?

There are negative associations in the Bible, but in terms of American history, the low point would have to be the 19th century, when cities were deluged with roaming animals. Industrialization was happening and there weren’t yet “farms over here and cities over there.” Irish, Italian and German immigrants were flooding the U.S. and cities were not prepared to house and feed them. That led to shantytowns, where immigrants kept chickens, pigs and goats to feed themselves, and it created a class of people that established residents didn’t like. One of these neighborhoods—Dutch Hill in New York City—is where the United Nations building is today.

You could argue that tuberculosis is the reason we have a goat cheese industry in the U.S. today.

One hundred percent.

Could you explain the connection?

In the mid 19th century, prior to our understanding of bacteria, cow’s milk started to be used for infant feeding. And infant mortality skyrocketed. About this time, scientists started to understand that cattle carry tuberculosis bacteria and the disease can be passed to humans through milk. Tuberculosis was an intractable epidemic for centuries. We know now that goat’s milk can also transmit tuberculosis, but at the time, the belief was that it was pure. By the 1920s, hundreds of goat milk dairies had sprouted.

So there was a market for the milk, but goat cheese lagged behind. You write that in 1978 there were only eight commercial producers. But by the mid 1980s, goat cheese was off to the races. Laura Chenel was in People magazine, and Ronald Reagan was serving California chèvre to Queen Elizabeth. At the time, it seemed like everyone was buying goats and making cheese. And now, forty years later, you write that “the era of small farmstead goat cheese production is over.” What happened?

It's the economics. The big industrial producers like Vermont Creamery, Laura Chenel and Saputo can make it a lot cheaper. A cheesemaker in Maine told me she goes to Walmart and sees the chubs (small logs) for five dollars and she can’t possibly make it that cheaply. Big producers are importing frozen curd, which makes it cheaper for them to produce fresh chèvre. It's not a new thing. Laura Chenel started importing frozen curd in the 1990s because her company couldn’t keep up. It’s a way to bridge the supply gap and keep your business going through the winter. As goat cheese production has gotten huge, dairies can’t produce enough milk, so companies are importing frozen curd to support production.

Is goat cheese truly a multibillion-dollar industry in the U.S.? Where is it all going?

There are no hard numbers because there is no organization collecting numbers, but I feel comfortable with “multibillion.” Consumption has gone off the charts. Goat cheese has exploded in popular culture; it’s on pizza and in beet salads. In the Laura Chenel/Chez Panisse days, goat cheese was “French” and gourmet and people aspired to that. Now it’s much more common.

So of course I have to ask, what are your favorite American goat cheeses—in any style?

River’s Edge Up in Smoke, always, on a whole-wheat cracker. Their milk is outstanding. Mountain Lodge Farm Tipsoo, which is washed in cider and lightly stinky. And Blakesville Creamery’s St. Germain. Everything I’ve tried of theirs has been outstanding.

If I had encountered this cheese earlier, I would have included it in my recent post on favorite double- and triple-cream cheeses. But this little dreamboat is new to the U.S. and we have only just met. It tastes like a hit. From a blend of cow, sheep and goat milk—plus cream for added plushness—it’s a double-cream cheese by the numbers but comes across as featherlight. How do they do that? The Italian producer specializes in soft and semisoft mixed-milk cheeses and I’m betting you know a lot of them already. This newcomer is currently exported only to the U.S.— grazie! – so let’s show it some love.

You’ll recognize Caseificio dell’Alta Langa’s cheeses even if you don’t know the creamery name. They make Bosina, Rocchetta, Brunet and the wildly successful La Tur. The newbie, pictured above, is Robiolina—a fresh, rindless robiola in a style familiar to cheese lovers in the Piemonte region but rarely seen here. At roughly 3 ounces, it’s right-sized for Valentine’s Day.

What makes Robiolina a candidate for export is modified-atmosphere packaging. Without it, this days-old cheese would not last long enough for U.S. retailers to receive it and sell it. In its airtight tub, it has a 55-day life (even longer than La Tur). Even so, I would check the best-by date and purchase the youngest package you can find.

