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Opening a restaurant is almost always a leap of faith braced by groundless courage. It’s a risky business at best so when I read this article in the Independent about an all-cheese restaurant struggling in London, England, I felt sorry for the owners but also kind of mad at them for being so foolish as to put all their curds in one cheese keeper. After all, if opening a restaurant is high risk, then opening a sit-down restaurant devoted to one food group is really risky (fast food restaurants which sell all plastic food are another matter entirely).

It’s a misnomer that everyone likes cheese. A frequent commenter on this blog is a cheese naysayer, for instance (you know who you are Adrian).

Besides folks like this reader, there are loads of other people with lactose intolerances and a few others with dairy allergies so it seems like the kind of restaurant that should only have small tables since you’d likely never invite a huge group of mixed tastes to such a place.

That said, for cheese lovers like me, L’Art du Fromage restaurant sounds like heaven. I love to cook with cheese! As frequent visitors here know, I’m a devoted homemade mac ‘n’ cheese lover. However, this time of year I usually leave the noodles in the pantry and use cheese to top salads instead.

How do you use cheese most often in spring and summer? Do you eat cheese on its own as a snack or do you incorporate it into recipes more often? Or, are you like Adrian and shun cheese?

According to an Ipsos Reid and Dietitians of Canada survey, which polled 2201 Canadians, local food preferences vary across the country.

British Columbia: fresh vegetables
Alberta: beef
Saskatchewan & Manitoba: corn
Ontario: apples
Quebec: cheese
Atlantic Region: lobster

Although I’m an Ontarian and do like apples, for me Niagara peaches are the local food that makes me weak in the knees. Ditto for wonderful Fifth Town and Monforte cheeses. What local food do you love most?

For years I’ve mooned and sighed as I leafed through my British food magazines eyeing the halloumi recipes, wishing I could get that heat resistant, yummy cheese here. Especially evocative were peppery arugla salads with lemon-laced dressings topped with golden slices of semi molten cheese – I salivate just typing such descriptions!

Finally, the halloumi trend has come to Canada. Imported halloumi is turning up at supermarkets more often, but even better, this trend has inspired local cheese makers such as the Upper Canada cheese company (that’s their grilling style cheese called Guernsey Girl pictured above) to get in on the action, too.

Besides being a great topper for salads, grilled slices of cheese are delish on sandwiches and burgers, too. So many possibilities!

What ingredient do you wish was more readily available in your area?

I long ago ceased associating Valentine’s Day with romance. Besides the fact that it’s my mom’s birthday, being married to a chef means I’m a restaurant widow each and every February 14th, too.

Even when we try to celebrate this hallmark holiday on an alternate night we’re thwarted. The last time we got into the Valentine’s Day spirit, our son was about 4 years old. We decided we should share a bottle of champagne together in our double sized Jacuzzi tub. Candles were lit, glasses were clinking and just as we were leaning in for the first kiss, I caught a glimpse of our son out of the corner of my eye. I guess the sound of the jets had woken him up since he was hustling down the short hall between our bedroom and bathroom pulling his pajama top over his head as he exclaimed, “Hey, you guys takin’ a bath?” Not only did he join us in the tub, he slept in our bed that night, too. Believe it or not, that Valentine’s Day celebration is the most memorable I have!

So, since I can’t bear to give you directions for making a smarmy recipe like coq au vin for two, I’ll give you some advice for creating a lovely cheese platter. After all, what better day of the year for cheese than on this, the uber cheesiest day of the year?

• Go to a good cheese shop where the people who sell the cheese really know about it.
• Select 3 to 5 small (about 2 oz/60g) pieces of cheese so that you can create a nibbling platter that has a lot of variety in flavour, texture and colour without having a year-long supply of cheese to finish up later.
• Since you don’t plan to have leftovers, pre-portion the harder cheeses into bite-size pieces so that they are easy to enjoy.
• Although you can choose to buy a number of cheeses made from different kinds of milk (such as goat, sheep, cow) to create variety, if you know that you and your date like one kind of cheese more than any another, why not buy as many different kinds of that cheese as you can? For instance, if blue cheese turns your crank, choose a pungent Stilton, a creamy Gorgonzola and smoky BC Blue Haze. You can find just as many differences in Cheddar, Brie and Pecorino cheese, too.
• Serving a B.C. or Spanish wine? Follow this theme through with your cheese selection by selecting cheeses from the area where the wine was made, too.
• Keep the crackers or bread fairly plain so that the character of the cheese can really be the star of the show.
• While plates and cutting boards are good choice for displaying cheeses, take a chance. A lightly oiled banana leaf will add colour and elegance to the presentation. Likewise, try lining a serving tray with natural or white parchment and arrange the cheese over top for a fun presentation.

