An Effing Foodie

Treats for Grown-Ups: Apricot and Pistachio Nougat Roll-Ups

I'm finding as I get older, my sweet tooth keeps diminishing in size, and I'm more prone to favor the savor. (Vegemite-enriched Cup-of-Soup with Saltines, anyone?)

Somewhere in my mid-twenties, I mutated from someone with an ice-cream eating disorder into a quesophile; I stopped seeking out cake at gatherings (and gatherings solely for the sake of cake); I won't drink cola unless there's a bunch of Jack in it.

So when I recently brought a friend from Hawaii to the sweets counter at Dean & Deluca, I wasn't really on the lookout for personal pleasure.  But amid the heaps of prettily-wrapped premium confections, these little fellas caught my eye:

Cheery, no?  The packaging wasn't particularly informative--they were labeled as "bulk miscellaneous candy", with no ingredients or names for the product / producers / distributors.  (Um, is that legal?)  But it was pretty clear that it was nougat studded with pistachios, wrapped with a fruit puree that was likely apricot or orange.

People, if you see these, snatch them up immediately!  The nougat was feather-light yet gooey-sweet, ingeniously counterbalanced by acidity of the fat, toothsome apricot band of fruit roll-up in every bite.  They're not cheap--$6.66 for 6 individually wrapped 2-inch pinwheels (the DEVIL'S CANDY!)--but you could do a lot worse in D&D's hallowed halls.

If you're allergic to stone fruit or just plain don't like apricots, they sell the nougat on its own, too. 

Alas, they are not available online, and I can't vouch that they're at every D&D location, but they were definitely at Madison and 85th--so get yourself a bag, and wander through Central Park all hopped up on sugar and springtime.  

Caravane Camelbert: Camel-Milk Cheese in NYC!

You know you want some.

One particularly drunken, lactose-loaded night, my friend Heathie and I mused on all the cheeses we've yet to try, and tip-toed right into the fanciful: Seal cheese!  Pig cheese!  Camel cheese!

Turns out, some fanciful wishes are more easily fulfilled than you'd think.  Camel cheese has hit our shores, people!

The cheese, known to some admirers as Camelbert, has had a difficult time clearing regulatory hurdles in the European Union. But with the help of Gary Guthrie, an American importer, it has received a green light here. About 100 pounds of Caravane will be available in New York beginning this week at some Garden of Eden stores, Sahadi's, Stinky Bklyn, Zabar's and Todaro Brothers.

--PERVAIZ SHALLWANI, NYT

Camelbert is in the style of its conceit, camembert, with a bloomy-rind and a rich, creamy center.  At $30 a pound, it's a bit of a splurge, but if you can swing it, swap it for brie on your next cheese plate, and cross off another milk-bearing animal in your ongoing cheese conquest.

Holy Jameson Cupcakes, Batman!

I hope everyone had a rainbow St. Paddy's Day, and weren't hurting too badly on Tuesday...

(You've never really lived until you've heaved in the office.)

I wish I'd heard about this BEFORE St. Paddy's, but Babycakes--the celebrated vegan bakery down in the LES--makes cupcakes spiked with Jameson Whiskey in honor of the Irish!  Thanks to my fabu friend Cin (AKA The Office Alpha Asian) I was a lucky recipient of such a cupcake:

Isn't she a beaut'?

The frosting is cream cheese-y cloak for the very moist, discernibly boozy crumb of the cupcakes; as with all of Babycakes treaties, it was IMPOSSIBLE to discern that it was vegan.

Hushed whispers in the background: It's black magic! WITCHERY, I tell you!

As you've probably gathered by now, I'm not a lady who would take the omission of dairy very lightly, particularly when concerning baked goods.  But trust me, these babies could hold their own against any in the onslaught of sugary indie cupcakes.

Unfortunately, the Jameson cupcakes are not part of the regular Babycakes lineup, but I'm told that if you are super-savvy, you can order them in advance for a special occasion (just give the gals at least 3 days notice).

And if you're feeling a little less savvy, just trot on down and get yourself a box of the regulars: carrot, red velvet, chocolate and vanilla, all available in spelt or gluten-free (Dear Lord, there's a phrase I'd never thought I'd be typing).