The relative proportion of cow, sheep and goat milk is top secret and can shift with the season. Alta Langa’s U.S. rep, Lucy Hoffman, says cow’s milk always dominates but the blend should be seamless. “Each contributes something essential: sweetness from the cow, richness from the sheep, and a little lactic lift from the goat,” says Hoffman.

The three milks are mixed, pasteurized and inoculated with a proprietary culture produced in house. Fermentation takes three days, a glacial speed in cheesemaking (time is money), but the slow going allows for flavor development and minimal use of rennet. On day four, the curd is hand-ladled into forms, drained and salted. It goes out the door on day five, a rindless three-ounce disk set in a paper doily and ready to board a plane.

What I love most about Alta Langa’s Robiolina is the texture. It is moist and quivery, like custard, and so fluffy—like the lightest cream cheese you’ll ever meet. The aroma is subtle—fresh and milky—and the flavor is gentle yet rich, much more engaging than a tart fresh chèvre.

I sprinkled cracked peppercorns and a few drops of extra virgin olive oil on top, but I can’t wait to put Robiolina to work in my kitchen. I’ll be stirring it into mushroom risotto and pesto, pairing it with roasted peppers this summer and slathering it on bruschetta with cooked greens. The creamery suggests drizzling it with honey for dessert.

The list of retailers for this cheese will surely grow, but for now look for it at the following cheese counters:

• Cal-Mart Super (Calistoga)

• Corti Brothers (Sacramento)

• Devine Cheese & Wine (San Jose)

• Jerome’s Carmel Valley Market (Carmel Valley)

• Kroger/Murray’s (select stores)

• Market Hall Foods (Oakland)

• The Market St Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands)

• Monsieur Marcel (Los Angeles)

• Mullahy’s (Hudson, MA)

• Murray’s (New York City)

• Oh La Vache (Long Beach)

• Petaluma Market (Petaluma)

• Sip Snack (Los Angeles)

• Star Market (Salinas)

• Taylor’s Market (Sacramento)

• Whole Foods Markets (launching nationally in March)

I don’t think Planet Cheese readers need the Federal Government to tell them that full-fat dairy is healthy. We know that. But I also think most of us don’t consume artisan cheese for the nutrients. We eat it for pleasure, and there’s little pleasure in low-fat cheese so why bother? Personally, I follow the example of the late Robert Mondavi, who lived—and lived well—into his 90s. “Moderation in all things,” proclaimed the vintner. “Even moderation.” That’s why we have double-cream and triple-cream cheeses. When you crave a little over-the-topness, these luscious creations meet the moment.

A cheese made from whole milk alone will never achieve double- or triple-cream status. You have to add cream or crème fraîche to produce these hyper-rich cheeses. In France, these terms have legal meaning. Double-creams have at least 60 percent FDM (fat in dry matter—the cheese minus its water); triple-creams have at least 75 percent. In other countries, cheesemakers mostly honor those definitions, but they don’t have to.

My favorite cream-enriched cheeses taste like more than salty whipped butter. They have inviting aromas and thin, tender rinds. These six top my list:

France’s Tentation de St. Félicien has a soft, delicate, wrinkly skin and an interior like pastry cream. The aroma hints at mushroom, and the flavor suggests sour cream or crème fraîche. When ripe, it can’t be beat.

Sherry Gray is a winter-only cheese from Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm, so snap it up now. A double-cream cheese just shy of triple-cream status, Sherry Gray is a headturner, with an ashed rind that resembles the bark of a birch tree and a semisoft, open interior that smells like button mushrooms.

Crémeux des Cîteaux is produced in Burgundy by a creamery that specializes in Brillat-Savarin. Unlike that popular triple-cream, Crémeux gets additional aging in the caves of Rodolph Le Meunier, one of France’s most acclaimed affineurs. Le Meunier believes that the regimen at his facility in Tours helps deepen the taste of this cheese and develop a creamier texture. If you’re feeling flush, look for his Crémeux des Cîteaux aux Truffes, a triple-cream knockout.

