A Celebration of Chefs and Others

When you enter the door at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store - the greatest cheese store in the U.S. of A. (419 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210), the first friendly face and voice you see and hear on your left will always be that of Cheese Wiz Sebastian Robin Craig working behind the counter like a whirling dervish -  unless he is jetting off to the cheese caves of Roquefort, France for a tasting; or Stockholm, Sweden to compose more jazz (go to iTunes for his latest CD “Volition”); or just kicking back and learning Russian.

Who knew from Mexico whilst being brought up in the Monopoly board burbs of Southern New England in the fifties?  It seemed a very distant land – exotic, fantastic – as foreign and far away as California.  The word Mexico called to mind jumping beans, dancing with sombreros,  "Z's" slashed midair,  Cisco and his humble sidekick Pancho galloping away, Pancho Gonzales slamming a tennis serve, Speedy Gonzalez slamming a cat — a lot of really speedy stuff.  It's no wonder I thought the Mexican peoples only ate fast food.

I was growing up in the miraculous new age of instant gratification grub.  Chinese food, pizza, take out burgers, and foods hunted and gathered from pouches and frozen boxes were America's new staples. New sorts of consumables were purchased by my parents weekly. I recall my first corn products off a cob – daffy yellow corn chips crunched hand over fist in front of the television console, lumped into a large category called  "snacks."  Anything one ate away from the dinner table and consumed mindlessly, endlessly, with no silverware, that soiled your fingers and "ruined your appetite" was a "snack."  So when I visited California in seventy-two and experienced Mexican food at a party for the first time,  corn chips dipped in a tasty chartreuse paste, it continued to seem "snack,"  and not to be taken seriously.

I think there is a certain cautious thrill in serving dishes that are so out of style – so out of our contemporary taste aesthetic, that it may very well surprise and delight the senses. (On the other hand, it can also make for an early evening.)

This Dione Lucus recipe for Apple Soup with Camembert Cheese Balls offers such an opportunity. Taken from her The Cordon Bleu Cook Book, published 1947, it offers an excellent change of style and taste, and how can one go wrong with fruit and cheese – even as a soup!

Sometimes we stumble upon books or products we just have to share. The Military Wives' Cookbook is a fascinating read on so many levels and the meals created are both delicious and timeless.

It is a collection of recipes, anecdotal stories, soldiers' letters home and vintage photographs tracing the history and unique contributions of American military wives. It recreates the scenes and foods that showcase the commitments and sacrifice that military wives have given the nation for more than two hundred years, beginning with the American Revolution.

The recipes are broken down into special events and daily menus, such as The Country Brunch. The entry for Strawberry Butter Spread begins with the following letter:

"An officer made me a miniature churn with a bottle and a little wooden dasher put through a cork. We were at the time marching each day farther and farther into the wilderness, but occasionally came to a ranch where there was a little cream...and as I sat under the tent-fly after we made camp, it was soon transformed into butter in the toy churn." -- Libby Custer