Sweets for the (Mostly!) Sweet

This'll come as no surprise, but I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day.  It's a day wrapped in chalky candy, smug couples, sub par pre-fixe fare, and flammable fuschia plush.  Blechy.

But to be fair, there are fantabular, long-suffering significant others out there who have more than earned a little bit of spoilage (that's men AND womenfolk!), even if it IS inspired by mass-motivated guilt.

So pay attention, 'cause even if you boycott V-Day, some of these treaties may be worth saving for the random day you're overcome with gratitude for the poor brute that puts up with you.

(Or the random day you have to dig yourself out of the doghouse. Whichever comes first.)

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If you're mui-crafty, have freezer space + a sweetie with a sweet tooth:
Frozen olive oil and chocolate lollipops--SO pretty, relatively easy, and there are few combinations on earth sexier than chocolate and olive oil (from the gorgeous blog delicious:days).

If you're mui-crafty, have a way with yeast, deep-fat frying + a sweetie with a sweet tooth:
Homemade miniature rose-hip jam doughnuts--this takes a little more know-how, but everything tastes better with jam and powdered sugar. Wink-wink. (Also from delicious:days.)

If for you, candy means buying, and your sweetie is currently diseased:
Soothe and indulge with spiced tea and honey lollipops from Roni-Sue's Chocolates at the Essex Street Market (via Time Out New York).

If for you, candy means buying, and your sweetie is a lushy cocoaphile:
How 'bout a box of Margarita, Dark-n-Stormy, and Portly Fig truffles, also from Roni-Sue's Chocolates at the Essex Street Market (via NY Daily News).

If you're having a hard time choosing between posh candy and character-driven jewelry:
Jewel-toned, hand-pulled candy rings from Papabubble are whimsical, lusciously fruity, and go a long way to prove the hipness of hard candy (via Time Out New York).

If nothing sounds better than close quarters and hot cocktails:
Double Stefan Trummer's heady Winter Sangria recipe, put together a cheese plate, and enforce a Blackberry ban (via NY Mag).

A Very Queso Christmas, Part 3: The Cowgirl Creamery

If the concentration patterns of food blogs indicates anything, it's that the Bay Area generates as many (or more!) verbose, opinionated eaters as NYC...and for good reason!  Wine, olive oil, and endless vegetal bounty pops up out of the very ground; Kumamoto and Hama Hama oysters KILL Blue Points and Malpeques (I'm sorry! I heart NY, but the Pacific Ocean just plain TASTES BETTER)...and then there's the cheese.

This Effing Foodie was trying to keep things relatively local (or at least on the Eastern seaboard), but:

A) Readers from the sunnier coast need cheese, too!
B) Surely it wouldn't be a Very Queso Christmas without a Cowgirl (or two).

Enter Sue Conley and Peggy Smith: founders of the Cowgirl Creamery, both of these ladies did serious time as successful chefs in the Bay Area restaurant circuit before zooming in on their mutual distraction with the magic of curd.  In the last ten years, they've won multiple awards with their babies: the buttery MT. TAM (alas, currently sold out!); the intriguing, washed-rind funk of superstar Red Hawk; and their wintertime specialty, Pierce Pt., adorned in spices and bathed in muscat wine.

All of the above are made with local, organic, pasteurized cow's milk--score another one for the impregnated, immune-suppressed or otherwise squeamish who refuse to skimp on taste.

There's oodles of other regional AND international cheeses, goodies and baskets to choose from; a cheese club with varying degrees of commitment and global-queso-coverage; and a handy-dandy online cheesecylopedia for all of your quick-click reference needs.

If you're lucky enough to be in the area, take a tour of the glassed-in creamery at Point Reyes before loading down with cheese--the Cowgirls like nothing better than to educate the curious.

As for poky, desk-bound, East Coast quesophiles? Take a virtual tour, and allow yourself to get giddy about the mailman coming.

Bouncing Blue Baby! (Stichelton!)

I enjoy my Wednesday food section fix as much as the next food nerd, but today I snapped that sucker open, scanned, and squealed with the kind of unrestrained glee that women generally reserve for babies and diamonds.

To be fair, it IS a baby of sorts...a spanking new blue cheese!!!  Food nerd extraordinaire Harold McGee introduces us to an old cheese with a fresh name: Stichelton.

