Wild Flour Bread, Freestone

Bread. Staff of Life. Simple but difficult to do really, really well. 

And here's a picture of the goat cheese and herb loaf.

When I bought the bread, it was fresh, right out of the oven.

While I wasn’t going to eat either bread until later in the evening, driving out to Freestone first thing in the morning on a Thursday had to be done. Wild Flour Bread is only open a few days a week and they do not sell their bread outside of the bread shop. 

But of course, I tore off a piece of each loaf when I got to the car. The olive bread had to be one of the best I’ve had. It is as good as The Phoenix Pastificio olive bread I’ve had about three times now. But Wild Flour is different, the smell is different, the texture is different than The Phoenix. There's density and heft to Wild Flour; lightness to The Phoenix. If great breadmaking has a thing similar to terroir, then these two breadmakers capture its essence. 

The smell of The Phoenix is what sets me off, it's a primal smell. The Mouth Feel and Texture of Wild Flour is what connected me to a feeling of "this bread...good".

There is no favorite, no "best bread". Each are different, fantastic, unique. I'm happy to make the drive out to Freestone to pick up this bread, but I have to remember they're not open every day.

First rule of Meat Club

We talk about Meat Club.

Unlike the 1999 movie starring Brad Pitt, The Meat Club, founded in Portland, Oregon isn't a secret society.

Meat Club is the brainchild of Ryan Snyder and Dietrich Ayala. It's an online book and "how to" for sausages, bacon, pancetta and the list is growing.

Ryan and I know each other from another foodie site he worked on, Noms.in where foodie curators dove into a specific city and found the best places to eat and drink over a 48 hour period. Your friendly neighborhood Cured Ham contributed to the Sonoma / Healdsburg feature for the online journal.

Photo courtesy of Meat Club.

Last time I was in Portland, Ryan and I got together over sandwiches at Laurelhurst Market, a favorite of ours in PDX. Part butcher shop, part restaurant, it's one of the best Portland has to offer. Ryan and I talked about all things cured meat and some ongoing projects he and I are working on. 

Much success to you Ryan and the Meat Club. I'll be trying a couple of the recipes and incorporating them into a dish or two. 

The Best Milk Right Now, Saint Benoit

I've been drinking this milk for about 3 weeks now and I look forward to it every night before bed. The flavor is sweet, mouthfilling, creamy, just beautiful. Why anyone would drink non-fat milk is beyond me. How can whole milk be bad for you when it tastes this good? I certainly don't recall anyone in Italy drinking non-fat milk.

Chateau Fresno Cheese is almost $50 a Pound!

I was stunned at the price of a locally sourced cheese, Chateau Fresno Organics Sheep Milk Cheese, is $48.99 a pound at Whole Foods. Cheeses that are shipped half-way around the world aren't that expensive. I get the whole "buy local" arguement, but come on, near $50 a pound for cheese?!

So is this cheese worth it?

I don't know yet. Having a cheese like this in isolation is limiting. Like grass-fed aged beef, until it's compared to corn-fed aged beef and grass-fed corn-finished beef, who knows really.

Another comparison would be wine. How much better is a $225 bottle versus a $45 or $15 bottle. Can only the most refined palates taste the difference? Or is most of that price difference purely marketing? I've paid up for some wine in my day, great wines that blew me away. I've even paid up for truffles a few times, but I was in heaven after the first sliver. I'm not in heaven yet with this cheese.

I can say that the Chateau Fresno cheese has flavor, depth, and finish. Based upon the way the cheese is aged, there isn't a lot of cheese to actually eat either. Whether it's Whole Foods cutting $12 slices too small or a very long aging process, the edible parts of the cheese are slim. So that $48.99/lb price tag better get stretched, because it's doubtful many Fresnan's are putting a pound of this stuff on the table, only to watch the core of the cheese get eaten and throwing the rest away. I will use the whole piece, taking the generally unedible parts and throwing them into lentil soup or something.

The $12 nub I purchases went well with Creminelli Finocchiona Salami.

But the verdict is still out for me. There are plenty of aged goat and cow milk alternatives out there, non-local and local. However, sheep's milk cheese is a rarity here in the States, unlike in Europe, so rarity of a commodity should play a role in price.

Perhaps one of my long time followers, Cheese Fan and member of the North American Cheese Society, Scheherazade, could weigh in. Or perhaps, she could challenge me as she did many years ago with a blind dark chocolate tasting. Just like blind wine tastings, it challenges even the most arrogant S.O.B. and their opinions (like me). 

Backyard to Table

The picture below is that of a tree widely grown in California and Florida; it's called an Orange Tree and it grows fruit that can be turned into delicious juice, called Orange Juice. Orange Juice in Central California is only available during the winter months, not July. Oranges are to Winter, as tomatoes are to Summer. 

Here's the magical process of picking real fruit in your backyard and turning it into juice. 

Find Tree and Pick your Oranges (that filthy Pine Tree and its needles!):

Slice Oranges in Half (organic oranges have been known to scream, backyard oranges are silent when cut):

Juice Orange in old school juicer (the orange, seen here, was washed in Municipal Tap Water, which is actually safe to drink here in the United States. Water comes from a local source, not New Zealand or France):

Drink Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice!

(Warning: Orange juice may contain pulp, which is ok. This juice is not pasturized, but I'll play the odds and say I'm not going to die from E. Coli today):

Thank you Grandma for planting this fruit bearing and productive tree.

(Besides, what's a box fern ever done for you?)