New Year's Eve '09

Call me a late adopter, but I'm glad to get a post filed before I'm more than a decade behind the times.

I've got a great cheese course planned for the NYE celebration tonight at Bar Bambino. I'll be serving two rather unusual Piemontese cheeses, Tronchetto al Miele and Maccagnette alle Noce e Farina al Mais, both to be paired with a light, honeyed Moscato d'Asti. The Tronchetto is a fluffy, log-shaped, honey covered goat cheese, while the Maccagnette is a rather strange, semi-firm, tangy, cows milk cheese, covered in corn meal and studded with walnuts.

If I do say so, it is a great pairing, and nicely treads the fine line between the end of main course and the beginning of dessert. Which brings up one of the more pervasive differences between American and European palates; at the restaurant, cheese is always (well, 99% of the time) ordered along with other preliminary snacks (olives, bread, salume, etc), consumed before the salad which "begins" the meal. In the French/Europen tradition, salad, cheese, and dessert all follow the conclusion of the main course. Is this why European meals traditionally run longer than American ones? It does make a bit more sense for the progressions of wine; the salad course is a light, refreshing, change from a potentially big, full red wine, and resets the palate to enjoy the more delicate flavors the lighter wines that go well with cheeses and sweets.

At any rate, I'll be serving some great cheeses towards the end of the meal, and with any luck, there will be enough people interested to make my night worthwhile. At the very least, hashing out the details of the pairing with our Becky Pezzullo, Beverage Director was enjoyable, and has given me high hopes for the monthly course of Cheese and Wine talks that we'll be resuming in the Spring.

May you have a happy '10, full of (among other things) good cheeses and appreciative friends.