Nancy’s Hudson Valley Camembert from New York’s Old Chatham Creamery was among the first American triple-creams and it’s still among the best. From a blend of uber-rich sheep’s and cow’s milk, plus cream, it’s exceptionally smooth and buttery. At about 2 pounds, it’s larger than most triple-creams so you get a higher proportion of that voluptuous interior in relation to the rind. Serve with toasted walnut bread.

Swiss cheeses are large and firm, right? Not Moser Screamer, a cheese so novel for Switzerland that it won an innovation award when it debuted a decade ago. This little guy has the fragrance I look for in triple-creams—a merging of fresh mushroom and sour cream—and an interior like buttercream frosting. It’s pricey but consistently top quality.

I’ll wrap up with Vermont Creamery’s Cremont, a mixed-milk disk that I haven’t tasted in a long while. It’s a double cream—roughly 60 percent cow’s milk, 30 percent goat’s milk and 10 percent cream—with a tender Geotrichum rind. My notes describe a “voluptuous and silky” cheese with a mushroom scent and tangy sour-cream finish. The goat’s milk distinguishes it and makes it a welcome addition to the cream-enriched kingdom.

If January were a cheese, it would be Beaufort. So meltable, so sturdy, so warming. A good Beaufort—and it’s all good—elevates potato gratin, French onion soup, fondue, even a winter chicory salad. Stylistically, it’s Comté’s first cousin, yet it’s all but obliterated by that cheese’s prominence. France makes at least ten times more Comté than Beaufort, so when I see the latter at a cheese counter, I pounce. Gustiamo, the Italian food merchant, equates January with pasta and chickpeas. For me, cold weather means Beaufort.

Made in France’s Savoie region, Beaufort has a PDO with strict requirements. Many PDOs are less demanding, but Beaufort production cratered in the early 1960s and the producers who revived it wanted to assure its high quality. The regulations limit the number of dairy cows to 17,000 and cap their annual milk output.

Like Comté, Beaufort is always made with raw milk in a copper kettle. The methods for the two cheeses are roughly the same, but the permitted dairy breeds are different, and Beaufort’s minimum aging is longer—five months versus four. Plus, Beaufort has its signature cinched waist, like the wheel was aged in a corset.

Here's another key difference: Comté is never made on the farm—it’s not allowed—so there is no “farmstead” Comté. Producers use pooled milk from several farms. Most Beaufort is from pooled milk as well, but in summer, a few cheesemakers do produce Beaufort d’alpage—prized wheels made in a mountain hut from the milk of their own herd.

You don’t have to score Beaufort d’alpage to have a delicious experience, however. Regular Beaufort is compelling, with a firm texture and robust aromas of brown butter, toasted hazelnut, buttered toast and roast beef. The more mature the wheel, the more concentrated the flavor. I like to shave it with a cheese plane. It feels silkier that way, and shaving seems to release more aroma. However you serve it, Beaufort grabs your tastebuds and doesn’t let go; you’ll be savoring it long after you swallow.

I like Beaufort with full-bodied white wines, or with a nutty oloroso sherry or Madeira. Even better: malty beer like a brown ale, Belgian dubbel or doppelbock.

Escarole and Beaufort Salad with Toasted Walnuts

You may have to trim away a lot of dark escarole leaves to reach the pale, crisp heart, but don’t throw them away. Slice them into ribbons and add them to bean soup. If you can’t find nice escarole, substitute frisée or the crisp, pale hearts of butter lettuce. Adapted from The Cheese Course by Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books). Photo: Victoria Pearson.

