To the Business of Cheese

I started this blog over three years ago as a college student craving a varied form of creativity from my numerous art courses. I found solace and inspiration among the web pages of Orangette, Smitten Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks, Foodbeam, and Chocolate & Zucchini. Today I still enjoy these blogs and more, but my own participation in food blogging has ebbed and I have wondered if that's what I want.

Let me state that is not what I want at all. Of late my desire to food blog has turned to resolve and determination and, thus, some discipline is going to have to come alongside. Initially, post-college, maintaining One Hungry Soul as a food blog simply was not possible as I nomadicly lugged suitcases around the West Coast for two months and then on to New Zealand. I did not have a kitchen of my own, and food blogging was forced into travel blogging with a good dose of musings and photographic snapshots contributed.

It worked, and I enjoyed it. However, I have now had a kitchen for eight months, and just last week I was gifted my very own KitchenAid mixer. It's time to get down to business.



It is rare that my sister and I get the same window of time off work, but on Wednesday we spontaneously managed to get two hours of the afternoon together. Being near Quel Fromage, we had to stop and properly refurnish our refrigerator's cheese box. Arriving home with hungry bellies, we laid out our cheese assortment and popped open a particularly barnyard-y bottle of French cider. To accompany, we took turns reading out-loud from my copy of Best Food Writing 2009.



I am finishing the remainder of Idiazabal and Bonne Bouche as I write this post. Both are absolutely lovely, but the Bonne Bouche, the grey brainy looking round, is always a certain palate pleaser for me. I have a weakness for well developed creamy mold-ripened cheeses, and this young goat cheese by Vermont Creamery is soft and oozy around the edges of the interior (at the age I enjoyed it) with a musty aroma from the ash and humid aging environment. I would love to experience it at a further ripened more piquant point but also love the fresh chèvre acidity combined with subtly developing notes of floral and nutty maturity.

As for that cider I mentioned, I would not recommend it with this Bonne Bouche. I knew they were not right for each other, but since I had both on hand they ended up together briefly. Second time around, I nibbled on an aromatic Brie-type that was the closest I could come to an authentic Camembert and found that the alternating of sips with slices helped me appreciate the cider.



I am quite inexperienced in the realm of ciders, especially traditional French styles and this unpasteurized version, Cidre Bouché by the Dupont Family Estate and its orchards in the Pays d'Auge region of Normandy, surprised me with the undeniable barnyard characteristics of its nose. The flavor contained deep cooked apple and savory leather that grew on me, especially when paired with that satisfying hunk of Brie. My sister preferred not to finish her glass, but I would like to keep tasting Normandy ciders in order to compare and contrast them and ever broaden my palate.

I have learned so much about cheese in the past year. Working at a fine cheese shop has done this for me, and yet every day at my job, whether conversing with customers, researching, or thumbing through one of Max McCalman's superb books, I am reminded how little I know. I hope to set aside a regular space in this blog in which we converse about a certain cheese.

As I appear more regularly again as a food blogger of sorts, I cannot help including the "of-sorts" portion. I love to food blog because I love to converse and share ideas and collaborate with others. Gastronomy is a very accessible arena, and yet I do not want to limit this space to this one topic. Food is one of many beauties in life that I desire to be ever grateful to enjoy with the ease and abundance I am able to. I want to savor other rich aspects of life within these white scrolling pages as well, so beyond recipes and favorite food and drink you can expect mentions of art, travel, relationships, and the many little details of life. Please lend your voice to my humble notations.

Tuesdays with Dorie and Wishing My French Blood Ran Stronger (again)

Usually yeast and I get along quite well. I enjoy the interaction of releasing its sweet, fermenting flecks into a big bowl of warm water or whisked flour and letting it do its thing over the next couple hours. There's always an element of risk, an intrigue of the unknown, and I can get excited about this because rarely do I dislike the final result. It's harder than some think to kill yeast and so, even if my loaf isn't as tight as it could be or as flavorful, I generally get a good rise. Like I said, yeast and I usually get along.

But something went wrong with the Kugelhopf I started on Sunday evening and eventually baked at eight o'clock Monday night. The directions I was following only addressed the use of a dough hook, not the manual method I was using, so maybe I didn't "knead" the dough long enough with my large spatula. I don't know exactly. It rose happily until I put it in the fridge overnight and then it never came back to life very much. Or maybe I was just too ambitious, placing it in a large bundt pan (large as in average size, I believe) and hoping it would climb all the way up the sides when it really only doubled in size and sat stubbornly at a level several inches from the top.

So, presentation was lacking and likely delicacy in the crumb as well, but from the slice I had at breakfast this morning to the one I nibbled on pre-dinner, this cake grew on me quite a bit. Per Dorie's instructions, I stuck my last slice in the toaster and smeared on some marmalade because it had already started to dry out. But it was still delicious.



Three things would encourage me to make this again...

1) It was my first experience with anything resembling brioche (something I've been wanting to try), and I think I like it even better because it's slightly less rich.

2) I boiled my raisins with rum and then let them sit for an hour, and anything that is compatible with rum soaked raisins makes me happy.

3) The yeast got the better of me in this recipe, and I will not be beat. (This is one of only a few areas where my competitive side comes out.)

So, if you're still confused about what on earth a Kugelhopf is anyway, here's a little bit of history.



A big thanks to Yolanda over at The All-purpose Girl for selecting Kugelhopf out of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I'm always glad to try something new in the culinary realm. And thank you as well to the ladies who keep Tuesdays with Dorie running.

You'll find the recipe here:
Kugelhopf