Pimento Cheese, If You Please

 

Food history is a funny thing, cause once grandmothers get involved, no one minds fudging the truth for a good tale. Take pimento cheese. Today we all think it's an emblem of Southern cooking--heck even Wikipedia suggests its nicknames are the "pâté of the South," "Carolina caviar," and "the caviar of the South."

Turns out mashing together pimento peppers and a soft cheese started in the northern U.S., only to make its way to a hundred southern variations by the middle of the 20th century. Arguably every family had their way, using or eschewing mayo, zipping it with more spice, subbing in red bell peppers--cheaper, more available--for pimentos (also spelled pimiento to further muddy the recipe waters). Starting the 1940s it became a thing at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, GA, its orange glow almost as famous as the winner's green jacket. It's still a thing there today, for a mere $1.50 a sandwich. That's another attraction of the spread--it could be made cheaply, if people so desired. You don' have to gussy it up like the James Beard-winning New Orleans cocktail bar Cure with Hooks 2-year cheddar. (That version is delish, though.)

All that prelude is to get us to Birdie's, hoping to take the pimento cheese market by storm. The founder of the company, Robin Allen, loved the snack as a child. As an adult, she and her husband Glenn owned their own printing business together for 25 years, and were considering trying their hand at something different.

As the website puts it: 

A revitalization grant brought a farmers market to the Allen’s home of South Hill, Virginia; and soon after catching the market bug, Robin and Glenn came up with a plan to sell three flavors of pimento cheese--just for one day--at the market, just to see what it was like. Turns out, they loved everything about it. The town of South Hill, VA paved a clean path for Robin and Glenn to get their pimento cheese inspected and their business established, and after that first day--making new friends over pimento cheese, feeling the thrill of the sale, and selling out all 30 tubs of cheese they had in stock--Robin and Glenn had a hunch that this might be their next life. A few months later, they sold the printing business and started making Virginia’s pimento cheese full-time. Birdie’s Pimento Cheese was born.

The basic recipe is the standard cheddar, mayonnaise, cream cheese, pimentos blend. They keep the cheddar in its shredded state, not doing a full whip and mix, that makes it a bit more homestyle and hearty transom variations. (Yep, even the texture is a matter of family tradition, locale, and taste preference.) What truly makes Birdie's stand out is they offer a series of variations on the basic blend, and those shine and sing--especially the Garlic Parmesan and Jalapeño in the photo, offered along with pita chips for fine buffet skimming at a friend's recent birthday fête. They certainly know how to add flavor yet keep things in bright balance. Other options include Cream Cheese + Black Pepper, Smoked Gouda + Roasted Red Pepper, and seasonal varieties. 

Note, their site also offers all kinds recipes--whipping it into your mac and cheese, slathering it on hot dogs, bringing cheesy goodness to an egg salad sandwich. It's hard not just eat it "raw" though, if you ask me, with the help of your favorite cracker. Or finger, if no one's looking.

(It's only available in northern California stores right now, but you can order online.)

An Easter Poem

Sirecz Song

In my mind there was a “d” in it

but that might be because it

dangled just like that

from a dowel stick as its whey

dripped dry.

Easter might have meant

resurrection, but in the basement

it was about farmer’s cheese,

part of the Sunday feast after

a fasting since Friday.

My mom would hang it there

and tell me to keep away,

but still I’d never

resist a poke or two

at its settling goo.

Something about Slovaks

always takes the delicious

and dials it down,

as if there’s danger

in that much pleasure.

So imagine milky scrambled eggs

hung to dry. That’s sirecz,

looking like a bland brain

sliced for Easter autopsy.

I’d risk trying to stomach

it again to have my mom

and Baba back, full knowing

the first thing they’d do

is chastise me for the faces

I’d make trying to get it down.

A Tickle of the Taste Buds

You get to both eat and drink in the wonderful World of Pinot Noir. Take a gander at the photo above, one of the two seminars from last year's fest, matching Pinot with mushrooms. (I promise the "he's a Funghi" title was not mine, despite how I love a pun as much as delicious abalone mushrooms over a braised beef short rib.)

This year, the food seminars deal with cheese pairings, featuring Sophie Boban-Doering and Paul Doering of Fromagerie Sophie in SLO, and with chocolate pairings, featuring the ridiculously talented Jessica Foster.