Vinaigrette:

• 1-1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1-1/2 tablespoons walnut oil

• 1-1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar

• 1 large shallot, finely minced

• Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad:

• 1/2 cup walnuts

• 2 heads escarole, pale heart only, washed and trimmed

• 1/3 pound Beaufort, trimmed of any rind, in matchstick-size pieces

• 1/4 cup minced Italian parsley

Make the vinaigrette: In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, walnut oil, vinegar, shallot, and salt and pepper to taste. Let stand 30 minutes to allow the shallot flavor to mellow. Taste and adjust the balance as needed. 

Preheat an oven to 325°F. Toast the walnuts in a pie tin until fragrant and lightly colored, about 15 minutes. Cool. Break up any large pieces by hand. 

In a large salad bowl, combine the escarole, walnuts, Beaufort and parsley. Add the vinaigrette—you may not need it all—and toss to coat evenly. Season with salt and pepper and toss again. Serve immediately.

 Serves 4 to 6

A Discount for You

I’ve written in the past about my addiction to Top Seedz crackers. You can purchase them ready-made or bake them yourself from a packaged mix. Drum roll, please. Earlier this month, Top Seedz Bake-at-Home Cracker Mix was named Food Product of the Year by the Specialty Food Association—a huge win for this young immigrant-run company. When I congratulated owner Rebecca Brady on this honor, she offered Planet Cheese readers a 20% discount on any of the Bake-at-Home Mixes, plus free shipping. Enter promo code WINNER2026 at checkout to activate the discount. Offer expires 3/31/26.

The Winter Olympics gets underway in northern Italy early next month, with many of the snowy sports happening in the Dolomites and the Valtellina. I have been hyper-aware of this for a while, because Pasta Grannies, my favorite YouTube channel, is all over it. To promote the Olympics, the show has been spotlighting nonnas from these mountain regions making the local pasta specialties, such as pizzocheri—a substantial concoction of fresh buckwheat pasta, Savoy cabbage, potatoes and cheese. Lots of cheese.

In the Olympic spirit, I wanted to make pizzocheri (say peetz-OH-care-ee) myself but finding the right flour proved challenging. So—not very Olympian—I cheated. I substituted dried farro pasta and, while I can no longer claim authenticity, I can assure you the outcome does not disappoint.

Italy being Italy, there is of course an association dedicated to promoting pizzocheri and protecting the traditional recipe. Its members would not be happy with my workarounds (farro pasta in place of buckwheat pasta and Fontina Val d’Aosta cheese instead of the local Casera or Bitto).

But my first failed attempt with storebought buckwheat flour made one thing clear: I did not have the right flour.

As you can see in the Pasta Grannies video, the ladies from the Accademia del Pizzochero di Teglio use buckwheat flour milled from hulled grain, plus 20 percent all-purpose wheat flour. Just look how pale the noodles are in this image from the Accademia. I could only find dark buckwheat flour milled from whole grain (with the hulls) and I wasn’t happy with my results.

Many good supermarkets now carry Italian farro pasta. My favorite, Rustichelli d’Abruzzo’s pizzichi, have a handmade appearance and a rustic, earthy flavor that match the nature of pizzocheri. But any shape—short or long—will do. If I were using long farro pasta, I might break it in 3-inch lengths to more closely mimic traditional pizzocheri.

Pizzocheri My Way

Pizzocheri al modo mio

For the pasta, I use Rustichella d’Abruzzo pizzichi di farro, a short, wide shape with ruffled edges. Like handmade buckwheat pizzocheri, they are sturdy and rustic, with an earthy flavor. If you can’t find Fontina Val d’Aosta, look for Cowgirl Creamery’s Wagon Wheel. Don’t stint on the garlic butter or the salt and pepper.

