Purple Haze chevre
Remember my last post, where I talked about how awesome goat cheese it because it doesn't make me sick? Since then I've been trying out all the wildly expensive goat and sheep cheeses at the Co-op (and by all I mean about 3 so far) to see which are worth the time & money. Answer: this one. My main problem with most goat cheese is that frankly it tastes like I'm licking a goat, which, forgive me, is not generally on my to-do list. Purple Haze costs something like 7 bucks for a little 4-oz slice, which is ridiculous, except that it tastes amazing. Like seriously, mild and creamy and not like goat sweat at all. And the outside is dusted with lavender and fennel pollen. If your pretentious artisanal bullshit alarm bells are going full blast here I don't blame you, but seriously, unbearably precious as it admittedly is, this shit's good. Though while I love fennel almost as much as avocados, and therefore life itself, if you're not a fan of the liquorice family this might not be the cheese for you. In which case good, more for me.
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| Little bundles of joy, fancy toothpicks optional. |
Purple Haze chevre stuffed in a date and wrapped in prosciutto
Sweet salty creamy liquoricey porky hell yes. (As suggested by their website.) The only trick is to use enough cheese & prosciutto to counterbalance the sweetness of the medjool date, which is basically honey in solid form. I can't eat more than like two of these at once, but those two make me very happy.
Beltane Farm feta
While we're talking goat cheese, can I mention Beltane Farm? I got a container of their goat feta at the Wooster Square farmers' market ($8. Ouch.) and literally could not stop eating it. No really, literally. I'm always a sucker for feta, but these guys nailed it like woah. I've yet to try their herbed chevres, but eagerly anticipate the chance. Probably next Saturday. I'll let you know.
Sono Bakery at the farmers' market
I missed the farmers market this morning and I was pissed - no delicious delicious baked goods for me. Sono does a lot of things very well, but my hands down drop dead favorites are the caramelized onion/olive focaccia and the apricot pistachio tart. The former reminds me a lot of the pissaladiere I ate in Nice, but fluffier. And yes, I could totally make this myself instead of spending $7.50 on a big chunk of bread with toppings, but a) the last two times I've tried to caramelize onions I've forgotten about them and ended up with a pile of charcoal, which doesn't bode well, and b) then I couldn't eat it on a bench in Wooster Park by the cherry trees. Yes, I know it was raining today so I couldn't have done that anyway, and I don't care.
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| Wonderful, gooey, half-eaten apricot tart. |
#2 on the list of wonderful things they make is the apricot tart. I'm a total sucker for stone fruit, particularly apricots, and particularly when there's pastry involved, as evidenced by my weekly apricot danish at the Auckland city farmers' market this past summer. This is a butter tart crust, with ground almond filling and fresh apricot halves on top, covered with crumbled pistachios. The photo's crap, since I took with my phone in the park - this was not going to last long enough to make it home to my real camera. I plan to buy like five on my birthday later this month and go to town.
Restaurant Week at Oaxaca and Yolande's
Restaurant week is long gone, but at least some of this is still on the menu and totally worth ordering. For starters, Oaxaca. The first course, black bean soup was good but nothing special - I could make it myself. The main dish was slow-cooked pork shoulder with cinnamon and ginger and all sorts of other spices. The flavor was so deep and layered and downright fantastic I nearly melted right there. It reminded me of the lamb vindaloo at Thali, which is one of my favorite dishes in New Haven (same owners, no coincidence). I want that recipe. And dessert, an 'orange-scented flan with caramelized sugar', was quite possibly even better. Not so sure I caught the orange, but there was definitely cardamom in there, and an anise cookie. My only gripe was a too-sweet bit of grape something. No need for extraneous touches, just leave the flan alone.
Yolande's, two days later, was empty. I was literally the only person in the restaurant. Which is sad, 'cause the food's pretty good. For brunch it's a crepe place, and totally affordable; lunch and dinner it goes all bistro and the prices double. But for Restaurant Week, whatever. This meal was brought to you by the letter O, for overkill, in the best way possible. Appetizer: French onion soup, with a giant dollop of gooey, melty gruyere in the middle (the crouton sank). Possibly more cheese than soup. I consider that a good thing. Course two: 'Lamb chops, lamb merguez, and a fried duck egg with greens and tomato Provencale'. Well. The chops were dainty and nicely pink in the middle, the merguez was a good solid sausage, the duck egg was runny and rich, the 'greens' were ramps cooked with an equal volume of bacon, and the whole thing was cooked in roughly a stick and a half of butter. So it was delicious. 'Tomato Provencale', as it turns out, is half a tomato, roasted with breadcrumbs, herbs, and a little cheese. Hardly a light dinner, but with a glass of cheap cote du Rhone to cut the richness, a really really good one. Dessert was an apple tarte tatin that could've used an extra few minutes in the oven, and which I couldn't eat more than a few bites of, due to a stomach full of animal fat. Then a walk home under that trippy-ass rainbow they projected from East Rock in honor of the city's 375th birthday. Definitely an evening I'd repeat.
So in short: Eat fancy-pants goat cheese. Make a focacia. Go to Yolande's. Thank me later.
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| And some cherry blossoms to eat it under. |
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