Will you treat your Valentine to a special meal, dessert or snack in honour of Valentine’s Day? If so, what factors will influence what you choose?

Baked apple recipes that combine sweet and savoury elements are popping up in recipe books and on menus more often. Served as either a side dish for dishes such as pork chops or ham or as a combination dessert and cheese course, these identity challenged little morsels add an interesting twist to home entertaining menus, too.

Here’s a “trendy” recipe you can try out on your friends and family:

Cheesy Stuffed Baked Apples

4 Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup (50 mL) softened butter
1/3 cup (75 mL) lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) each dried cranberries and chopped walnuts or pecans
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) shredded aged Cheddar cheese
Sauce:
1 cup (250 mL) cranberry or apple juice
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp (15 mL) brandy
1 tsp (5 mL) butter

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Core each apple, leaving the bottom intact. Cream the butter with the brown sugar and stir in the cranberries, walnuts and 1/2 cup (125 mL) of the cheese. Divide the mixture evenly between each apple, packing it gently into the cavities.

2. Arrange the apples in a 9-in (23-cm) round cake pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until tender. Transfer the hot apples to a deep serving platter and sprinkle tops evenly with remaining cheese.

3. Set the hot baking pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat. Add the juice, cinnamon stick and brandy and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until the pan juices are reduced and slightly thickened. Discard cinnamon sticks. Whisk in butter. Drizzle sauce over the apples on the platter. Makes 4 servings.

How do you feel about sweet and savoury baked apples? Hit or miss?

Just when you thought you knew cheesecake, this approach — which transforms a wedge of Stilton cheese into a gourmet, easy-to-make appetizer — emerges and turns that idea upside down.

I originally created this recipe to go with a gin infused Caesar (no, it’s true – they really taste very good together) for the Mott’s Clamato folks. But it’s also super delish served with port or a fruity red wine.

Whenever I serve this ‘cake’ it becomes a real conversation piece, so I highly recommend it for parties where a lot of the guests might not know one another.

Caramelized Onion & Stilton “Cheesecake”

Ingredients:
10 oz (300 g) wedge Stilton or other blue cheese
1 pkg (6 oz /175 g) brick-style cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp (30 mL) 35% whipping cream
3 tbsp (45 mL) caramelized onions
2 tbsp (30 mL) chopped dried cranberries
1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp (10 mL) finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground black pepper
Crackers, melba toast or sliced baguette
Grape clusters, fig wedges or raspberries

Method:
Cut the Stilton in thirds to make three equal layers. Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually beat in the whipping cream until cheese is fluffy.

Divide cream cheese mixture in half; stir one half with the caramelized onions, cranberries, parsley, rosemary and pepper. Chill for 15 minutes. Use this mixture to “frost” between the Stilton layers to make a triple layer cake. Clean around the edges. Lay the cheese on its side on a serving platter.

Frost the top and back edge of the wedge with the reserved cream cheese mixture; loosely tend with plastic wrap. Reserve in the refrigerator until ready to serve, or for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before serving. Serve with crackers, Melba toast or baguette. Garnish the plate with fruit. Makes 18 servings.

During the Canadian National Exhibition I was invited by the Dairy Farmers of Canada to come and visit their All you Need is Cheese experiential kitchen and tasting area. Besides getting to eat a whole lotta cheese made with Canadian milk, I also got a chance to interview DFC spokesperson Anne-Marie Shubin who told me that the number one question people ask her is “how should I store cheese?”