• 4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, plus more for the serving dish

• 2 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced

• 16 large fresh sage leaves

• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 pound Savoy cabbage, cored, torn into bite-size pieces

• 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, halved (if large) and sliced ½ inch thick

• 12 ounces dried farro or buckwheat pasta

• ½ pound Fontina Val d’Aosta, coarsely grated

• 1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated
  

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat. Butter the bottom and sides of a low-sided ovenproof serving dish and place in a low oven to warm.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook until the garlic is just starting to color and the butter is turning golden. With a slotted spoon, transfer the garlic to a small plate and add the sage leaves to the butter. Cook until the butter stops sizzling—a sign that the moisture in the sage leaves has evaporated—and transfer the sage leaves to a paper towel with tongs. Season with salt. They will crisp as they cool. Return the garlic to the butter and keep warm on low heat.

Add the cabbage to the boiling water and cook until just tender, 4 to 5 minutes. With a slotted strainer, lift the cabbage out and into a sieve to drain. Add the potatoes to the boiling water and cook until they are just tender, about 8 minutes, depending on size. Lift them out with a slotted strainer and put them in the sieve with the cabbage to drain.

Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente. About 30 seconds before the pasta is done, add the cabbage and potatoes to the pot to reheat. Drain in a sieve or colander.

Working quickly, in the warmed serving dish make a layer of pasta, cabbage and potatoes, using half of the mixture. Season well with salt and pepper. Top with half of the grated Fontina, then make a second layer of pasta, cabbage and potatoes, using the remainder of the mixture. Season well with salt and pepper. Top with the rest of the Fontina and all the Parmigiano Reggiano. Pour the warm garlic butter over all and garnish with the fried sage leaves. Serve immediately in warm bowls.

Serves 4 to 6

Let’s get this year underway with a delicious discovery—a sheep cheese that left me hunting for superlatives. Aged sheep cheeses are always my go-to on a cheese board, but this newcomer gobsmacked me. It had a warm butter aroma and distinctive sour cream flavor that just reeled me in. Don’t leave me alone with it. It’s 100 percent perfect by itself, in my view, but you could pair it with olives and salumi for an antipasto or serve it at the end of your meal with quince paste or poached quince.

The producer is Caseificio Storico Amatrice, a multi-generational family business in the village of Amatrice (as in spaghetti all’Amatriciana), not far from Rome. Amatrice was devastated in an earthquake in 2016, but the creamery has been rebuilt. They make a wide variety of sheep cheeses, from fresh ricotta to pecorino romano, but the cheese that won me over (pictured above) is Fiocco Amatriciano. Fiocco means “flake,” like a snowflake, and likely refers to the friable texture of this five-month-old cave-aged wheel.

Fiocco Amatriciano is not dry like pecorino romano. It is moist enough to slice without crumbling, but just barely. The texture is firm yet tender, but what most captivates me is its crème fraîche aroma and the lemony, buttery flavor—like lemon cheesecake. This is not a piquant, peppery pecorino; it’s sweet, gentle and snackable, a people pleaser.

Now for the bad news. The exclusive importer, Panorama International, is San Francisco based and distributes the cheese only in Northern California so far. Look for Fiocco Amatriciano at Bianchini’s Market (San Carlos and Portola Valley), Cheese Board (Berkeley), Molinari Delicatessen (San Francisco), Sigona’s Farmers Market (multiple Peninsula locations), United Market (San Anselmo and San Rafael) and V. Sattui (St. Helena). Panorama owner Franco Gallo is eager to sell more, so ask your favorite retailer about acquiring it. With enough demand, we might potentially see broader distribution for this cheese.

In the meantime, pick up a Pecorino Toscano Stagionato (stagionato means aged) at any good cheese counter for a similar, if not identical, taste experience. Il Fiorino’s Cacio di Caterina, an 8-month-old wheel, is superb. Pecorino Calabrese and Pecorino Sardo (from Sardinia) also deliver mouth-filling flavor; even Fiore Sardo, which used to be too salty and smoky for me, has been toned down by modern producers and can be mellow enough to love. Try to purchase from a counter where you can sample before you buy so you’re certain of getting an aged pecorino that meets your taste.

Poached Quince with Cardamom

Serve with aged sheep cheese or enjoy for breakfast with plain yogurt. Adapted from The Cheese Course by Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books).

