Issue No. 9: Get The Good Cheese

Plus gourmet honey and good reads for the new year

Good morning and welcome back to my brain. I've spent the first few weeks of the year working on some writing projects for other people, and I've just now found a spare moment to emerge into my own thoughts.

Briefly revisiting the end of 2021, which feels like auld lang syne, times long past, if you will: Christmas was lovely. I made and consumed plenty of decadent food over the holidays, and in response, my body seemed to cry out in the night, "Bring us broccoliiiii!"  So yes, we are upping the cruciferous veg intake in our household this year.

As for the new year before us, we have appropriately christened it with wishes and hopes and goals and dreams. We have blessed it with another round of sticky toffee pudding, toasting to the end of butter and cream season and to Mitchell's birthday.

So here we are. Playing Wordle, planning out Evelyn's Great British Bake-Off themed birthday party, consuming broccolini weekly, drinking cappuccinos daily.

Grab a book and a fork, and let's dive in.

PS— Subscribe now if you haven’t already!

Xx Allison

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The Journal: Always Get the Good Cheese

If you have ever wondered if you can spend a whole evening eating cheese and honey, the answer is yes.

Last week, Mitch and I took a cheese and honey tasting class at Antonelli's, a delightful cheese establishment in town. I would gladly shovel over all my dollars to them. A belated anniversary outing, we enjoyed seven types of cheeses, each perfectly paired with seven of the most interesting honeys I've ever tasted.

I know what you're thinking. Honey is honey, right. Like there cannot be seven distinct honeys, surely.  Honey, in my mind, tastes like the little bear shaped bottle smothered on a tortilla at Rosa's. Growing up, I did not even like the taste of it. But people. You would not even believe what honey is capable of.

For an hour and a half, we oohed and ahhed at the cinnamon cranberry Chevre and Benedictine, the Mobay and the Gruyere, the Blu di Bufala. Then there was buckwheat honey, deep and molasses-y. Tupelo honey, sharp, bright, and thin. White Hawaiian honey, naturally whipped and thick like buttercream frosting. The monofloral meadowfoam honey, which tasted beautifully of vanilla and marshmallow, almost like meringue.

Okay. Here's a quick note, just to be forthcoming. The preceding paragraph is absolutely obnoxious. Nothing will make you feel like more of a ruined snoot than using the phrase "monofloral meadowfoam honey" and being dead serious about it.

Just to go ahead and complete your image of the evening we had, consider this. The opening exercise of this tasting was to close our eyes, go to our soul's quiet place, and discover our soul cheese. Yes. Soul cheese. The cheese that comes to you when everything else fades away.

Who are you . . . as a cheese . . . in your soul?

Mitch identified as a baked Camembert, which is sophisticated and respectable. I went with the extra sharp coastal English cheddar, surprisingly rugged for me, wouldn’t you think. Believe me when I say I experienced a serious moment of self doubt when someone after me mentioned an aged Parmesan and I had not even *considered* Parmesan when I closed my eyes and searched my soul.

What does this even say about me?

Our cheese instructor ended the exercise with this money line: "I am a big proponent of Brené Brown, so I love when we can practice vulnerability in a public setting." I will let you evaluate the merits of this exercise on your own.

Regardless, I adored this evening spent with my husband. It was an hour and a half of being together and eating delicious food, however ridiculous it was on other levels.

For a while now, I've been unintentionally compiling a set of rules by which I cook and eat. And rule number one is: Always get the good cheese. In case you're wondering the others: Rule Number Two: Sandwiches are only for lunch, unless it's cold and you're eating tomato soup with grilled cheese for dinner. Rule Number Three: Don't eat soup unless it's below 75 degrees outside. Rule Number Four: Never eat hot lettuce. Rule Number Five: No bottled salad dressing allowed.

