If you are a fan of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, you probably buy chunks of it. You grate them and devour them. Eventually you are left with rinds that are too small to grate, but too precious to throw away.

If you are like me, these rinds pile up in the cheese bin of the fridge. At $16 a pound or more, how could you possibly throw them away?

Then the time comes to utilize these rinds. Tossing them in a stock or soup is a time-honored tradition. So is simmering them with fresh tomatoes for a pasta sauce.

Parm rind in a pot of stewed tomatoes, later to be strained for a soup

Yet there are other ways to utilize these rinds. I am sharing a method I learned from a line chef at Oliveto, after I asked him about pasta recipes for a dinner party.

His suggestion was simple. Take a large rind, and simmer it in a pint of cream or more. Add herbs, sauteed garlic and/or grated cheese. Season with salt. Work your cooked noodles into the sauce with some pasta water, add a pop of butter and serve.

I followed his instructions, using fresh hand-made pasta. My friends were in awe. One friend, Rex, said I had served him the best dish of pasta he'd ever eaten.

Clearly Rex doesn't get out much, but he was right: The dish was a delight. By slowly cooking the cream with the rind, the earthy, rustic taste of the Parmesan was infused throughout the pasta, which was draped in a velvety sauce.

So give it a try, especially when friends come over. If you are going to prepare a dish with this many calories, it is always better to share.

Gemelli with Parmesan rind cream sauce, roasted squash and tomatoes

Pasta ala Parmigiano Reggiano rind

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:
1 rind of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, about 2x4 inches, and 1/4 inch thick
1 pint of heavy cream
3 tablespoons butter
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
Up to 1 cup of reserved pasta water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1 pound of dried pasta, or 2 pounds of fresh egg noodles, either homemade or store bought
Kosher salt for pasta water

Preparation:

1. Clean rinds, if needed, with a damp towel. Grate cheese and chop garlic.

2. As water starts to heat in your pasta pot, cook garlic slowly in a separate skillet with the olive oil. Do not let it get brown, but cook it until most of the raw garlic taste is gone.

3. Add cream and parm rind to skillet. Turn up heat until cream bubbles and foams, and then turn down to maintain a low simmer. If cream gets extremely thick, turn off heat and let sit.

4. Once your pasta water comes to a boil, add a small handful of kosher salt to the water, stir and add pasta to the water. Cook until just short of al dente. Remove from water and save at least one cup of the water.

5. Add pasta to skillet. Turn up heat and serve. Ladle a small amount of the pasta water to the skillet as you stir. You want to maintain a creamy but not a thick or soupy sauce. Add butter and stir. When pasta is al dente, add half of the cheese and stir. Check a noodle for seasoning, and add salt, if needed. Turn off heat and use tongs to place pasta onto plates. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of each plate and serve.

Note: This dish lends itself to multiple treatments. Cook chopped leaks with the butter instead of garlic. Top the final pasta with blanched vegetables, such as asparagus or green beans. I added the parm cream to gemelli noodles and topped them with chopped roast squash and tomatoes.

I should have known that when my ultimate food friend, Melanie, invited me to her house in Cloverdale this weekend that the days would be filled with chowing my way through Sonoma County. When not hanging out at her house chatting by the fire and drinking delicious wine, we were cruising the county having nibbles and bites in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Cloverdale and the surrounding areas.

"Can you leave work at 2:30," she asked via email late last week, "I'd like to get to the Downtown Bakery in Healdsburg by 4:30pm for the half-price markdown."

On the way to Healdsburg, we exited Highway 101 to avoid traffic and came to our first stop: Joe Matos Cheese Factory. The Matos family sells their St. George's cheese to many cheese stores and restaurants in the Bay Area and their unassuming "retail store" (consisting of a wheel of cheese and a loud bell announcing customers) is located in Santa Rosa. The cheese is a bargain at $7 per pound, and I bought a large $10 slice for our weekend. This is a delicious cheese. Cowgirl Creamery's Library of Cheese describes the St. George as a "full-flavored cow milk cheese with a cheddary depth and a rich texture."

