I love the fact that February is short.  Conversely I hate the fact that it’s yet another month that has an in-your-face holiday nigh impossible to escape unless you crawl into a deep pit.  Which I’m tempted to do, anyways, because this is also my birthday month. (Another year older but not necessarily wiser….)  Luckily I’d rather spend the next 28 days with a chipper face and not a sour face by sending story-tines – valentines by way of stories – to one of my absolute most favorite foods:  cheese.

The Story-tine:  Manchego + Truffle Oil = Better than ________ (Fill in the blank as you wish.)

The day after New Years day our neighbors held a small gathering, and we were invited.  It wasn’t a big event, just some champagne and nibbles.  Tim swears he was told to come any time after 1 PM.  We arrived around 1:30 to find that the party was winding down.  Except for a Swedish woman and us, everyone else still clustered around the appetizer table were from The Netherlands who chose Spain, as most northern European transplants do, for the sunshine and mild winters.  To our relief they all spoke at least a little English.  So, our job from thereon was to be charming – didn’t want anyone to resent the switch to the minority language just because we showed up!  As latecomers no less.

While the invitation may been for “a glass” of champagne, we were more or less treated to a bottle.  The beer drinkers among us didn’t know thirst either, and plates of smoked salmon on toasts frequently passed hands.  About an hour and a half plus several rounds of bubbly later, slices of Manchego made their first appearance.  I don’t think this was by design.  I think our hostess simply ran out of salmon but not boozers.

I’d noshed on Manchego many times before, but something about those slices on that day were notably different, and no, it wasn’t the champers talking.  Within a few bites my table manners felt the effects of an inner hungry wolf, awakened and slavering.  Triggered as such I even ate the rinds on my appetizer plate.  I usually skip the cheese rind.  But I loved that rind, almost as much as I loved that offering of creamy sheep’s cheese with its strange, heavenly-earthy aftertaste, kind of like eating a sandwich of dark chocolate covered bark and salty, slick milk.  Which might sound gross.  Yet it wasn’t.  (As evidenced by it’s storytine worthiness.)

Way, way too soon, the first and then the second platter of cheese emptied.  The gannets murmured their approval, their immense satisfaction, their longing for more.  Our hostess collapsed into a chair next to Tim, looking pleased but like she wouldn’t say no to a coma either.

This was my chance, I decided, to lure from her where she’d found that cheese – the maker, the store.  Didn’t care about the price.

Couldn’t remember, she said, except that she’d picked up from Lidl*.

Lidl!!?

Yes, Lidl, she repeated before adding -  as casually as if lint were the topic of conversation – that she’d drizzled truffle oil over the cheese after slicing it.

Truffle oil?

Yes, truffle oil, the white kind.

Remember that, I told Tim, backing up the seriousness of this order with a poke in the ribs.  He owed me this tiny tiny piece of his memory, having muddled the single most important detail of the party invitation.

Our hostess smiled.  Through her drowze she could tell that the little wolf-ette lingering too long on her patio and gnawing on cheese nubs was giving a most sincere compliment.

More About The Cheese
As mentioned, Manchego is a sheep’s milk cheese from the Castilla-La Mancha region.  True Manchego is made with only whole milk from only Manchego sheep.  You know you’re in the company of a the real deal if the round of cheese is stamped with “Denomincation de Origen Protegida” (D.O.P.) and is produced in the provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real, Cuenca or Albacete.

There are only so many Manchego sheep in the provincial pastures of Castilla-La Mancha, so in the marketplace you’ll often find “Manchego style” cheese which is produced by different sheep, possibly elsewhere but using similar methods of molding, curing, etc.  It’s good, too.  Just not as good.

Even as a young cheese, Manchego packs a punch.  Tastebud-wise, it plays very well with strong red wines, and strongly-flavored partners such as sundried tomatoes, olives and – hell, yes – truffle oil.

I used to buy it at Whole Foods in Midtown, Atlanta, although come to think of it I can’t verify if was true Manchego or the knockoff.

More Still About The (Precious) Truffle Oil
In your personal life you might have sworn off lovers who lie, cheat, or forget to pay compliments, but when it comes to truffle oil you’re going to have to respect the good intentions of its deceit.  The truth is that 99% of the time, the stuff you buy – even by mail order from Italy – is a chemical concoction and not a single nubbin of actual truffle participates in the production process.  (The New York Times did a piece about it in 2007.  See the notes below for the link.)  Unless the bottle reads Infusion of Truffle, you’re experiencing the heady effects of 4-dithiapentane, and that is what generates the essence or aroma of truffle, as printed on the bottle, 99% of the time.

I know, bummer.

However, try to not let the facts pee on the magic, because 4-dithiapentane tastes far better than it looks on paper.  Besides, you have your lucky laboratories to thank for the affordability of this enhancement-in-a-bottle that has some versatility.  It’s good for more than just tarting up a cheese course.  It will add a little something something to soups and sauces, omelettes and risottos.  All you need is a few drops.  One bottle lasts a long time.  That is unless you knock it back like it’s Sangria.

I bought my bottles of truffle oil (one essence of black truffle, one essence of white truffle) in France, but in the states you can find sources online if not in your local fancy pants grocery store.

The Asteriks:

* Lidl is a discount supermarket with outlets across Europe.  It’s like an Aldi, another european chain with a footprint in the US.

**  To read this NY Times article about truffle oils in full you may have to register.  Them’s their rules.

For as much as I love puttering in the kitchen, I’m not that good at cooking.

