How Cheese Came Into My Life: Going Behind the Counter
I hope you have been enjoying this ongoing series that has outlined my long love affair with cheese. While it is just one side of how I got so fussy, it’s an important one that had its roots in the Bay Area. Really it’s all because of the Pasta Shop at Market Hall, in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. We’ll talk more about them in a few moments.
After today there is only one more post to go. Then Saturdays will be about something other than cheese, I promise.
If you are new to this thread, you can catch up with the previous posts here. Or you can just read this brief summary of the points relevant to this week’s story. After my Nana exposed me to true English Stilton, I found a Spanish blue cheese that changed my life. As I told more and more people about this glorious cheese, they told me all about their favorites. When I tried to buy one of these friend-approved cheeses, serendipity came along (really it was a guy named David) and introduced me to another cheese that rocked my world.
And then I was hooked.
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Continental or Provincial
Maybe I am a bit of a wine geek. I can live with that.
So I am on the airplane to California. And I’m traveling with the kids. That means I must be looking at the in-flight magazine seeing what they’ve got to drink.
All of a sudden I see something on the wine list that makes me experience a wave of excitement (I know, nobody is more surprised about this than I), which causes me to form a terrible idea.
The in-flight magazine suggests there are two different sparkling wines available on “most flights.” Two is fewer than four. But two is certainly enough for a comparison. So how could I not attempt an in-flight wine tasting of sparkling wines? Gary Vaynerchuk did something similar once. I may not have his enthusiasm, or popularity, but heck if I can’t drink on a plane.
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Salmon Patrol
I die a little bit every time I see salmon on the menu. Because when a menu just says salmon, without any qualifiers, ninety-nine out of a hundred times it will be farmed Atlantic salmon.
Wouldn’t you happen to know it that I choose that one outlier in my first attempt at being the salmon police.
You mean you haven’t heard about the salmon police? It’s probably a very bad idea. But I figured that if fine dining restaurants are going to put farmed Atlantic salmon on their menu, someone should call them on it.
So here I am.
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Ask The Profussor – Gone Eating
It has been over two weeks since our last Q&A session, and I wanted to get all caught up before heading out to San Francisco. The Profussor will be traveling with the family in tow for 11 days in the Bay Area.
If you are one of my friends currently living in the Bay Area, and you are learning about this trip from my blog, instead of from me directly, let me apologize now. Despite my former career, I am not the best planner when it comes to my social calendar.
While I am away, I am going to try very hard to maintain my rigorous daily posting schedule. We will have to see how my copyeditor (Mrs. Fussy) feels about that too. If she wants to take a holiday, you may just have to suffer through the improper use of commas and the occasional run-on sentence.
Now without further ado, onto the questions:
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The Well-Constructed Cheese Plate
Recently I stumbled upon the menu of a charming little restaurant that I loved in Pacific Grove, where Mrs. Fussy and I used to eat before we had children.
We were on a weekend getaway from Berkeley, and staying in a much too precious bed and breakfast. The rooms were filled with antique hatboxes and more teddy bears than any self-respecting adult should tolerate. I almost burned the place to the ground, but I swear it was an accident.
Anyhow, we were hungry, and Pacific Grove isn’t a very large town. So we walked across the street and read the posted menu at the Red House Café (note: thanks to the magic of the internet, the link is to an old menu, similar to the one we saw that evening).
We decided to eat here solely on the strength of their cheese plate, and we returned as many times as possible over the course of the weekend.
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Old Dogs
In the spirit of sharing more of the unique culinary offerings of the Albany area, last week I wrote about the form of fried fish (called Fish Fry) available only in these parts.
I promised that this week we would talk about hot dogs.
Hot dogs are delicious. And there are tons of regional differences to the form. Of all places, the Huffington Post had an extensive, if not entirely thorough piece on the variations that can be found in a simple tube steak.
I have eaten many of them: The Nathan’s Famous, the NYC Pushcart Dog, the Detroit Coney (both Detroit and Flint style), the Chicago Dog, and the Corn Dog. And I would not even consider myself to be a hot dog lover. But I certainly do enjoy a good wiener on occasion.
Perhaps on my upcoming trip to San Francisco I will luck into an encounter with the bacon wrapped hot dog pushcart. Or maybe I’ll be even luckier and avoid it.
The one critical dog that is missing from the regional run-down is the Capital District’s own variation, which seems to fall somewhere in-between a Flint-style Coney and the Rhode Island Hot Weiner.
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Why Not Wine?
Last week I made the case for how drinking wine with dinner not only enhances a meal, but also makes it more relaxing, and has resulted in my becoming a more thoughtful eater.
I also asked for you to comment on what you drink for dinner and what goes into that decision. The range of responses was certainly interesting from Raf’s list of all the varietals he drank in the past forty-eight hours to Jerry’s claim that he just doesn’t care for the stuff.
So armed with this new information, today I am going to try to address the barriers some of you have encountered.
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How Cheese Came Into My Life: Everyone Has A Favorite
Unbelievably we are up to part seven of the ongoing series about how I got so fussy and my ongoing love affair with cheese. If I had to say, today’s post is the climax, with the anticlimax and dénouement to follow. Only two more posts to go. Then Saturdays will be about something other than cheese, I promise.
This week is another one that I hope will inspire you to drop in on your local cheesemonger.
If you are new to this thread, you can catch up with the previous posts here. Or you can just read this brief summary of the points relevant to this week’s story. I had been discovering good cheese out in California, and my Nana had just rocked my world with the deliciousness of true English Stilton on a visit to East Hampton. Then after a bad day at work, I found the cheese that would come to change my life.
Changing one’s life is no small claim. That is why today is the climatic chapter of the cheese journey.
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Oh Fee
You are trying to live a life that’s completely free.
My apologies to Phish, but that catchy ditty just happens to share the name of one of my favorite makers of orange cocktail bitters. And I suppose I could have called this post, “Fee Fie Foe Fum” but that conjures up giants and British things.
And while the whole hippy Phish thing wouldn’t seem to make any sense at all, give me a few paragraphs and I’ll find a way to work it in.
Eighteen months ago, I had yet to open the FUSSYlittleSTORE and I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. There were no orange bitters to be found anywhere in the area. Which makes sense because New York State liquor laws are completely Byzantine. But it also makes no sense at all, because the longest standing producer of orange bitters is only a few hours up the road in Rochester.
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Maybe Capital Q Is Not For You
I like Celina Ottaway, I really do. Occasionally she even posts comments here. But culinarily we have our differences. I like Five Guys and she likes In-N-Out burger. She likes Inga’s Diner and I prefer Dewey’s. I love Capital Q and…well, I don’t think she’ll be going back there ever again.
You see, she wrote this review for the Times Union.
It’s long, I know. You won’t have to read the whole thing because I am not going to quibble on matters of taste. I find it authentic, she doesn’t. She likes some of the sides, which I couldn’t care less about, because for me it’s all about the meat. But these differences aren’t terribly interesting.
It is really on page two of her review that she and I diverge on a matter of substance.
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