Next, we stopped at Willie Bird Turkeys to pick up some bones for stock. Many of you know Willie Bird as the purveyors of a large number of sustainable turkeys around the holidays. Their retail store is worth a stop and many bargains can be found inside. The bones were seventy cents a pound, and we bought a flat of 20 delicious turkey eggs for $4. I left the store noshing on their peppery turkey jerky and we were on our way.

We pulled into Healdsburg at 4:40 pm, and Melanie was in a hurry to get to Downtown Bakery. "I've never gotten here this late," she mentioned as we quickly walked to the bakery. Each weekday from 4:30 to 5:30, Downtown Bakery marks down many of their items to half-price. We walked in and took a number (18 people were ahead of us!) and perused the mark-down menu to make our decisions. What followed was an oddly stressful ten minutes as we watched item after item be completely sold-out by the earlier customers. Still, by the time it was our turn there were many items left and we bought a large bag of baked goods (a lot for freezing) for $15. I've always loved Downtown Bakery's croissants, which I purchase at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and happily had one for breakfast the next morning. The highlight of our purchases was a delicious almond tart which was quite sweet, full of nuts, and perfect when toasted.

Next week, I'll let you know about the rest of our trip which included a trip to the delightful Santa Rosa Farmers Market and more Sonoma county wanderings.

Joe Matos Cheese Factory
3669 Llano Road
Santa Rosa
9 am - 5 pm
707-584-5283

Willie Bird Turkeys
5350 Highway 12
Santa Rosa
707-545-2832

Downtown Bakery
308A Center Street
Healdsburg
707-431-2719

Okay, are you ready for this, world? Because this idea is the CHEESIEST!

Fellow Bay Area Bites blogger Jen Maiser sent me this receipt from the recently-opened Venissimo Cheese with the note, "Thought you'd be interested in seeing this receipt from a new store in Long Beach."

(First of all, can we have a little side conversation of how flippin' awesome it is to receive receipts in the mail that might be "of interest"? It's like our food geekery knows no bounds!)

Now take a look at that receipt and see just how much bang you get for your buck. You get:

1. The name of the cheese you bought: very key if you lose the little papers the cheese was wrapped in, or if you didn't lose them but were unfortunate enough to have a cheesemonger like me whose bad handwriting rendered the little cheese papers illegible.

2. The pronunciation of said cheese: in order not to embarrass yourself when you go back and reorder that "grow-YER" you enjoyed so much in your fondue.

3. The place of origin: because you might go there to get the cheese some day, and also because geography is fun.

4. The milk and treatment: because cow or sheep, raw or not-so-raw, it can matter for health reasons or just for general personal edification reasons.

5. Tasting notes: so you can impress your friends at the dinner table with just how sensitive and refined your palate is compared to theirs.

6. Wine pairing: because "What wine should I have with this?" was the question we got as often as "Where's the Slanted Door?" at Ye Olde Stanke Cheeseshoppe. Also, check it out -- they give you no less than four recommendations for each cheese!

The green side of me whispers that this is probably a waste of paper -- can you imagine how long your receipt would be if you bought 4-6 cheeses? -- but the cheesemonger in me drowns that side out, because this a genius idea that serves both retailers and customers well.

Belissimo, Venissimo!

Brava.

Last weekend, I wandered back into Omnivore Books on Food to pick up a copy of Margaret Visser’s The Rituals of Dinner, that store owner Celia Sacks was kind enough to order for me (without my even having to ask, thank you very much).

I knew Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses would be there, talking about his book with Soyoung Scanlan of Andante Dairy.

As an American who happens to love cheese, the timing of my store visit required little thought.

When I arrived a little late for the reading (owing to the fact that I had my face buried too deeply in another book, missed my stop, and had to walk an extra five blocks), the tiny book store was filled with people focused on the animated Mr. Wolf talking of his grandparents and the role they played in his culinary imprinting.

Chatty and extremely energetic in a way that I envy, but would find personally exhausting, Wolf read excepts from his book. For example, when explaining why the difference in price of cow v. goat v. sheep milk cheese:

…sheep act like, well, sheep. If there’s a storm a-comin' or one of the flock feels blue or there's a new horse in the corral or a new dog in the field, they may just freak out and decide not to give milk, or be too upset to move easily into the milking barn. And when all is well, they still give only about a liter a day per sheep.

