There are a few really delicious localvore options if you’re a denizen Whole Foods. We’ll just keep posting them as they come up. It’s hard to rank them, so this is in no particular order (P.S. we’re not cheesemongers, so we use words like “awesome” and “badass” to describe the subtle terroir, etc. of the cheeses):
• Great Hill Bleu Cheese (Marion, Ma).
Badass raw milk bleu cheese that we like on greens, just crumbled. But drop a few crumbles of this into a couple spoonfuls of mayonnaise and blend a bit and have a really simple, yummy bleu cheese dip.
• Ascutney Mountain Cheese, (Hartland, Vt.)
Aged Alpine style cheese (think comte or gruyere) from Cobb Hill Cheese. It’s outrageously good. Like, beyond caring that it’s $20/lb. good. Just buy a sliver as a treat and don’t ruin it with water crackers. We served it with green olives that had been marinated in olive oil, chopped garlic and a whole lemon cut and squoze. Alternate mouthfuls of olive and cheese and some good, soft/crusty french bread.
• Real Pickles Stuff (Greenfield, Ma)
Real Pickles makes sauerkraut, Kim chi, and regular old dill pickles. First, know that this is the real, raw deal. It’s not pickled in vinegar or pasteurized to death. It’s vegetables and salt, like every culture since the dawn of time has made to preserve food and make it more nutritious. Until you taste sauerkraut in this form, you haven’t lived. We eat sauerkraut straight up and like animals, standing at the open refrigerator door with a fork in the jar.
• Mendon Creamery Butter (Mendon, Ma)
We buy the maple butter and eat it on English muffins. But they make regular ole butter, too. I tried calling them, but they mysteriously never answer the phone or return calls. But they make good butter.
• Vermont Butter and Cheese, Co. Stuff (Websterville, Vt.)
We ALWAYS have this goat cheese in our house. It’s especially good on everything, but extraspecially good in softly cooked scrambled eggs.
Tags: Cheese