• 2 quince (about 1 pound)

• ¾ cup sugar

• 3 whole green cardamom pods, smacked lightly to crack them

• 2 cups water

• ½ lemon

Peel, quarter and core the quince. Cut each quarter into 4 slices. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, cardamom and water. Bring to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the quince, cover and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook until the slices are tender and rosy pink, about 2 hours, basting with the poaching syrup occasionally. Let quince cool in the liquid, cover and refrigerate. Before serving, add lemon juice to taste.

Serves 8

Some good things happened for cheese lovers this year, and some not so good. But isn’t that the way every year unfolds? As I think back on the past 12 months, I find much to celebrate, but I also see some gathering clouds. Are we cheese enthusiasts in a better place today than same time last year—with more access to fine cheese and more stability for dairy farmers, cheesemakers and retailers? Let’s start with the wins before we get to the losses.

Girl power: What a thrill to see Emilia d’Albero on the winner’s podium at Mondial du Fromage in France last fall. It’s the first time a U.S. cheesemonger has ever prevailed in this international competition, known informally as the Cheese Olympics. Adding to American bragging rights, the other member of Team USA, Courtney Johnson, placed third.

Canada on top: I think a lot of people were gratified to see Canada win Best of Show at this year’s American Cheese Society judging—for the second year in a row. It doesn’t compensate for the rough patch in our relations with our northern neighbor, but maybe U.S. distributors will work harder to get some of these winning cheeses across the border. In fact, that’s already happening. Alfred Le Fermier, the Best of Show, has some modest distribution here, as does the lovely Brie Paysan from Quebec’s Fromagerie du Presbytère. Hoping for more.

Changing hands: Great news that ownership of Venissimo Cheese, a top California retailer with multiple San Diego-area locations, has transferred smoothly from its retiring founder to a veteran employee. Let’s hear it for succession planning.

Back from the brink: After announcing the imminent closing of Artisan Cheese Company, her Sarasota, Florida, shop, proprietor Louise Converse witnessed a miracle. Her customers rallied with so much support (from a GoFundMe campaign and an angel investor) that Converse has been able to keep the doors open.

Cheese on the brain: Researchers in Sweden recently published the results of a large study showing that consumption of high-fat cheese was associated with a lower risk of dementia. I don’t eat cheese for my health but it’s encouraging to see scientific support for what I was going to do anyway.

As for last year’s unwelcome developments, these are top of mind:

Tariff toll: Is there a silver lining here? I see only higher prices and more pain and uncertainty for producers, importers, distributors, retailers and consumers. Not to mention the sour vibes between the U.S. and Europe. One leading retailer told me in an email, “My reaction to Swiss cheese prices was not to buy any.”

Adieu to these shops: Paste & Rind in Washington, DC, announced it is closing at the end of this year, as is Oxbow Wine and Cheese Merchant in Napa. We also lost the Cheese Shop of Salem (MA) and Curds & Co in Brookline (MA). Another California retailer recently told me she was “frankly very worried” for her shop. If you value the independent cheese stores in your community, then shop there.

Creamery closures: We said sayonara this year to Joe Matos Cheese Factory and Bohemian Creamery in California and to Grey Barn in Massachusetts. The owners of Briar Rose Creamery in Oregon, producers of the Butterbloom cheese that I lauded in last week’s post, just announced they are seeking a buyer.

Farewell to a Cheddar master: Face Rock Creamery cheesemaker Brad Sinko passed away this year after a long battle with cancer. Sinko developed the recipe for the distinctive Cheddars for Beecher’s Handmade Cheese in Seattle, helping launch that brand, then went on to do the same at Face Rock in Oregon. His Face Rock Clothbound Cheddar is among my favorites.

Dairy farm decline: The stats are sobering and hard to believe. We’ve lost 95 percent of the U.S. dairy farms we had in 1970. Just this year, according to The Bullvine another 2,800 farms folded. That’s about 8 percent of the dairy farms we have left, and the trend line is not expected to change. Which doesn’t mean we’ll run out of milk. Dairy farms are just getting bigger—vastly bigger. The 300-cow farm that used to support a Wisconsin family is pretty much a thing of the past.