I can easily produce something edible, but it’s rare for me to produce something of plate-licking caliber.  God knows it’s not for lack of trying either.  Edible, however, is what tends to shake out of these kitchen sessions.  There’s no bitterness attached to this statement even though edible just isn’t good enough…if I’m being honest.

It’s obvious I haven’t a latent stash of culinary talent waiting to be coaxed out of hiding, and I can accept that.  Likewise I’ll continue to love my afternoons or evenings consumed by the promise of a new – or even an old -recipe.  But all the while I still have an entrenched faith in dogged persistence, that a sweet, fat payoff awaits:  eventually I’ll progress from mere edibles to delectables.

You have to dream in big, drippy, meaty haunches or you have nothing but watery broth at stake, to guide. And there’s no fun in that, even if you’re a vegetarian and the only haunch you can stomach is of tofu.

I was all set to devote this year to becoming a far better, more skillful, more knowledgeable cook – which sounds sort of haunchy – but as I was writing about that framework I realized that that was not “it”.

No, “it” is thicker than how deftly I can mince shallots, stickier than my defeatist attitude towards cake.  “It” is my lifelong mixed-bag relationship with food, not my aspirations for the making of food, that call out.  We have some rifts to heal and a vision for the future to flesh out, food and I, neither of which will happen if I don’t defrost the freezer they’ve been sitting in.

By chance or luck (whichever you believe in) my quarterly order to Amazon included several books* that touch on different aspects of a food relationship I’ve been quietly or nervously noodling.

There’s the Eat-better-spend-less aspect that drew me to Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy & Paul Merrett.

There’s the screw restrictive diets/sensible adoration aspect à la Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl.

There’s the global-citizen/huge-swell-of-pride aspect from knowing how to cook both seasonally AND indigenously that spurred me to explore Spanish cuisine via Seasonal Spanish Food by José Pizarro, Culinaria Spain by Marion Trutter, and The Real Taste of Spain by Jenny Chandler.

I’m pleased with these new additions to my food lit library.   I’m not so pleased by the hard stuff that lies ahead and outside their pages.  But now is the time to engage with it, because now is the time.

* Note – These links are indeed Amazon affiliate links.  If you use them to buy something, I receive an affiliate commission.  Thought I should let you know so that you don’t feel mislead.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.

In recent years I’ve explored their very opposite by spending January naming what was already good and sound from the year before, a ritual I called the 31 Days of Self-Congratulations.

Corsica, September 2008

That exercise didn’t call to me this time, maybe because it’s a very time-consuming one. Could also be that the year felt like it wound to a close mid-November when our trip to Italy was over.  And the disparities between regular life after enjoying the irregularities of the traveling life were wide and sharp, and it took me a while to recognize that this was strong stuff that would stand between me and my optimistic New Year rituals of the past.  Not to mention the lure of new ones, like the “Best Of” lists that were bell-ringers (unintentional punning) for many bloggers in 2009.

Happily, fortuitously, mercifully, relievedl-y this morning I awoke to the bright penny shine of 2010 before me with my regular life batteries recharged enough that I was thirsty to write again.

Perhaps that’s what a low-key New Year’s Eve spent in the company of your Partner-in-Life, darling dog, roaring fire, a good dinner (lamb shoulder, parsnips and carrots, and mashed spuds with gravy made from the lamb drippings) the last of the excellent box wine from Chateau Peyriac de Mer (it’s the same excellent stuff they bottle, only in a box – trust me), and fireworks we could watch from the roof of our house can accomplish.

I also awoke thinking that a new New Year ritual regarding Determinations (not the R-word nor the I-word) would be better than none.  It’s funny how sometimes with our first blink we have the answers we’ve been gnashing our teeth over for eons.  On the other hand, last night it was very windy.  Window-door rattling windy.  Part of me fancies that overnight the wind swept through me, too, clearing a path to what was so apparent today.  And why not?

1. Utilizing self-discipline some more, at least as Judith Sills defines it:  “acting according to what you think instead of how you feel at the moment. That’s the only way any of us gets ourselves to do the hard stuff.”
2. Remember who I am. One of the sore spots of 2009 was acknowledging the degree that I’d muzzled parts of myself to meet certain expectations coming from outside myself.  One example:  for the sake of giving compassion a larger role, I didn’t speak with the conviction or honesty I felt.  There are times when a soft squeak can’t possibly do the job of a lion’s roar.
3. Thank friends who I’ve leaned on in 2009, and remind them that I’m here for them, too.
4. Enjoy the higher ground…sometimes.
5. Take more walks.
6. Own what I create with pragmatism and fairness – the good, the bad, the so-so…the beautiful, the ugly, the simply plain.
7. Remember that flexibility creates opportunities.
8. To that end let myself imagine big, because holding a bigger vision for my life is not a recipe for disappointment but a recipe for innovation.
9. Since icing is sometimes crucial to a cake, believe big in those imagineerings.
10. And since even sprinkles atop icing can be non-negotiable, believe I can stand on my own two feet.
11. For the next year, write with a sense of purpose.  Even if the purpose is silliness.
12. Face my demons, Temper Temper and Between-Meal Snacks.  Fairly self-explanatory.
13. Engage with the eternal question regarding Happiness…
14. …with inquisitiveness.  Rather than panic or the feeling that the clock is running out.

Best wishes everyone.  Here’s to luck and opportunity for us all.