February 2010

The cheese available in the United States has changed dramatically in the past decade. From coast to coast, the quantity and quality of locally made cheese has increased, and so has our interest in sampling new and different types. From Brebis (sheep’s milk cheese) to Chêvre (goat’s milk cheese), and from a triple cream to a Tomme, we are wide open to new tastes and textures; but we may not be up to speed when it comes to taking care of this fragile food.

To be able to fully enjoy the flavors of a cheese it needs be stored properly and served at the right temperature. Those delicate wheels, wedges, blocks and logs that have been carefully coaxed to ripened perfection and are teeming with beneficial microorganisms that deserve better treatment than in your fridge and on your counter.

I'm exhausted and full, and my throat hurts. And yet, somehow, Simple, Good, and Tasty's February local food event at Grand Cafe last night was just perfect.

Maybe it was the beautiful restaurant that made the night so special - wooden and warm, with strings of lights and lovely paintings on the walls. Maybe it was the food - an exceptional cassoulet prepared with locally raised duck from Au Bon Canard and house made sausage by Grand Cafe's chef Jon Radle; a delicious salad with beets, walnuts, and chevre; and an astoundingly good ginger bread pudding with orange compote and caramel cream. Maybe it was the fact that Simple, Good, and Tasty was celebrating a full year's worth of blog posts, directory listings, and events connecting Minnesotans to our food sources. But my guess is that it wasn't any of these things.

There’s nothing typical about Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables, located in Rushford Vilage, Minnesota.

Food: we cook it, we eat it, and then we’re done.

Well, not quite. Like the good folk milling around the Tower of Babel, we also spend a great deal of time talking about it, except that we’re not always speaking the same language.

Food is, both figuratively and literally, on everyone’s lips and the discussion has never been so deep or widespread, providing fodder for everyone from filmmakers and politicians to home cooks and bloggers, who all have something different to say about what we eat. The array of issues is so dizzying, it’s enough to make you toss your salad.