The brainchild of cheesemaker Joe Schneider and Neal's Yard Dairy's Randolph Hodgson, Stichelton is basically a raw-milk Stilton, in many ways more traditionally made than what is legally recognized as Stilton.

A Very Queso Christmas, Part Two: Old Chatham Sheepherding Co.

Every family's got one...the one that stands out from the pack, who gets whispered about over plates of turkey.  Plain 'ol cow's milk cheese is a little too passe for them.

Luckily, the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company (Hudson Valley, NY) had these black sheep in mind. 

What's the difference between sheep's milk cheese and cow's milk cheese?  Not to beat hyperbole to death, but sheep are livestock that do well off the beaten path--they can subsist on less, in much harsher terrain and climate conditions than cows can.  Ergo, when it comes time for lambing, a milk with optimized fat, sugar, and protein content is essential for 'lil sheep to put on weight and wean quickly, to better survive a more challenging environ than, say, a flat, fenced-in pasture.

This is good news for sheep's milk cheesemakers; because sheep's milk is so much richer and more nutritionally dense than cow's milk, it takes comparatively little sheep's milk to make a high yield of great quality cheese.

Is your black sheep vegetarian, preggers, or an irrational germaphobe? No worries--Old Chatham's cheeses are a blend of pasteurized sheep's milk and hormone-free cow's milk. They use vegetable rennets, and their yogurts are nuthin' but sheep's milk and active cultures.

The ever-popular Camembert Square is lush, creamy, and non-threatening to the squeamish--a fab stand-in for any situation that usually calls for 'round-the bend supermarket brie.

(Can't get enough camembert? It comes in a 2 lb. wheel, too!)

For pro-penicillin finger foods, shove a little Ewe's Blue into the backdoors of Medjool dates, wrap those puppies in bacon, and broil.

Design your own gift basket at BlackSheepCheese.com, or toss a Camembert Square into your Murray's cart. 

(Unfortunately, the Old Chatham site only offers the sheep's milk yogurt by the case, and Murray's carries it in their retail stores, but not online...however, super-lucky Fresh Direct NYC customers can have it brought right to their fifth-floor walkups.)

Next on-deck for a Very Queso Christmas: the lovely ladies of the Cowgirl Creamery.

A Very Queso Christmas, Part 1: Jasper Hill Farm

ACK...December 1!  Those of us who've been in denial about the holidays since Halloween are officially without recourse or respite.

No need to panic or rush out to buy electronics...let cheese be your salvation! Beautiful, artisan cheeses made in the U-S-of-A, of all different shapes, colors, pungencies, and price ranges, shipped right to the doors of your loved ones!

Jasper Hill Farm is run by a small band of Vermonters totally preoccupied with maintaining the quality of their milk, and keen to present a sustainable, easily duplicable business model to revive local dairy economies. 

Their babies, Constant Bliss and Bayley Hazen Blue, are both made with whole, unpasteurized cow's milk.  Smooth, bloomy-rich Bliss will keep the uninitiated and the dairy-jaded happy; Bayley's crumbly, dense paste has all the vein-shot spunkiness blue-lovers want, without being overly salty. Drizzled in honey, both are a welcome wake-up for any cheese plate.   

(They don't have their own online store, but Bliss and Bayley are available at Murray's Online Store.  For those who've been VERY good this year, there's a super-splurgy Jasper Hill Farm Collection Box, with a rotating roster of seasonal Vermonter cheeses.)

Blame the Blues for Funky Dreams

'Tis true! Scientists across the pond say that eating Stilton thirty minutes before bed will increase your chances of jacked-up dreams.

"While 75% of men in this category experienced odd and vivid dreams, a massive 85% of females who ate Stilton had some of the most bizarre dreams of the whole study – although none were described as bad experiences. Highlights included talking soft toys, lifts that move sideways, a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, dinner party guests being traded for camels, soldiers fighting with each other with kittens instead of guns and a party in a lunatic asylum."
--British Cheese Board

(Don't you wish you could drink with some of these people???)

Some quick tips on cheese-steered dreaming:

• for dreamless, steady sleep, grab a few crumbles of cheshire
• for pleasurable dreams of sun and pampering, ladies should indulge in brie (men tend to have abstract, talking-animal-types of dreams on brie)
• for dreams that include celebrity cameos, cheddar's the way to go