Lately Libby and I have been indulging a new culinary interest: cheese! I've always loved cheese, and so has Libby, so it's a great new hobby to explore. Though, I'm not sure eating can be a hobby. Can it? I kind of hope so.
We've always eyed the cheese island at Stater Brothers as we passed by on the way to the produce section every week, but we'd never actually stopped to get something. After some amazing Brie at Timothy's wedding, though, we realized just how spectacular the possibilities could be, so we've finally broken down and started sampling some of the rather limited options.
One of our first experiments was with Camembert. We picked it for its similarity to Brie, and it does have a similar texture and appearance. However, it's quite a bit stronger. Our variety was probably pasteurized, making it less than authentic, and Libby wasn't a big fan, and I also felt it didn't measure up to a quality Brie. This is a cheese we may want to try again, but not too soon.
Last week we were looking for another soft cheese, and browsing through Stater Brother's selections we found a soft cheese called Port Salut that looked interesting. It's a soft cow milk cheese with a bright orange rind. It's paradoxically quite pungent with a really mild flavor profile. We really enjoyed this cheese.
After we finished that, we found we had pretty much exhausted the options for soft cow milk cheese at Stater Brothers, so we decided to go with Gouda. We've gotten Gouda before, but we weren't totally impressed because we were looking for smoked Gouda to match up with Libby's happy memories of eating it for breakfast in England. When we saw that some of it was like 60% off (almost to the sell-by date) at Stater Bros, there wasn't any doubt we'd be trying it again!
It turned out to be a very strong, well aged Dutch Gouda. It's a firm and waxy cheese with a dark rind and small bubbles. It's a pretty intense flavor; it's sort of bitter, sharp with what some describe as a caramel sweetness. We enjoyed it with a Cabernet Sauvignon which was a very complimentary accompaniment.
I think I might add cheese postings to our limited repertoire of posts here on the blog. We'll see how the wind blows and the cheese ripens.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Biola Spring
This year Biola dedicated a new park on campus. They went in to the relict olive grove on the east side of campus, pruned it, built some trails, planted some benches and native grasses, and installed an enormous bridge across the creek. It's made the grove much more accessible than it used to be, and a lot of people are going there to enjoy the pleasant California weather under the shady boughs of the olives.
I like to spend a few minutes there during lunch, most days, myself, to enjoy the dappled sunshine and bubbling bird song. Common Yellowthroats and Song Sparrows sing from the reeds accompanied by the soft mournful calls of Nutmeg Mannikins, while Lesser Goldfinches, Bushtits, Yellow-rumped Warblers and female hummingbirds twitter in the canopy. I try to block out the strident chorus of House Sparrows from the nearby houses.
A female Yellow-rumped Warbler perches in a bush in the creek bed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/3361308925/in/set-72157615404913693/
Last week I brought my camera out to document the March bloom of wildflowers. When they seeded the park, they must have seeded the creekside, too, because the opposite bank was rich with California blooms. Under the trees, however, there aren't any flowers except a few Dandelions. The flowers were pretty short-lived, unfortunately, and they've now mostly been overwhelmed by other plants and some really hearty dandelions, but their short duration of their beauty merely serves to emphasize, not diminish, it's power. After all, isn't the fleeting nature of spring one of its manifold charms?
I like to spend a few minutes there during lunch, most days, myself, to enjoy the dappled sunshine and bubbling bird song. Common Yellowthroats and Song Sparrows sing from the reeds accompanied by the soft mournful calls of Nutmeg Mannikins, while Lesser Goldfinches, Bushtits, Yellow-rumped Warblers and female hummingbirds twitter in the canopy. I try to block out the strident chorus of House Sparrows from the nearby houses.