Even so, I’m thinking positive and feeling thankful. First, to all those who helped make this year’s World Cheese Tour classes a sellout. (There’s still room in most 2026 classes.) I’m also grateful to all the wineries, corporate groups, organizations and families who engaged me to boost their cheese IQ this year. I led tastings for a club of wine-loving physicians, for a reunion of sorority sisters and for an extended family just looking for something fun to do together. Most of all, thank you for reading and sharing Planet Cheese. Here’s wishing good health and prosperity to all my readers in the year ahead.

With phyllo and feta you can hardly go wrong, but this crinkly pie is in a league of its own. Perfect for a warm holiday appetizer or, when the parties subside, for a simple dinner with a green salad, it’s unlike the Greek cheese pie you probably know. You make it by scrunching the feta-topped phyllo sheets, accordion-like, as you place them in the baking dish. A topping of beaten egg and butter binds the layers and makes the exposed pastry crisp and flaky, while the interior is more custardy. All credit to Diane Kochilas, the Greek food authority who demonstrated the dish on her excellent TV series, “My Greek Table.”

I’ve made a few tweaks to Kochilas’s recipe –adding green onion, parsley and dill, most obviously, and cutting back a bit on the cheese and butter. You can find her recipe here if you want to try the original.

Please use Greek feta (a blend of sheep’s and goat’s milk) or the excellent Valbreso from France, which is 100 percent sheep’s milk. Feta-style cheeses made from goat’s milk or cow’s milk are too dry for this recipe.

Pleated Phyllo Pie with Feta

I learned this unusual technique for making a phyllo pie from Diane Kochilas, a Greek-American who demonstrated it on her excellent TV series, “My Greek Table.” You can watch her video demo here. I added minced herbs and green onions and tweaked the ingredient ratios, but I’m delighted with my results. Serve in small portions with sparkling wine as a holiday appetizer or as the first course at a dinner party with a little tuft of green salad. The pie is best warm but it reheats beautifully. Just put slices on a baking sheet in a hot oven until hot and crispy.

• 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted, plus a little more for brushing the pan

• 6 ounces Greek feta or French Valbreso, crumbled

• ½ cup minced green onion, white and pale green parts only

• 3 tablespoons minced Italian parsley

• 1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

• 2 large eggs

• ¼ pound phyllo (7 or 8 sheets), at room temperature

• 3 ounces (¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons) sparkling water

• 2 tablespoons grated pecorino romano or Greek kefalotyri cheese

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Use some of the melted butter to brush the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking dish.

In a bowl, combine the feta, green onion, parsley and dill and mix gently. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and melted butter.

Working with 1 sheet of phyllo at a time and keeping the remainder covered, place the first sheet in the baking dish so that one end of the sheet comes up to the rim of the dish; the other end will hang over by a lot. Scatter a little of the feta mixture over the phyllo, bearing in mind that you will eventually fit 7 or 8 sheets in the pan and you want to have enough feta mixture to top all of them.

With both hands, grasp the phyllo at the point where it overhangs the dish and scrunch it like an accordion so that you draw the overhanging phyllo with no topping into the dish. Sprinkle a little of the topping on the bare phyllo and scrunch it so that the first sheet is now all feta-topped and scrunched at one end of the baking dish. Repeat with the remaining phyllo, topping and scrunching as you go. You should be able to fit 7 or 8 sheets tightly in the baking dish and use all the topping.

Pour the sparkling water evenly over the dish. (It makes the pie fluffier.) Whisk the eggs and melted butter again and pour that mixture evenly over the phyllo. Shake the baking dish as needed to get the egg mixture evenly distributed. Scatter the pecorino evenly on top.

Bake until golden brown and crisp, about 45 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before slicing. Serve warm.
Serves 4 to 6