Well, if you’re one of those curious people, here are Anne Marie’s tips for storing cheese:

1. Resist over-buying. Once cheese is cut it won’t get better with age and freezing cheese always diminishes its texture.
2. Wrap soft cheeses, which have living rinds, first in parchment paper or foil and then in plastic so that there is some oxygen available to keep the rind alive.
3. Wrap firm cheeses in plastic wrap and change the wrap frequently so that mold growth is discouraged.
4. If you discover a few millimetres of mold growing on your cheese, it’s perfectly safe to cut it off; however, before cutting it up to eat, clean your cutting board and knife and discard the wrappings.
5. Always wrap blue cheeses well and store them in separately from other cheeses to prevent their pungency from changing the flavour of the other cheeses in your refrigerator.
6. It’s safe to bring cheese to room temperature before you serve it but make sure it is wrapped so that the surface doesn’t dehydrate.
7. If cheese has been at room temperature for 3 hours or more, it should be discarded.

How many kinds of cheese do you usually have on hand at one time? Is there one kind of cheese that you simply have to have at all times?

In the “why didn’t I think of this?” category: Unwrap and roll mozzarella cheese!

What a fantastic idea for making cheese appetizers all your own. These sheets of mozzarella are perfect for filling with all kinds of yummy stuff. While serving the entire filled log is a terrific way to show off your cheese creativity, I’d love to try placing a thickly-sliced spiral of one of these filled cheeses on top of a toasted piece of bread to soften and warm, too.

I haven’t found a store in my area that sells this tricked out cheesy goodness, but I’ve got money in my pocket reserved to buy a pack or two as soon as I find it!

As soon as I find some, I’m going to fill one with nutless arugula pesto, roasted red peppers and chopped kalamata olives. What would you roll up in this cheesy wrapper?

Also, have you see any clever new food products lately?

I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve been told by a PR flak that “fondue is back!” (except that they usually say it in capital letters!) Seriously, it must be a claim made at least every two years if not more often. Regrettably, the only thing that usually supports a news flash that fondue is back like it’s 1971 again is that an appliance company has put out a new fondue pot and it’s trying to sell lots of them. Then, some poor, tired and overworked food editor succumbs to these self interested messages and prints a story about how fondue is back in fine form. Bridal magazines are particularly apt to write such stories.

I had long given up on fondue ever really becoming more than a wish as a trend until I was at the IACP Conference in Denver earlier this month and saw Peggy Fallon’s new book: Great Party Fondue. Peggy may just resurrect this trend not because she has great PR folks (although I’m sure she does), but because Peggy actually reinvents fondue in healthy, appealing ways that make even a jaded old naysayer like me want to break out the dipping forks. Many of her recipes are cheesy and traditional but the recipes that could bring fondue pots out of the pantry closet and onto the dining table are her veggie based fondues that basically take the appeal of soup and make it into a concoction you can’t resist dipping into again and again.

When’s the last time you had fondue? Did you make it at home or have it when you were a guest?

I eat all kinds of cheese in abundance but Cheddar cheese holds a special place in my diet. In fact, it’s not only one of my favourite foods but one of my favourite ingredients as well. So, when I got an opportunity to hang out with an artisan cheese maker for an afternoon, I was pretty excited!

My old friend Ruth Klahsen (she was one of my instructors at the Stratford Chefs school) is the owner and chief cheesemaker behind the much-acclaimed Monforte cheese company. She hooked me up with Rachel Bauman, one of her cheese makers, so that I could learn a little more about how my favourite food is transformed from liquid to solid.

While I learned enough to write a full-length article, one of the most fascinating tidbits I gleaned from Rachel is how cheese makers control mold growth when making the cloth bound Cheddar pictured above. Once the cheese curds are pressed into a form to make a wheel of cheese and it has drained for a while, the cheese maker coats each piece all over in lard and then wraps it up in cheesecloth. The mold you see on the outside of the cheese above is essential to develop delicious, sharp flavour; however, it must be kept in check. That’s where the lard comes in. It’s the food that the mold eats so that it doesn’t affect the cheese undesirably. Neat, huh?

What’s your favourite cheese? If you had to choose just one cheese to commit to for the rest of your life, could you?

In related news, check out this warning posted earlier this week on The Kitchn. Hearing about crappy tactics like this one make me love honest cheesemakers like Ruth and Rachel even more!