June 2007

June is Magical and Mysterious at Zingerman's Deli
Zingerman's has taught me to appreciate the importance of simple quality ingredients. You can't make good cheese from bad milk. It's a message that makes good intuitive sense. A few weeks ago I realized for myself just how quality ingredients can make a difference. I was at home using Calder Dairy's heavy whipping cream. Calder Dairy is the little third-generation dairy located in Carleton, Michigan. Their 90 dairy cows provide the milk that Zingerman's Creamery turns into classic cheeses like the rich Manchester, the peppery Bridgewater, and our famous cream cheese. (And for a limited time this month, the popular Sharon Hollow, but more on that later.)

A few weeks ago I was in a bind. I had planned to make a Lemon Meringue and needed some heavy whipping cream but my local grocery store was already closed for the night. I ran over to Zingerman's Next Door and talked to the barista who sold me a quart of Calder Dairy's Heavy Whipping Cream that we keep on hand to top hot cocoas.

I went home and started the recipe. I put the cream in the fridge and a metal bowl in the freezer. My girlfriend, Jessica, was over, and since we are both sort of dorky about food, we were excited to make the whipped cream. We both really like to whisk. There is something magical when you can see the transformation of a thin liquid into a foamy solid. I poured the thick cream into the bowl. Jessica had to leave the kitchen for a moment. I promised to leave her some whisking and I started. With a swoosh swoosh the metal tines cut through the froth. In thirty seconds the cream was noticeably thicker and rising. Jessica was back in the room within one minute (I timed it) and by then I was all done whisking. It was completely set up to hard peaks. I've never seen anything like it. The cream just jumped into a whip. Jessica could have been a little upset that she didn't get to whisk, but one taste smoothed over the situation — it was easily the richest, yet airiest whipped cream we ever tasted.

That experience has stuck with me for the last few weeks. Good, quality food is all around us, and has almost magical properties. Magical — and mysterious. I don't know why the cream behaved like that. Maybe it was the fact that the milk is super fresh, straight from the dairy and not trucked across the country. Maybe it's because the cows are treated like royalty and get a full, balanced and nutritious diet. Maybe it has something to do with Calder Dairy's insistence on keeping their herd entirely free of growth hormones. Maybe it's because this really passionate family stands up for the quality of their food. It's probably a combination of all these things.

This month we are featuring foods that have these same principles — they are exceptional because they have really simple ingredients. They are made by people who are passionate about quality and taste. And they are made using steps that are a little different and a little magical. And they were chosen by our staff who are also passionate about taste — June is staff favorites month at the Deli.

Let's start with the Sharon Hollow from Zingerman's Creamery. Cheesemaker John Loomis uses Calder Dairy's milk to make these rich creamy little cheeses. Available only this month! Sharon Hollows are spiked with black pepper. They are a great spring cheese. They dissolve into a creamy sauce if mixed in with pasta. Firm enough to use in a salad but soft enough to spread on bread. John's not-so-secret secret? After the milk has separated into curds and whey, he hand-ladles the curd into the cheese forms. This means leaning over the tub of curds with a kitchen ladle, scooping out a spoonful of curd at a time. A faster and easier technique would be to pump the curds into the forms. But hand-ladling is way more gentle and keeps the delicate curds from breaking up and losing flavor and texture.

The Sharon Hollow is the perfect example of a fresh cheese. It doesn't really get better with age. Our Swiss Hoch Y Brig on the other hand needed a little while to grow up. It's aged to mature perfection by Rolf Beeler. Rolf Beeler is an affineur, a cheese-ager. He finds the best young cheeses in Switzerland and ages them in special cheese caves to bring out all the nuances. Beeler has been described in Swiss tabloids as "the Pope of Cheese" and the Hoch Y Brig certainly tastes divine. It's an Alpine cow's milk cheese, styled sort of like a gruyere, but smaller in size and a little bigger in taste. The subtle process of hand-aging a cheese is on display with the care Beeler takes — he washes the outside of the cheese with white wine. It's a perfect melting cheese as well as an eating cheese.

An interesting meat pairing with the Hoch Y Brig might be the Sopressata Abruzzese from Columbus Salame. The Columbus Salame Company, based in San Francisco, proudly identifies as a bunch of "old-fashioned, passionate perfectionists." The company started in 1917 with two brothers who cured the salamis in their apartment, moving them around and opening and closing windows as temperatures changed throughout the day. Now the salamis are all aged in a more controlled environment, but they still remain hands-on. Sausages are hand-tied, and the coarseness of the grind of meat is judged by sight, not by a computer. The Sopressata Abruzzese is a coarse ground pork, spiced with fennel, paprika, red pepper flakes and a little wine. Hopefully we'll have enough to last all month — last week someone came in and bought 15 pounds of this one. We'll slice it thin or thick, or sell you a whole one.

The cheeses and meats are all about taking great ingredients and turning them into great food. Olive Oil takes this to an entirely new level. It's the rawest least processed food we sell. In general, the less you do to an olive and the faster you extract the oil, the better the olive oil. Even the smallest bruises or delays in pressing can spell ruin. Eric Martin makes a Provencal olive oil that is so barely processed that he is practically bottling the essence of Provence. While the rest of Provence seems enamored with converting land into wine grapes, Eric carefully cultivates his olives and produces a rich buttery oil that finishes with a gentle pepperiness. Trying this unfiltered oil side-by-side with some of our other oils is a great way to really taste the different flavors that can be teased out of an olive.

As a child I remember raspberry vinegar as one of the first "fancy" vinegars I ever tasted. It tasted sweet and syrupy. I didn't really like it, but it seemed special. I learned recently that most of the fruit vinegars out there use a cheap vinegar and then just stir in a dash of fruit syrup. There isn't a lot of magic there at all. Taking the opposite approach is our Acetorum Fig Vinegar. It starts life as fresh fig juice which is carefully converted into wine in Italy. It is then sent to Germany where Robert Bauer slowly and naturally converts it into vinegar. The process, unlike most others, and devoid of any wine grapes at all, is akin to distilling the essence of figs into a smooth and refreshing vinegar. It's intense enough to drip over salmon and smooth enough to sip as an aperitif.

Everything I've talked about so far is made up of just a few really simple ingredients. Then there is the wild fennel tomato sauce from Torre Saracena. It's made up of A LOT of really simple ingredients. Fresh Italian tomatoes, olive oil, salt, wild fennel, garlic, — all the basics needed for a good pasta sauce. They're all combined and slow cooked to create an instant sauce that doesn't taste like it came from a jar but from a real Italian kitchen. Try it on top of our Latini spaghetti — I can't imagine a better way to bring the rustic beauty of Italy into your kitchen.

It's the magic of food and the passion of people behind the food that keeps it so exciting for me. It's the sea salt you add to chicken soup that turns it from flavorless thin water into a delicious panacea. It's the heavy cream that can't wait to turn into whipped cream. It's Calder Dairy and their traditional milk. It's John Loomis and his crazy cheese ladling. Come by the deli this month and get a taste of that magic and passion.

In magic and mystery,

Jess Piskor
Deli Scribe and cheesemongar