I'll get to some interviews with both, but I found this photo and figured I had to share.

WOPN'S Big Cheese

People do not live by Pinot alone, and that's why there's cheese. World of Pinot Noir knows that, so in addition to all the other fine Bacara food one can nosh on for ballast, for taste, just for the heck of it, Santa Barbara's beloved and somehow 13-year-old C'est Cheese has a giant station for both the Friday and Saturday main tastings.

"It’s so great to see peoples' faces light up when they see that there’s this huge cheese display--we bring over 200 lbs. of cheese!" says Becca Iglesias, catering manager. "It’s even better when they have that magical moment of discovering a new cheese for the first time. I don’t think there’s a more perfect pairing than cheese & wine…and we get a front row seat to people learning and enjoying that experience."

Of course, pairing cheese with a lighter red like Pinot can be a bit tricky--just ask the people arranging the Saturday morning seminar Myth-Busting: Pinot, Cheese, and Chocolate (you can get tickets for that, too, and will hear more about it soon). "Part of the fun of pairing cheeses with wine (or anything, really), is that everyone’s palate is different and it’s interesting to see that play out," Igelsias explains. "When selecting the cheeses, we try to show the versatility of pairing cheeses and wine by including a large range of varieties including some classic fan favorites (Ewephoria, anyone?), some stronger flavors like Camembert, and even bringing in new cheeses that we haven’t carried before (like this year’s Chabrin*). The goal is to let people try and experiment with lots of different cheeses to discover what they like best with what particular wine."

*A really old recipe Basque goat cheese with nutty notes

C'est Cheese has been more than pleased to be part of the Pinot-centric experience, for Iglesias says what they most love is "the people! Always the people. From all sides of it. The WOPN crew are all fantastic to work with, as is the Bacara staff. The wineries are all great and it’s just a really good time. And, of course, the guests. Seeing familiar faces from past years, both near and far, and getting to share and talk about what we do and love is about as great as it gets. It’s such a great little community and we feel honored to be a part of it!"

Perfect Pairs for Valentine's Day: Wine + Cheese

Since Valentine's Day is all about pairing up and then spending too much money to celebrate that fact, talking about pairings might be a good way to prepare you for the holiday. Since one of wine's best food mates is cheese, I turned to the experts at Santa Barbara's C'est Cheese, owners Kathryn and Michael Graham and their staff, for some advice. And since love is a many splendored thing, I asked them for a series of pairings that might reflect some very different love stories. And remember, even after a stinky cheese, love means never having to say you're sorry.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Grazing Acres

I'm one of those people not good at planning menus day in advance (no, that's not a missing "s" typo), so that means I tend to end up at a store each evening prior to dinner. I like to flatter myself and pretend this is some European way of living, stopping at the market for whatever's fresh, but I know it's just bad foresight on my part. As a westsider, this means I end up on the Mesa most evenings at Lazy Acres (sometimes we even walk, which is uphill both ways and makes you feel very worthy of a second drink with dinner).

Now, this isn't going to be a review of the store, but I do want to focus on one thing they do, sort of, and that's the issue--cheese samples. I'm all for them of course, for if I were offered the choice of never breathing again or never consuming cheese, I'd take a moment to think that through and perhaps sigh with my very last breath happily scented of fromage. The problem is their teasing nature, at least at Lazy Acres. For often by even 7 pm, which doesn't seem too too late to me (but then again I keep flattering myself to be Europeanish), the pickings are completely picked over. There are a couple ways to solve this dilemma: the one I prefer is, keep stocking up that cheese. The second, get the set up for the samples put away the minute they're finished. I don't want my time in the store to be the equivalent of a teasing peep show.

Alas, it's not just the store that could do things differently when it comes to the samples. The Felix Ungar in me (and does that name even signify for 50% of the population any more? who is this generation's televisual neat-freak?) frets that people might not understand the unspoken toothpick code, and confuse the pick-up and discard spots, even with the discard looking like a mini-garbage pail. But I tend to get over that qualm but thinking, "Yum, free cheese!" The other part is the public might not be worthy of samples for they don't understand that "sample" doesn't mean "how many cubes can I shish-kebob onto my toothpick?" No wonder the samples run out so quickly--it's possible some people build a whole cheese course from the options each evening.