After Wolf's presentation, I decided to buy a copy of the book, having liked what he said enough to want to read more about American Cheese. And, no, not that kind of American Cheese, though that is briefly but firmly discounted in the book. I then asked him to sign my Margaret Visser book, since she was not present.

I'm glad I bought the book. It is as personable and informal as Wolf is in person, which is a good thing. Though not encyclopedic in its scope, there is a lot of good information to be gleaned from its pages.

From such basic information as the definition of what constitutes cheese, the different categories of it, how each is made, and good looking recipes in which they might find good employ, to the short biographies of America’s leading cheese producers, it reads more like a “getting to know you” book-- as though, through reading, you have casually picked the brain of an entertaining cheesemonger, which is essentially how Clark Wolf began to gain his 30-plus years of cheese-related knowledge in the first place.

But what , if anything, defines a cheese as "American?" Is there some unifying factor? Some unique coagulate or binding force? Not exactly. When asking, for example, a Southern cheese maker in what ways her colleagues were regionally unifiable and identifiable, he received this response: "Absolutely no way at all. We’re each completely different." And that was just the Southern contingent. If one starts to think about California cheese makers, one’s head might explode trying to come up with an answer.

Perhaps this lack of cohesion is what makes American Cheese makers, well, uniquely American. Or perhaps not. I look to the French, as so many cheese makers have done in the past, to put things into perspective. I will leave you with the unmistakably French, shoulder-shrugging cynicism of Charles de Gaulle:

One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

In the Bay Area we pride ourselves on our knowledge of wine, chocolate and cheese. We have wonderful producers as well as experts. When it comes to American cheese, one of our local aficionados is Laura Werlin. She's the author of a number of books on the subject and has a thorough knowledge of producers and retailers. Her most recent excellent book on the subject, Laura Werlin's Cheese Essentials is a combination cookbook and buying guide with great descriptions, explanations of styles, and tasting notes.

Restaurant Parcel 104, a restaurant specializing in seasonal, farm-fresh American fare will be holding a Cheese and Wine Dinner, featuring local artisan cheeses from around California on November 8th. Renowned Bay Area chefs Chris Schloss of Cin-Cin Wine Bar in Los Gatos, and Mark Dommen from One Market in San Francisco, and Arthur Wall of The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards will each develop a course inspired by a specific cheese.    

Parcel 104 executive chef Robert Sapirman will be working with noted cheesemonger John Raymond of Raymond & Co. and cheesemongers will personally select which cheeses will be used. Laura Werlin will coordinate the appetizers for the cocktail hour using recipes from her books.  Werlin will also be on hand to talk to guests about cheese, and sign cookbooks.

What: 6th Annual Cheese & Wine Dinner
When: Saturday, November 8, 2008
Where: Parcel 104 at the Santa Clara Marriott, 2700 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara
How: $145 plus tax and gratuity. Book online via OpenTable or call 408-970-6104.
 

Here's a recipe is adapted from Laura Werlin's Cheese Essentials that is just right for cold Fall and Winter nights.

Reblochon and Potato Tartiflette

4 slices, thick sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch pieces or use 1/4 pound pancetta 1 medium onion sliced 1/4 inch thick 1 pound Yukon Gold or other waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick Salt Freshly ground pepper 5 ounces Reblochon cheese, cut into 1/4 inch slices 1/2 cup cream

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees in a medium saute pan cook the bacon until brown and crisp. Drain on paper towel lined plate. Remove all but 1 tablespoon fat saute the onions in bacon fat until soft but not brown, about 5 minutes. Place half the potato slices in a 9-inch pie plate or shallow oval pan. Sprinkle with a touch of salt and pepper (remember that the cheese and bacon are both salty). Sprinkle half the onions over the potato slices followed by half the bacon, and half the cheese. Repeat with remaining potatoes, onions bacon and cheese. Pour cream over the top and around the edges.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and cook for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft and the tartiflette is brown and bubbly. Let sit 15 minutes before servicing. This allows the cream and potatoes to set up (otherwise, it's too runny).

Serves 8 to 10

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.