Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
Print Edition

Foodie

Sometimes you get lucky. Like when the two stories I was assigned for Kosher Living (Section B, this week) involved cheese and cider, two of my favorite foods.

I’ve been a foodie — as we’re now called — since the late 1990s. This was the era when the California kitchen was in its ascendancy, and the book that really hooked me was Field of Greens by Anne Sommerville, which originated from a vegetarian restaurant in the Bay area.

To this day, this is still my go-to cookbook. It’s held up incredibly well and includes many ingredients, dishes and techniques that have only recently entered popular culture. The one aspect that reflects its time is the lack of photographs. Instead, the elegant pages are peppered with sketches of herbs and vegetables. I have never made a bad recipe from Field of Greens, which I think is the highest praise a cookbook can receive.

As a vegetarian, for me cheese has always occupied a place of significance. It combines everything that’s right about processed food — excellent raw ingredients, human innovation and craftsmanship, fermentation. It seems The Cheese Guy shares the same ethos, because the assortment I’ve sampled from Pete’s Fruits and Vegetables hits all those notes.

It even provides options for those who share the same cheese appreciation that I do, namely the smellier the better.

In a wonderful case of serendipity, there’s now an equally complex alcoholic beverage on the local market with which to pair these cheeses — Haykin Family Cider.

Lucky, indeed!

Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected]

Copyright © 2018 by the Intermountain Jewish News



Avatar photo

IJN Assistant Publisher | [email protected]


Leave a Reply