You gotta love a free event and this weekend there are no fewer than three good ones. Each present an opportunity for you to reacquaint yourself with a San Francisco original.

Crushpad is do-it-yourself (with a lot of help) winery. Designed for non-traditional winemakers you work hand-in-hand with Crushpad staff and consulting winemakers to define and create your very own wine. You can choose from among their excellent grape sources or identify your own. The end result is a world class wine with your own brand. Custom Wine customers are encouraged to visit Crushpad frequently and actively participate to gain the full experience – education is a key part of Crushpad.

Cost varies depending upon vineyard with most barrels (25 cases) ranging from $5700 to $10,900 ($36/bottle).

What: Crushpad Open House
Where: 2573 Third St, San Francisco
When: 2 - 6 pm Saturday, June 21, 2008
How: RSVP to attend
Why: This is a fantastic opportunity to meet with participating winemakers, explore the spectrum of wines made at Crushpad and start planning for the 2008 harvest. You can also taste the wines, nibble on cheese and chocolate and perhaps even a taco or two.

If you haven’t been to Ghirardelli Square in a while, now is a great time to check out this historic spot. Celebrate the new spirit of Ghirardelli Square with entertainment, wine tasting, chocolate, cupcakes and shopping. Enjoy eco-friendly chef demonstrations by From the Garden to the Table and even a doggie fashion show.

What: Savour the Square
Where: 900 North Point St St, San Francisco
When: 12 - 6 pm Saturday & Sunday, June 21 & 22, 2008
Why: Food and wine tasting, chef demos, classes and free Ice Cream Sundaes from Ghirardelli Chocolate from 4-5 pm both Saturday and Sunday. Check out the full schedule before you go.

Cheese Plus is a great spot to find local and artisanal gourmet products. At the Summer Solstice Food Festival more than 20 local Bay Area artisan food vendors will sample their handmade foods throughout the day.

This year’s line up includes: Paul Bertolli’s delicious sausages and salami from Fra’Mani, LaLoo’s Legendary Goat Milk Ice Cream, Bellwether Farms Farmstead Sheep Cheese, Allison McQuade’s tasty Chutney’s, Redwood Hill Sonoma Goat Cheese, and more

What: Cheese Plus 3rd Anniversary Summer Solstice Food Festival
Where: 2001 Polk St St, San Francisco
When: 11 am - 6 pm Saturday, June 21, 2008
Why: Meet directly with the artisanal producers and enjoy samples of fine foods of the Bay Area and beyond.

The weather is still dropping cold in San Francisco, so I see no reason not to dip into a new fondue book. Written by fellow Cowgirl, Lenny Rice, and her friend Brigid Callinan, Fondue is witty, cute, and perfectly delicious. Dropping allusions to Laverne and Shirley and Hawaii 5-0, this cookbook takes you through fifty fondue recipes — sweet and savory — as well as fondue accompaniments, like mango marshmallows, Irish soda bread, and spiced doughnut holes.

While I didn’t make it yet, my favorite recipe by far has to be the one that came out of Lenny’s football-watching childhood in Oklahoma. It’s called “Whiskey Tango Game Day” and the recipe includes ground beef or pork and Velveeta. (Yes, Velveeta — stop your pearl clutching.) Lenny writes, “And the name? If you’re familiar with military radio alphabet, you’ll probably know how we came up with it!” While drink recommendations for other recipes guide you to specific wines and beers, this recipe suggest you pair your WT Game Day fondue with Dr. Pepper, Bud Light, and RC Cola. Awesome.

The other night Big Cheese and I melted up a big pot of California Country Roads, which throws together the tangy-stinky combination of Cowgirl’s own Red Hawk and Bellwether Farms Carmody. The recipe notes suggest using walnut bread, Fig Newtons, Graham crackers, and apples as dippers and pairing with a blanc de noirs. The Fig Newtons were definitely an interesting idea and the Fig Newton lovers in the group became addicted to the combo after the first bite.

With all these recipes at the ready, and a whole lotta cheese out there just begging to be turned into bubbly, velvet masses of goo, I hope these cold nights continue for quite awhile.

California Country Roads

Makes 2 cups

1 (12-ounce) round Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, rind discarded and cubed
8 ounces Bellwether Farms Carmody, grated
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup Napa or Sonoma sauvignon blanc
2 tablespoons muscat or other sweet dessert wine

Toss the cheeses with the flour in a bowl and set aside. In a fondue pot, bring the sauvignon blanc to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease the heat to low and add the cheese mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until melted after each addition. Add the muscat and stir until smooth. Serve immediately.

Serve with: toasted walnut or other rustic bread cubes, pear chunks, apple chunks, fresh figs, quartered, fig bars, Graham crackers.

Beverage Suggestions: pinot noir, blanc de noirs (sparkling wine), fino sherry

Ask five people what they taste when they suck a plush gobbet of Cowgirl Creamery’s Pierce Pt. off their finger and you’ll get five different answers. “Chamomile!” “Fennel!” “Coriander!” Personally, I always manage to pull out a flavor that reminds me of the big steaming bowls of oatmeal my mother used to dish out on cold Minnesota mornings. And now, with San Francisco skies waxing chill and nights that stretch dark and long like a Halloween cat flexing its supple spine, Pierce Pt. is once again of the season.

