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Behold, the power of cheese!
Mar. 14th, 2007 01:23 amOne of my lovely and well-traveled co-workers just returned from a visit to the Big Apple, bringing with her a gift of the gods (by way of Zabar's). Upon request (and the outlay of a sum of simoleans), she brought back the epitome of delicacies, the pinnacle of epicurianism---she brought me NOKKELOST.
No doubt, most of you poor souls are blinking and wondering What the hell is this madwoman raving about?!
It is cheese. To be more specific, it is an exquisite, rare cheese from Norway, produced by only a handful of farms. My dad's parents were Norwegian immigrants, and food and cuisine from the Old Country were what I grew up with at extended family gatherings.
You can't find it around here for anything, and it's my favorite (non-chocolate) food substance in the world. I haven't had any in nearly a decade, and I'm so delighted I'm waxing poetic, rhapsodizing about rennet and chortling about curds. To say, it's a *little* like Swiss cheese is to damn it with faint praise. Although they're both firm, Swiss cheese is full of holes where the cheese should be, and isn't laced with spices! Nokkelost is flavored with cloves and caraway seeds and it's a more mature cheese.
In the morning, I shall perform the sacred ritual: I will begin by bringing the omelet pan to the proper temper to vulcanize eggs. I shall procure the ancestral cheese slicer, and with due reverence, shave wafers from the mother block as two jumbo eggs, well homogenized with a couple tablespoons of chicken broth, achieve a puffy consistancy in the pan. When I have gleaned a sufficient quantity of the precious cheese, I will flip the large eggy mass, and bless it with nokkelost. Covering the pan, and removing it from the heat, I will give the glorious union a moment to become truly divine. Then, I will gently transfer it to a large plate and consume it reverently while making noises that would probably be embarassing if anyone else heard them.
It also makes damn good grilled cheese sandwiches...my preference is to marry it with a nice seeded rye bread with a smidgen of dijonaise or a not-too-sweet honey mustard. Heaven!
Blasted Lent! If I weren't trying very hard to adhere to my vow of no overnight eating, I would doubtless be having a very early---or late, depending on how you look at it---breakfast.
__________________________
"Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese." ~ Benny and Joon
No doubt, most of you poor souls are blinking and wondering What the hell is this madwoman raving about?!
It is cheese. To be more specific, it is an exquisite, rare cheese from Norway, produced by only a handful of farms. My dad's parents were Norwegian immigrants, and food and cuisine from the Old Country were what I grew up with at extended family gatherings.
You can't find it around here for anything, and it's my favorite (non-chocolate) food substance in the world. I haven't had any in nearly a decade, and I'm so delighted I'm waxing poetic, rhapsodizing about rennet and chortling about curds. To say, it's a *little* like Swiss cheese is to damn it with faint praise. Although they're both firm, Swiss cheese is full of holes where the cheese should be, and isn't laced with spices! Nokkelost is flavored with cloves and caraway seeds and it's a more mature cheese.
In the morning, I shall perform the sacred ritual: I will begin by bringing the omelet pan to the proper temper to vulcanize eggs. I shall procure the ancestral cheese slicer, and with due reverence, shave wafers from the mother block as two jumbo eggs, well homogenized with a couple tablespoons of chicken broth, achieve a puffy consistancy in the pan. When I have gleaned a sufficient quantity of the precious cheese, I will flip the large eggy mass, and bless it with nokkelost. Covering the pan, and removing it from the heat, I will give the glorious union a moment to become truly divine. Then, I will gently transfer it to a large plate and consume it reverently while making noises that would probably be embarassing if anyone else heard them.
It also makes damn good grilled cheese sandwiches...my preference is to marry it with a nice seeded rye bread with a smidgen of dijonaise or a not-too-sweet honey mustard. Heaven!
Blasted Lent! If I weren't trying very hard to adhere to my vow of no overnight eating, I would doubtless be having a very early---or late, depending on how you look at it---breakfast.
__________________________
"Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese." ~ Benny and Joon
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