The Rake Magazine

of livestock and mold

Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise.

French Brin D'Amour
The "sprig of love" is a cheese made from Corsican sheep. The rind is encrusted in the aromatic herbs with which it spends three months curing. The juniper berries and rosemary give its pale ivory paste a floral flavor. It's a pretty, pretty cheese. This is the cheese to come home to after a bad smelly cheese experience, a bad date or a bad marriage. It restores the faith.

Chimay Bierre
This cheese is washed with Chimay, the beer of Belgian monks. It's a smooth cheese with nuttiness and a tart finish, but I kept thinking: Why aren't I just drinking Chimay?

Bellwether Farms San Andreas
The sheep on this California farm have the San Andreas fault running right through their land. I expected the cheese to have a flavor of foreboding with a hint of grassiness and fear (you know how animals can sense forthcoming doom and all). And yet, this is an easy table cheese that is mild with a piquant finish. My three year old ate nearly the whole wedge.

Tome Verte
Fresh goat cheese is soft, lilly white and cuts the normal tangy nature of goat by more than half. This French version is coated in fennel, thyme and pink peppercorns which give it a nice herbal flavor. Don't expect the richenss of aged cheese, instead think of a wind-swept meadow exploding with spring clover.

Red Hawk
This triple cream cheese from the Cowgirl Creamery in California is somewhat of a darling in the cheese world, garnering awards from the American Cheese Society left and right. Washing the rind provides the signature sunset-orange tint, but it also gives the cheese its smell. Stinky. Bad-celery-melting-in-my-veggie-drawer stinky. My first taste was overwhelmed by the stinkiness, making me think of creamy cabbage. But the second taste (after I had presumably primed my tastebuds) was mellower and creamy with a nice earthiness. I'm eating this with some Caymus Conundrum on Saturday when my sunny patio hits sixty degrees.

Bleu des Basques
A nicely balanced bleu from the French Basque region. There's just enough saltiness to work with the tang, it's full of character without having that overbearing ego. Be warned, when you bring the cheese to room temp (which you should do before eating) it might sweat a little due to the lovely fat content. Just keep it loosely wrapped in wax paper while it warms up, and never hold fat content against a cheese.

All these cheeses can be found at Surdyk's.

Reuters recently reported that a mysterious woman has perfected the dine-and-dash in many of Rome's best restaurants. The alleged "gourmet food junkie" has been known to dine fabulously on fine wines and exquisite fare, simply to find when the bill arrives (ooops) her wallet has been left in another purse. Revealed only as DN of nearby Viterbo, the "mooch artist" has been dealt with accordingly: she has been banned from Rome for five years.

Not arrested, banned. Not made to pay restitution or scrub pots and pans, just banned. And maybe that is the ultimate punishment for a food-lover, not only taking the good stuff away, but keeping it just out of reach.

Not surprisingly, Roman police have reported that despite the ban, our daring and naughty DN continues to sneak into Rome. Who could have predicted that one?

It's just not in the nature of Italians to deny anyone food. I think the waiters secretly hope she turns up at their table. What will this hungry woman want? Will she have an appetite for pungent cheese with honey and figs or will she just order a simple ravioli with dusky truffles. There's no doubt that every bite will be savored, every moment a mark on her memory of this amazing meal. They'll pour her a glass of prosecco while she watches the sunset, their hearts secretly proud that she chose them for her potentially last meal in Rome.

In Chicago to open a restaurant, I was invited to dinner with my friend Elizabeth and her parents. Elizabeth's father, Dr. Pepper (no lie), had just completed a crazy-difficult robotic arm techno-surgery. He hurriedly gave us some scant details before turning to me and asking how the restaurant opening was going.

The robotic arm story was left on the table while they asked question after question about kitchens and sous chefs and menus and servers' shoes and pasta. I kept thinking we were missing a great conversation about the future of health care and that the trivial workings of a restaurant opening were best left as server fueled pub-fodder.

But I get it now. I get that people who spend their days wielding robotic arms with someone's life in the balance may absolutely need to talk about how you go about mashing fifty pounds of potatoes. People who spend their days wielding computers in fuzzy grey cubicles may need it even more.

And so I'm Doris Day. I will sit at my piano in the embassy and belt out my song of quince, meatballs, cocoa and eggs until your poor little kidnapped souls can run freely down the stairs into the yolk colored sun.