cheese plate at L'Espalier

Today I was treated to afternoon tea at L'Espalier by my friend Bridget.  It was such a fun experience - the ambiance was nice, the company was of course superb (Bridget, her mother, and two other friends), the tea service was great and we talked with the tea sommelier about each pot we ordered.  My favorite part, however, was the excellent cheese plate I ordered.





I enjoyed each cheese on the plate, so I want to make a note of each of them to help me remember how tasty each was, and to use as inspiration for the next cheese plate I prepare.

The cheeses were arranged in order of strength, with the lighter, creamier ones on the right in this photo, working toward the stronger, funkier flavors.  The information comes from their cheese selection menu.

• Humble Pie, Woodcock Farm, Weston, Vermont.  Cow's milk.  Mark and Gari Fischer left NYC in the 80's and learned to make cheese at Vermont Shepherd.  They have gone on to teach their craft to dozens of apprentices.  Humble pie is soft ripened, flat as a pancake, with a lush texture and buttery flavor.
• Crottina, Blue Ledge Farm, Salisbury, Vermont.  Goat's milk.  A small seasonal raw milk cheese with a lush texture and full, earthy, and tangy flavor.
• Idiazabal, Navarre, Spain.  Sheep's milk (raw).  This firm cheese is made in the mountains and is lightly smoked when the shepherds build fires in their stone huts to keep warm.
• Pecorino Ginepro, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.  Sheep's milk.  A traditionally made, well aged cheese from Northern Italy.  The rind is rubbed with juniper berry and balsamic vinegar; while the interior paste is light a flaky with a robust, buttery flavor.  Excellent with honey and fruit.
• (I forgot which cheese this is, all I can remember is that it is like comte.)
• Taleggio Reserva, Lombardia, Italy.  Cow's milk (raw).  This is a small production version of one of Italy's most popular cheeses.  It has a supple texture, smooth and creamy just inside the rind, with a small, chalkier core.  The flavor is mildly earth and a bit tart.
• Caveman Blue, Rogue Creamery, Central Point, Oregon.  Cow's milk (raw).  Another winner from Cary Bryant and David Gremmel.  The cheese is creamy and muscular, with a sweet start and pungent earthy finish.

aimee's day out

Sunshine and a high of 40 degrees (F) has never felt so good.  I rode my bike to Boston to meet up with Marie and Will at the New England Aquarium.  Thank goodness for student vouchers - ticket prices are so exorbitant that you'd think it was Sea World.  (That is an exaggeration - I just googled it and a single day pass a Sea World is $70.)  We looked at all of the exhibits, but of course we were most excited for the adorable PENGUINS!

After the aquarium we headed back (I biked, they took the train) to Cambridge to have dinner at my favorite - The Friendly Toast!  Their menu is so big, and I tried something new this time - New Hampshire scramble: asparagus and goat cheese.  So good!  I swear, everything I try there is my favorite.

I checked on google maps, and my round trip bike ride was today was about 7.5 miles.  I guess the beginning of winter is a bad time to think about becoming a super sweet biker, but I'd really like to become a super sweet biker.  Nothing too intense, but ~40 mile day trips around New England would be nice.

One more note about winter cycling - Will sent me this article about using zip ties to make snow tires.  Unfortunately it won't work on my bike because I have rim brakes, but isn't it a great idea?  My brakes are mostly useless in the winter anyway because my bike has steel rims, but the zip tie isn't able to fit between the rim and the brake.  I'll just bike on sunny days like this, and spend the rest of the winter walking around town.

Chinatown

Today Marena and I went to Chinatown for some seriously good Chinese food.  I'm sure I will never be able to find that restaurant again - and I don't even remember its name!  But the tofu... and the garlic snow pea sprouts... yum.

Tea Party

This morning Marie informed me that today is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  To commemorate the event I am drinking tea and dressed like a native American.  Not really - I'm drinking coffee, but I am wearing my moccasins.

Mr. Phil

Although it's been a few months, I'd like to post about how we celebrated Phil's birthday.

In an effort to spend less money on *things* and more money on *awesome experiences and adventures,* my gift to Phil was tickets to see Louis CK at the Wilbur Theater in Boston.

 

The theater itself was so great - right on the subway line, and it had an old, (dusty) charming feel to it.  Our seats were in the very last row of the balcony of the theater.  This was our view of the stage:

 

 And this is us.  Phil is frightened because the balcony was steep!  And didn't have a hand rail.  So we had a great view but felt like we could tumble down and over the edge if we weren't careful.

Louis is amazing. One of his jokes was him imagining the casting of the "Goodbye, Jews!" girl in Schindler's List. So good! I hope Word ends up on Netflix soon so that you'll know what I'm talking about.

That was Friday. On Saturday, I threw Phil a surprise party (a fiesta, really - there was a pinata) at our apartment. I forgot to take any pictures, but it was a lot of fun! I am still a little surprised at how well everything went, haha.

Sonia's wedding

We got kinda lost on the way to Boston... (thank goodness for Phil's iphone navigation skills!). We were almost late - but I had a chance to get a picture of Sonia right as she began walking down the aisle.

A bunch of us at the reception - Sonia looked absolutely amazing in both her Western dress and her Indian outfit!

Sonia and Chris had such a beautiful wedding, and it was great to have so many friends together for a fun evening.

(For their wedding gift, Phil and I brought two chocolate mice from Burdick, along with a gift card to the cafe.)

mojito milkshake

Yesterday we went to Haymarket and got an amazing amount of produce that was all super duper cheap: a watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, grapes, asparagus, baby carrots, avocadoes, jalapenos, cilantro, Roma tomatoes, Vermont cheddar and pepper jack for about $15. But the stars of this post are these beauties:

Limes! Eight for a dollar.

I wish I could take credit for the invention of the mojito milkshake, but I first had one at The Friendly Toast, one of my favorite restaurants around town. But the milkshake I had there was so subtle, I would almost call it vanilla. My creation was anything but subtle - in fact, it was almost tinted green: the juice of one lime, about ten leaves from my mint plant, vanilla ice cream, and milk. [I didn't have any rum on hand, but that would have been a fun addition.]

This is what summer tastes like.