This set of rules regarding how I live and eat is a silly and arbitrary collection of preferences, but getting the good cheese gets at something a little deeper for me. (Bear with me, if you'd be so kind.) Good cheese is a little luxury; it is a privilege to partake. I could almost even say it is a gift from God and be dead serious about it. Maybe there's a reason he wanted to send his people to a land flowing with milk and honey—a land full of milk sounds like a land full of cheese if you ask me.

See, every time I take a bite of really fabulous cheese with really fantastic honey, I am really truly knocked off my feet with how a bite like that is even possible. That the milk of an animal could be transformed into something entirely new that pairs so sublimely with floral nectar gathered by millions of flying insects—it is almost beyond my comprehension.

Who figured this out? Who first gathered the curds and drained off the whey and waited and waited and waited to take a bite? Who climbed a tree and risked the stings as they cracked open a sticky hive and thought, "Let's see if we can eat whatever is in here." As I ponder these questions, I feel a bit like Job, waiting to hear from the almighty.

Instead of thunder clapping or a loud voice from heaven declaring wondrous works, I receive my answer. I hear the swish of grass and the lowing of cattle, the buzz of the pollinators amidst the hive, the warm laughter of a house full of people sharing a late-night meal.

In addition to being a good shepherd, I'm starting to think God is a cheesemonger and a beekeeper on the side. Who else could give us something so completely extravagant, so unnecessarily divine?

I think I’ll keep my rule number one in place.

Always get the good cheese.
A gift, sweet as honey.
Taste and see the cows and bees.

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The Bookshelf

I completed my first book of the year — Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It’s an apocalyptic post-plague novel that I’m sure blew readers away when it was first released in 2014. Eight years ago, who could’ve imagined a pandemic, a total collapse of modern civilization, quarantine, et cetera. I really enjoyed this page-turner to start off the year, but I will admit, some of the descriptions of the plague-induced shutdowns lost their novelty after a while. Overall, I’d recommend this one. Lots of interwoven storylines and some good dramatic flourishes.

I have also started Middlemarch by George Eliot and it’s almost 800 pages, so stay tuned for my thoughts. So far, I am finding myself laughing out loud at Eliot’s witty commentary on religion and relationships through her larger-than-life characters.

I have also started Stanley Tucci’s memoir, Taste. So far, his writing style has felt a little pretentious to me and I wanted it to flow a little more naturally.

What are you reading to start off the year?

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The Menu

Lots of home cooking these days and less eating out with our almost one-year-old. As hectic as dinnertime can feel, I do love that we are all sitting down to eat together.

Last night, we had a really wonderful roast chicken. Here’s a quick run-down of the method.

• 1 6-7 lb chicken

• Salt and pepper

• Old Bay seasoning

• Butter & Olive Oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Salt the chicken — I probably used about 4 teaspoons or so of Diamond Kosher salt. Basically you want salt everywhere.

3. Add the other seasonings. There’s plenty of mashups of spices you can slather on, but I love Old Bay for pretty much everything. I did a generous amount of black pepper and then sprinkled about one to two teaspoons of Old Bay all over for a little extra kick. I placed pats of butter under the chicken skin, a couple tablespoons. Butter is the key to absolutely fantastic chicken.

4. I placed the chicken in my cast iron skillet and popped it in the oven for 10 minutes at 400. After 10 minutes, I lowered the temp to 325, and left it in the oven for 2 hours. Halfway through cooking, I basted it with the butter and juices. The last 20 minutes or so, I cranked it back up to 425 to crisp up the skin.

5. Let it rest ideally 15 minutes and then carve up! I served it with, you guessed it, broccolini. And a sweet potato/cauliflower mash I made up (Boil sweet potato and cauliflower like you would if making mashed potatoes. Drain off the water. Using food processor or immersion blender, puree with butter, sour cream, lemon zest, salt, pepper, red pepper flake, and then add in finely chopped parsley and cilantro. Yum :)

Up next — Red beans and rice for dinner tonight on this chilly day!

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Thanks for reading along today. I’ll be back soon with more regarding my Great British Bake-Off party plans. In the mean time — like and share and tell your foodie friends! Love to all!!!!