Cheese Whizardry

I can't get the memory of the taste of sheep's milk ricotta out of my mind since returning from Sicily in November. I've had ricotta, the conventional cow's milk stuff, countless times. But sheep's milk? Only that once. It was at an open air market and the vendor scooped a huge cloud of it into a plastic tub; a little fell onto the counter and he picked it up, gloveless, and scraped it back into the tub. He also gave me a generous sampling before I paid. I've asked around; even the encyclopedic Formaggio Kitchen doesn't carry it. So I decided I may have to learn to make it myself.



It was a class of 10 this chilly Sunday afternoon: a mother and her two young daughters; several middle-age women; a man with a professor's voice; a french chef and owner of La Provence in Concord, MA; his wife; and me. Our Cheese Whiz, instructor Jaya Karlson, had various pots and vials and bowls and potions assembled in front of her and started in on her wizardry. She explained that the term "fresh cheese" is used to distinguish the cheese from an aged cheese (although even fresh cheeses take some aging to bring out the best flavor). There's an excellent listing and description of fresh cheeses at The Cook's Thesaurus

She poured a gallon of organic, whole milk into a stainless steel pot, added a little citric acid, heated it up, slowly, carefully, added rennet, perfectly measured and waited.




And right before our eyes the milk in the pot began to form soft billowy curds, separate from the whey and become fresh cheese.

Look appetizing?

Jaya gave us a hand-out with step-by-step instructions. She also teaches the next level up from this basic one. In the summer, Jaya runs a B & B in Wellfleet, way out at the tip of Cape Cod. If you contact her there, I'm sure she'll let you know when her next class will be.

Farm-To-School Lunch

This is a Press Release sent to me by the folks who run Slow Food Boston. About a year ago I wrote a piece for Edible Boston about farm-to-school lunch programs and the few around Massachusetts that actually buy some of their food from local farmers. It seems they've come a long way. Call your State Senators today!

"On Thursday, the Massachusetts Senate will vote on the School Nutrition Bill, taking a stance on an issue that has become a cornerstone in the fight against obesity and rising health care costs.


We are confident that the bill will provide for strong, science-based nutritional standards, but we need your help to ensure that strong farm-to-school provisions remain in the bill! The Senate bill released yesterday contains these provisions, but we anticipate an effort to water these down when the bill comes up for debate tomorrow.

Please contact your Senator TODAY and ask him or her to support the farm-to-school sections of the Senate bill. These amendments would provide incentives and alleviate barriers for schools to purchase direct from Massachusetts farms.

Specifically, the provisions amend the state's 2006 Preferential Purchasing Law which provided incentives for state and municipal agencies to purchase direct from Massachusetts farms as an economic development tool.

The Senate School Nutrition Bill:

Adds public higher education to the Preferential Purchasing Law which already applies to other state agencies. As large purchasers of food, local purchasing by colleges and universities would have a major impact on the health of students and the agricultural economy. As larger institutions, they can also act as hubs of regional distribution systems, allowing farm deliveries to smaller elementary and secondary schools to be more cost effective. The proposed change would require that public colleges and universities include a local preference in their bids for food, but would not require them to purchase local if the costs were significantly higher, thus avoiding any potential to increase the cost of higher education for students in these difficult times. (Senate Bill, sections 1 and 2)

Clarifies that local school districts can purchase direct from Massachusetts farms without going through a normal bidding process, so long as each purchase is below $25,000. This would clarify current law, which is interpreted in widely varying ways, and in some cases, severely restricts local purchasing. (Senate Bill, section 3)""

Obama's Kitchen Cabinet

Did you know that I've been appointed to President Obama's Kitchen Cabinet? I have. I have the certificate to prove it; he even signed it. Maybe you got one, too? Maybe he's started reading my blog; or maybe he's following me on twitter...whatever.

A Handmade Life

In case you don't have a chance to pick-up the Spring issue of Edible Boston (which you really should locate and subscribe to), here's a link to my latest article in that issue:

http://www.ediblecommunities.com/boston/spring-2010/a-handmade-life-mamadous-artisan-bakery.htm

The picture above here shows some of the breads that the artisan baker, Mamadou, hand shapes. These are multi-grain as they are about to enter his spiffy french, multi-decked oven. Mamadou's Artisan Bakery is in Winchester on Stanton St. and is well-worth the trip. There is no website but you can call him: 781-560-8068.

Enjoy!

Porcini at a Farmers Market in Sicily

It was time for a change. Although I love the picture of Procida I've had at the top of this blog since 2008, I was getting a little tired of looking at it. I took it while standing on a cliff overlooking a sweeping view of the island in the Bay of Naples. It's quite a beautiful place. It's a place where mostly Italians go to vacation, and, in 2008, I had the privilege of visiting there with a group of American press and food writers. I reported about that trip in previous posts--just do a search on this blog for Naples and/or Procida.

Except for pictures I've credited otherwise, I've taken all the pictures on this blog, like this new one. The porcini were being sold from a make-shift table set up at an exhaust-clogged highway intersection on the way to Tescastagni in Sicily. There were 3 "farmers" standing around near the table, smoking. I think they were Albanians. Since I didn't have a kitchen to cook the porcini at the time, the best I could do was to take a picture, which I did, the result of which is above. Hope you like it!

Well Put

This is a picture from the Huffington Post. The accompanying article quotes British food critic, Matthew Fort. Matthew says eloquently what I wish I had written about the Italian burger now featured at some McDonalds restaurants in Italy. The burger is called the "McItaly," and it's made with Italian ingredients. In defense of Italian culture, The Post quotes Matthew as describing the burger as, "a monstrous act of national betrayal," and giving this denunciation:

For many Italians, their very sense of identity lies in the food, not just of the region in which they were born, but of the town, village, hamlet, even house. And they hold to the superiority of their local produce and dishes with passion. That is why eating your way round Italy is such a continual delight. Pleasure lies in diversity, not homogeneity. Who wants to eat the same stuff the whole world over? It's boring. It's the kind of global mind-numbing sameness and taste bud-mugging mediocrity that McDonald's embodies. No-one in their right mind can see McDonald's as either a force for good in the world or as representing the sunny uplands of gastronomy.

Pretty good dressing-down, don't you think?