Best: Cheese
Best: Love
By Amy McDaniel
A&F Editor
Best Culinary Resurgence:
Cheese is back. Traditionally, a cheese course follows an elaborate, multi-course French meal. Even Italy, famed in the United States for its classic desserts like tiramisu, cheese and fruit more commonly end the repast than sweets. Since the beginning of the Imperial Age, though, when slave labor was exploited on Caribbean cane sugar plantations, Europeans-and Americans after them-have craved saccharine desserts accompanied by coffee with sugar.
Obviously, many establishments already offered fruit and cheese appetizer platters, but there overpriced specimens usually provided mealy, bland white cheeses alongside the usual suspects of grapes and apples. Hardly substitutes for the classic cheese course, these tired dishes disregarded any sense of harmony between the cheese, the fruit, and the occasional sourdough.
This year, more restaurants than ever feature cheese courses, many even listed on the after-dinner menu. The renewed interest in this age-old continental staple continues to gain momentum at a range of restaurants. The new trend follows close on the heels of the growth in the last few years of small cheese makers, with more and more popping up in the United States all the time. At last, "American" cheese might denote something edible, even something glorious. More and more Americans are becoming cheese connoisseurs, evidenced by a host of websites like ilovecheese.com, igourmet.com, and others that specialize in mail-order, gourmet cheese from all over the world.
At one hotel restaurant, a roving waiter carriedsa tray of assorted cheese to diners near the end of their meals. This strategy works well to introduce diners to the concept of an after-meal cheese course by allowing them a complimentary cheese tasting. Yet if the diner is unaware at the beginning of the meal, the wine may mismatch entirely.
But even more vital than cheese and wine pairings is the careful selection of accent foods to complement the cheeses. In this spirit, the restaurants whose chefs carefully design the cheese course certainly win out. At last, a time when young chefs dispense with trendy innovation and rely on the classics., which I personally find irresitibly erotic.
A new restaurant in Atlanta, the Woodfire Grill, beats the competition in its mastery of the cocheese urse. Diners are presented with plenty of Spanish almonds marinated in fine olive oil, which are mild enough to add a pleasant texture to any of the cheeses. With a welcome sense of minimalism, the platter includes only one other accompaniment, quince paste. This deceptively flavorful delight overcomes the ruinous juiciness of the usual use of fresh fruit with cheese.
The platter includes either three or five cheeses, correctly contrasting in source (cow, goat, and sheep), texture, type (a blue is usually included), and sharpness. The waiters are trained to explain the cheeses and instruct the diner as to the order in which to eat them for maximum enjoyment. Just as white wines should be followed by reds, mild cheese should begin a tasting.
Cheese is the wine of the new century.
Best Celebrity Fight:
The details need not be recounted. The legal battle waged between Courtney Love and Nirvana's surviving band members, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, captivated the media this summer and created a buzz for the release of the "compromise" reached by the parties: Nirvana, essentially a greatest-hits album.
After months of petty, money-grubbing behavior on all sides, Dave Grohl finally told the press that the dispute went against the essence of what the band stood for, and that the music would remain the same no matter what happened post-Kurt. But he didn't speak soon enough to quell cries of blasphemy and a negative view of both parties.
But what these heart-wrenched fans and the repentant drummer have forgotten is that Nirvana wasn't trying to change the world. Kurt Cobain knew he was selling albums-and knew he was buying drugs with the profits-as much as he might have despaired about the system that controls the music industry. So instead of disrespecting his legacy, Cobain's widow and bandmates have simply proven him right.
In addition, the media blitz brings some great music back into the spotlight. For those in college now, Cobain was the nearly undisputed cultural icon of their formative years. The new cultural icons hardly deserve mention.
Certainly, these events will not have enough impact to change the course of the future generation's cultural orientation, at least on a wide scale, but at the least there's been some nostalgia time for the rest of us. We can reminisce again about the day Cobain died, argue again about the role Love might have played and scratch our collective head that little Frances Bean is around the age we were when we first started listening to her Daddy's generation-defining music.
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