A female Yellow-rumped Warbler perches in a bush in the creek bed.http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/3361308925/in/set-72157615404913693/
Last week I brought my camera out to document the March bloom of wildflowers. When they seeded the park, they must have seeded the creekside, too, because the opposite bank was rich with California blooms. Under the trees, however, there aren't any flowers except a few Dandelions. The flowers were pretty short-lived, unfortunately, and they've now mostly been overwhelmed by other plants and some really hearty dandelions, but their short duration of their beauty merely serves to emphasize, not diminish, it's power. After all, isn't the fleeting nature of spring one of its manifold charms?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/3361328355/
I've added all the pictures to a new Flickr set: Biola Spring.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Update!
It's been awhile since we posted here. I'm not sure why. I have started a couple of posts that I didn't feel happy enough with to publish, and I've also felt a little bit of a blogging-related malaise. What's the point?
If part of the point is keeping people who don't see us very often, but may be interested in what's going on in our lives updated than here's an update to satisfy the obligation!
This March is a bit of a drag for Libby. She isn't taking a class at Biola, anymore, but work is pretty exhausting. It seems like most of our energy revolves around her classroom.
Work is par for the course for me. Nothing too interesting is going on.
I've read a few books. I aborted a post about Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead. That was a very good Christmas present from Gabe and Emily. It was an interesting reflection on the experience of prisoners in a Tsarist siberian prison camp largely based, to the extent that he didn't even really change some of the characters' names, on his own time in Siberia.
I also just finished both of Flannery O'Connor's novels. It's hard to make sense of Flannery O'Connor, but she is without doubt a talented and thought-provoking author. The books themselves are incredible and really hard to describe. If more American Christian fiction was published along those lines, it would shake up some stereotypes!
Finally, we're also involved in a time consuming project in the local hills surveying remnant populations of coastal Cactus Wrens. Cactus Wrens have suffered a lot from habitat destruction and the recent fires, so the Nature Conservancy is sponsoring a region-wide effort to learn about their status and begin a long-term monitoring strategy for the birds.
We volunteered, and so we have committed all of our Saturdays to the birds for awhile. The plan is to map cactus scrub habitat on acetate overlaying Google Map satellite images. After getting all of the patches in our region mapped, we'll revisit them every couple of weekends through July. The reality is that mapping the cactus patches is a lot of work, and can be pretty difficult because of the surrounding vegetation and terrain. It's still fun, most of the time, though, and we're getting to know the local hills a bit better.
It turns out they're designed mostly to hurt and annoy people who venture off of their trails. Buyer beware!
If part of the point is keeping people who don't see us very often, but may be interested in what's going on in our lives updated than here's an update to satisfy the obligation!
This March is a bit of a drag for Libby. She isn't taking a class at Biola, anymore, but work is pretty exhausting. It seems like most of our energy revolves around her classroom.
Work is par for the course for me. Nothing too interesting is going on.
I've read a few books. I aborted a post about Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead. That was a very good Christmas present from Gabe and Emily. It was an interesting reflection on the experience of prisoners in a Tsarist siberian prison camp largely based, to the extent that he didn't even really change some of the characters' names, on his own time in Siberia.
I also just finished both of Flannery O'Connor's novels. It's hard to make sense of Flannery O'Connor, but she is without doubt a talented and thought-provoking author. The books themselves are incredible and really hard to describe. If more American Christian fiction was published along those lines, it would shake up some stereotypes!
Finally, we're also involved in a time consuming project in the local hills surveying remnant populations of coastal Cactus Wrens. Cactus Wrens have suffered a lot from habitat destruction and the recent fires, so the Nature Conservancy is sponsoring a region-wide effort to learn about their status and begin a long-term monitoring strategy for the birds.
We volunteered, and so we have committed all of our Saturdays to the birds for awhile. The plan is to map cactus scrub habitat on acetate overlaying Google Map satellite images. After getting all of the patches in our region mapped, we'll revisit them every couple of weekends through July. The reality is that mapping the cactus patches is a lot of work, and can be pretty difficult because of the surrounding vegetation and terrain. It's still fun, most of the time, though, and we're getting to know the local hills a bit better.
It turns out they're designed mostly to hurt and annoy people who venture off of their trails. Buyer beware!
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