Posts Tagged ‘milk’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
A friend of mine recently found out that she’s lactose intolerant. Reacting perhaps as a cruel friend, I immediately spoke the first thought that came to mind: “So no more ice cream or frozen yogurt?”
“Actually, I’m more upset about not being able to eat cheese.”
Being a lifelong cheese consumer, she’s bummed, to say the least, and understandably so. Being a good friend, I assured her I’d eat enough cheese for the both of us.
Image: Nayashkova Olga/Shutterstock
Upon moving to the NoVA area, I have realized that there is an abundance of great cheese shops here. Who woulda thunk? Wisconsin, of course. Vermont, sure. But Virginia? Sweet! To say the least, I’m glad to know the NoVA area has such a sharp thing to offer as great cheese. You cheddar believe it!
So, in lieu of all the grate cheese puns, I’ve decided to post a little visit from the cheese muenster (pardon the cheesiness). Here’s a short list, just enough to tickle your cheese fancy, of local places to find good cheese in NoVA (in simple alphabetical order):
Bella Italia Market & Deli (320 William St., Fredericksburg; 540-371-3354)
This small market offers a wide range of Italian groceries, including, of course, cheese.
Blue Ridge Dairy Company (retail in a variety of locations; 703-443-6605)
This Leesburg based farm makes four kinds of cheese in their artisan creamery: fresh mozzarella, applewood smoked mozzarella, aged feta, and fresh ricotta. You can buy their products in a variety of farmers markets and Whole Foods stores in Arlington, Alexandria, Tyson’s Corner, Vienna, Reston, Springfield, and Fair Lakes.
Cheesetique (2441 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria, and a new location opening in Shirlington; 703-706-5300)
This half specialty cheese shop, half cheese and wine bar hosts monthly hour-long cheese classes including cheese education and tasting, as well as private cheese classes ($55 pp).
Everona Dairy (23246 Clarks Mountain Road, Rapidan; 540-854-4159)
Everona’s cheeses are part of their main product line, including the Piedmont, their signature cheese made with sheep’s milk.
The Frenchman’s Cellar (129 East Davis St., Culpeper; 540 827–4757)
The Frenchman’s Cellar offers samples and explanations of their over 50 in-house cheeses, sliced to order.
La Fromagerie (1222 King St., Alexandria; 703-879-2467)
With the simple proper French name, La Fromagerie cheese shop shows off their main shining star with an enormous selection of seasonal cheeses.
Marshall Farms Corner (Route 522 & Route 20, Unionville; 540-854-6800)
This farm, country store, deli and wine shop in the Shenandoah Mountains makes their own natural cheese with organic milk from their pasture raised dairy cows. They have five different varieties of cheddar and four different varieties of jack, including one with sundried tomato and basil. They also offer an extensive breakfast and lunch menu featuring what else but their homemade cheese.
Mountain View Farm Products (85 Marmac Lane, Fairfield; 540-460-4161)
Mountain View Farm Products is a family owned, 250 acre dairy farm with approximately 120 cows and fresh farmstead cheeses made with raw milk, cultures, herbs, spices and peppers.
Oak Spring Dairy (8370 Oak Spring Road, Upperville; 540-592-3559)
This 150 acre farm specializes in their own raw cheese, made with naturally produced milk.
Screwtop Cheese Shop (1025 N. Fillmore St., Arlington; 703-888-0845)
Screwtop’s weekly rotating cheese in stock ranges from “fresh & bright,” “creamy & bloomy,” “aromatic & delightful,” “nutty & caramel-y,” and “flavored” from various regions in the US and worldwide.
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, June 1st, 2009
The epicurean giveaways continue here at NoVA.
This time, we’re offering up a copy of Anne Mendelson’s scholarly “Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages.”
(Image: Knopf)
All you have to do is share where you pick up your must-have dairy products–be they artisan cheeses, farm-fresh milk or probiotic yogurts–in the comments section below.
We’ll randomly choose a winner from all the posted comments Friday, June 5 at noon.
–Warren
Kudos to our Local Beard Foundation Awards Contenders
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, March 23rd, 2009
The finalists for the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards are now official, and we’ve got a host of hometown talents vying for the coveted food industry prizes.
Restaurant Eve toque Cathal Armstrong,
(Photo: Jonathan Timmes)
Rasika chef Vikram Sunderam and Peter Pastan (2Amys/Obelisk) [*my apologies to Pastan for leaving him off the original post*] are all in the hunt for the Best Chef – Mid-Atlantic mantle.
Chef Johnny Monis got a nod in the Rising Star category.
(Photo: Jamie McCarthy/wireimage.com)
The now bi-coastal José Andrés could theoretically score a Beard Foundation hat trick if he were to take the top honors in the web/radio, best new restaurant and outstanding chef categories.
(Photo: Bernardo Peréz)
Meanwhile, Washington Post dining critic Tom Sietsema racked up two nominations (newspaper features about restaurants and/or chefs, restaurant reviews) while the WaPo food section is in the mix for best newspaper food section (stellar work, Mr. Yonan!).
As for other media, several cookbooks/food tomes that we’ve recommended in our print edition are gunning for more widespread prestige (as if that were even possible), including: Cooking Up a Storm (American cooking category), Fat (single subject category) and Milk (reference and scholarship category).
You can view the full slate of 2009 nominees here.
To see the winners get their due live, you’ll have to break out your fancy duds and make your way up to enwhycee for the May 4 Awards Gala. The Beard Foundation is offering $50 discount for all ticket orders placed before April 4.
If you’ve never been, the event is quite an eye-opener. At least it was last year.
–Warren Rojas
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, February 19th, 2009
By Warren Rojas
“Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages.” Anne Mendelson. Knopf, 352 pgs., $29.95
Food scribe Anne Mendelson’s “Milk”—a loving account of the life-sustaining merits of unadulterated dairy products—elevates her to the next generation of ethnohistorian, one indirectly focused on human societies via the microscopic cultures that first passed through early man’s lips.
“Many thousands of years ago, somebody saw an animal nursing her young and had the eccentric, not to say dangerous, idea of getting in on the act,” she posits before diving headlong into a wholesale exploration of milch sources and human development.
Mendelson traces our affinity for all things dairy back to the mythical “Yogurtistan” (the early Eurasian adopters of milk as a dining staple), highlights the importance of animal husbandry to our socio-economic expansion (“Domesticated cattle were the plowers that literally broke the ground for the diffusion of grain farming”) and discusses the scientific principles behind what we taste—or should taste, as the case may be—in a each glass of fresh milk (“Its flavor is not so much flavor as a sensation of freshness on the palate that scarcely translates into words”).
Not content with merely proselytizing, she invites others to experience daring dairy, including: Chinese “fried milk,” hoppelpoppel (tea-spiked German eggnog), Turkish eggs in yogurt sauce, chlodnik (Polish buttermilk soup), fried bananas with crema, syrniki (Russian cheese fritters) and Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream (a carefully plotted marriage of light and heavy cream).
(February 2009)