Once upon a time when I was a sweet young cheesemonger, Pierce Pt. was thick with herbs that scattered messily as a knife pulled through the encrusted round. It was a delicious mess, however, because I delighted in taking small white wedges and stamping them all over the plate, sticking up the herbs in a woodsy, furry collection.

Although it continues to be made with organic whole milk from the Straus Family dairy, today’s Pierce Pt. is more restrained, refined, and graced with a delicate scattering of herbs that grow around the coastal climes of Tomales Bay. A quick spritz of a sweet and golden wine from Fetzer deepens the cheese’s flavor and encourages the gilding of chamomile, fennel, bay, and coriander to cling fast to the natural, soft mold.

Delicately creamy, Pierce Pt.’s many levels of flavors unfold gently on your tongue.

Taste fall.

Far from the golden hills of California, with endless lush stretches of forest and field, the Green Mountain State lives up to its name. My road trip continues, and this week I find myself heading toward the Northeast Kingdom. Along the way, near the shores of Lake Champlain, I’ve been enjoying two local treats.

Faced with the uncertain future of sugar maples, eating maple creemees whenever possible is an imperative. Sugar shacks dot the countryside, and if a sign and an arrow point the way to a creemee, I am there. Soft vanilla ice cream swirled with this year’s maple syrup — what better way to celebrate summer in Vermont?

If you’re picky about such things as real ingredients (and you must be if you’re reading this blog) then be sure to ask at the creemee stands if they use real maple syrup. If not, well…there’s always another sugar shack further down the road.

In the village of Barre, pronounced “barry” as I was gently reminded by a local, an especially memorable variation appears in the guise of a maple sundae. At the window of Caesar’s Fare, where a red siren light promises rescue from snack attacks, you can order two scoops of maple-walnut ice cream topped with maple syrup (Grade B = “Better & Bolder”) and more walnuts. The bitterness of the nuts balances perfectly the sweetness of the syrup. Whipped cream and maraschino cherries complete the experience.

Another local flavor comes from a metal tin. At the other end of the sensuality spectrum, dry and crisp Common Crackers have sustained generations of Vermonters. Round, puffy and neatly halved like a French macaron, they’re the New England embodiment of pragmatism. Originally purchased annually by the barrel, these crackers served as breakfast when soaked in milk, lunch when nibbled with cheddar cheese, afternoon tea when spread with jam, or dinner when served with chowder.

Common crackers are descendants of the long-lived, well-traveled hardtack much-maligned by sailors and soldiers, and their close cousins include pilot crackers, water crackers, and sea biscuits. Recently revived by the Orton family, owners of the Vermont Country Store, the crackers are still available 180 years after they were first cut and baked in Montpelier.

I’ve been enjoying my mini-barrel of common crackers with shards of Grafton Village’s six-year cheddar cheese in between my maple creemees. Who cares about crumbs in the car or lactose intolerance with the open road ahead?

Stay tuned for an update next week from Maine. If all goes well, I’ll be posting photos of freshly dug steamers and buttery lobsters.

In the meantime, please feel free to share coordinates for your favorite lobster shack along the Down East Coast!

In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
In the spring, a young woman’s fancy lightly turns to thirsts for beer.

Tennyson might not have penned it, but the fact remains. At least for this young woman it does. (Frankly, I prefer “chick” or “girl” or if you want to be really Jerry Lewis about it, “Laayayayayayadeeeeee,” because “young lady” sounds like my mom caught me out after curfew.)

The first warm waft we got that the world was turning mud-licious and puddle-lovely — which came last month right before that blast of cold had us turning the heaters back on. You know, for the cats. — I had this odd quirking in my mouth. My tongue felt dry and edgy and my throat was clicking in a greed for something cold, bright, topaz. Something fat. Something tire.

Whizzing by our neighborhood BevMo, we picked up a handy case of New Belgium’s Fat Tire and chilled it. A few hours later and, for the first time in many months, I lovingly coaxed that smooth, cylinder out of the fridge and held it close and throttled, enjoying its cold weight.

With a crink! and a spliff!, I let loose my amber beauty and slid it into a gently curving glass. Nose to mouth, nose to soul, heart to lips, I breathed it deep. Yeast and sharp and quench and tang.

Cheese. Cheese? We interrupt this Harlequin Romance: She Bore All for Beer to bring you this breaking announcement: Cheese. Seriously, I started to quaff this amazing beer that brings the full, teaming rush of summertime to my mouth and all I could think of was, “I SMELL cheese! What IS this CHEESE?!” The beer didn’t pass my parched, cracked, lusting lips. The beer didn’t slide down my willing, hungering throat. I sniffed it. I smelled it. I damn near SNORTED it!

Finally, it came to me: Ardrahan! Gubbeen! St. Nectaire! Durrus! One of those cheeses was the soul mate — the Ilsa to its Rick, the Rhett to its Scarlett, the Pacey to its Joey — to this beer. My friends, it was clear that I couldn’t revel in my spring fancy until I requited this pairing.

After testing each and every one of the pungent cheeses above, it became abundantly clear to me that Fat Tire was a slut. It had no “perfect mate,” no desire to be monogamous, no real loyalty. It slopped as well with Ardrahan as it did with Durrus. And Gubbeen. And St. Nectaire. It was a bi-cheesal beer.

The tart, yeast-bosomed cheeses brought out all that was giving and sensitive in this simple beer. None of them were favored above another, but all of them were deeply loved.

The End.