Bob Giacomini, whose family began making farmstead dairy products in northern Italy more than 100 years ago, has been milking cows on his Point Reyes dairy ranch since 1959.

Its a luscious blue cheese that will be championed by those who love great blues. Its a fullon plateful, but wheres the harm in that for a special treat? Its not as if you wear your snakeskin boots every day.ĥWine lovers long to visit Californias Napa and Sonoma Valleys, but cheese lovers should consider a pilgrimage to Marin County. Gary Rhodes serves huge Tbone steaks with stilton butter. Which is, of course, part of their appeal. Make a quick salad, or cook some green vegetables as well, because these cheeses are seriously rich and too much can be stultifying. Parsley and black pepper make perfect finishing touches. The Italian blues make an easy sauce for pasta or gnocchijust chop dolcelatte or gorgonzola into small cubes and stir in right at the end. Similar ingredients can be arranged into a salad of peppery greens, slices of pear, cubes of starry dolcelatte or gorgonzola, croutons and a vinaigrette dressing. Lockets savourytoast, watercress, pearĪnd sliced stilton baked until the cheese meltscame from a London restaurant, appeared in Jane Grigsons Fruit Book and has been doing the rounds ever since. These are powerful tastes and assertive textures that need something stodgy, sharp or sweet to keep them company and blue cheese has a particular affinity with pears.

Or just mash in some chunks of cheese, for a stronger hit. The addition of a baked potato makes it a substantial one and the same dressing, possibly with more cheese, will sit very happily inside the potato. The crushed cheese should be mixed with natural yoghurt, sour cream or fromage frais, seasoned and sharpened with lemon juice if necessary, to make a winter salad of mixed leaves, watercress and perhaps some slivers of carrot into a light meal. But the cheaper danish blue, or the crumbly remains of a well-spooned stilton, are ideal for a winter salad dressing. It would be a waste of the very finest of blue cheeses to mash them up, mix them with yoghurt and pour them over a salad. But fashions in food, as in everything else, are cyclical, and blue cheese is this weeks snakeskin ankle boot: a great way of adding a bit of va va voom to the culinary equivalent of a pair of black trousers. Its just that they were eaten as a course on their own, with bread or oatcakes, not used as a cooking ingredient. Its not that stilton, dolcelatte, gorgonzola, the rather humbler danish blue and exquisite farm cheeses such as Humphrey Erringtons dunsyre blue actually disappeared. After years of parmesan, mozzarella and goats cheese with everything, there is a return to things pungent and veiny in kitchens around the country. Mould is back and blue cheese is enjoying a minor revival. Let the Holidays BeginWondering what to do for the holidays? We have the answer.ģHURRAH. Give Me More WineFind wine and cheese pairings for the perfect party.īlue MoonMaybe the moon is made of cheese. Weve Got the Blues: Point Reyes Original BlueExploring sleepy Marin County.

now what do i do?Ī bit of BLUE HEAVEN found in a rEmotE cornEr of MARIN COUNTYīlue cheeseWho knew you could have your cheese and eat it too!? INSIDE:ExpEriEncE thE holidays GUILT-FREE by following thEsE Easy tips

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