I spent most of last year working on a documentary about the food system, zooming for hours every day with chefs, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food producers across the country as they struggled to deal with this new reality. One of the most thoughtful people I spoke with is cheesemaker Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farm.
Those of us who love cheese — and eat a great deal of it — are rarely aware of how much cheesemakers depend upon restaurants. Chefs were the driving force behind the explosive growth of the American cheese industry over the past 30 years, and chefs were the ones who kept the cheesemakers in business. When restaurants shuttered, cheese sales slumped.
Like many producers, Jasper Hill pivoted to direct sales to customers, but early on things were so bad that they sold their herd of cows. It wasn’t merely to save money on the care and feeding of their animals; it was also to keep their neighbors in business. Jasper Hills’ mission is to create a “taste of place” for Vermont, and they rely on their network of farmers.
I’m a big fan of Jasper Hill and everything they stand for. With restaurants once again threatened, this is a good moment to eat more cheese.
If you’re curious about the title of this issue of La Briffe, Clifton Fadiman famously described cheese as “milk’s leap to immortality.” Such a great line!
Not a great piece of writing, but I couldn’t resist this little reminder that you could once get a five-course meal for $6, along with a $3 bottle of wine.
How to Make Better Poundcake
I’ve always admired the simplicity of poundcake. The name comes from the recipe, which was originally a pound of butter, a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and a pound of eggs. It’s a versatile cake that is not only delicate and richly delicious, but also easily adaptable. You can serve it with berries and cream, make it into trifle or toast it and serve it with jam. You can eat it for breakfast or for dessert. On top of that, poundcake improves with age. It’s not just easy, but also easy to improve. Here’s how.
Have all your ingredients at room temperature. Cold ingredients do not blend evenly.
Use good sweet butter with a high butterfat content. I also prefer cultured butter (like Echirre or Plugra), which impart a wonderful complexity of flavor.
Beat the butter very well in a stand mixer — at least five minutes — and add the sugar slowly. Then beat some more. Keep scraping the bowl down.
Add the eggs one at a time. These are your major leavening, so you want to incorporate as much air as possible. I like to beat each egg for two minutes before adding the next one.
Use cake flour — it will make your cake more tender.
When it’s time to add the flour, remove the bowl from the mixer and do it by hand, gently folding the flour in. Stop as soon as the flour is incorporated into the butter and egg mixture; at this point you don’t want to overmix.
If you want a beautiful crack down the middle, use a smaller loaf pan (which means you will need to bake your cake a little longer). When the cake has been in the oven for 10 minutes and the top is just starting to form a crust, dip a sharp knife into melted butter and quickly draw it lengthwise down the middle of the cake. It will form a perfectly picturesque crack.
Poundcake
8 ounces sweet butter
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
Preheat your oven to 350. Butter a 9x5 loaf pan.
Beat the butter at high speed in a stand mixture until it is fluffy and starting to look white, about 5 minutes.
Slowly add the sugar, a bit at a time, and keep beating, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula from time to time.
Add the first egg and beat for a couple of minutes. Add the next egg, beat, and then the next until all the eggs are mixed in. Scrape down the bowl often.
Add the vanilla and remove from the stand mixture.
In a separate bowl whisk the dry ingredients together, and then quickly fold them into the butter mixture by hand.
Pour into the buttered loaf pan and smooth the top.
Put into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove, butter a sharp knife, and use it to draw a line lengthwise down the middle of the top of the cake.
Bake for about an hour (it might take ten minutes more in a smaller pan). A toothpick should come out clean.
Let rest on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out of the pan and allowing to completely cool on a rack. If you’re going to keep it overnight, wrap well in plastic or foil.
Click HERE for a printable recipe
I’ve been lucky enough to have an early copy of Marion Nestle’s forthcoming memoir. Unlike Marion’s other books, which look at nutrition from a scientific and political viewpoint, this one is personal. Completely candid, it is a shocking and eyeopening account of what women once had to put up with in academia. There have been moments when I’ve wanted to hurl the book across the room.
But as I was reading I was surprised to discover that Marion has enjoyed a long friendship with Bay Area restaurateur Narsai David. That made me go scrambling through my menus to see what I could find. Narsai’s opened in 1972, just a few miles from Chez Panisse, but different in every way. It was what we thought of as a grown-up restaurant: elegant, Continental and rather formal, with an astonishing wine list. The list is far too long to include here, but I’ll mention a few gems from the 1984 list.
1953 La Tache, $490
1960 Latour, $145
1953 Margaux, $285
1961 Pape Clement, $140
1971 Gruaud Larose, $41
1978 Stag’s Leap, $35
1970 Heitz, $88
1961 Y’Quem, $350
Milk's Leap to Immortality
I'm excited to work that pound cake recipe! Nothing better than a perfect pound cake
I live in California and am now inspired to see if any cheesemakers on this side of the country need direct customer support. You've done a service by highlighting them.
I was one ☝🏻 f 4 waiters in 1981 at Inn Seasons and have 2 memorable shares that happened on the same night!
Our extremely narcissistic chef, just before service began asked, no demanded, that I run around the corner to Cafe Venezia on University and Grove ( now MLK) for 2 cups of sugar for a last minute dessert to prepare on that nights menu for a special guest. When I handed the container with Chefs request, the Cafe Venezia sous chef gave me a rye smile, a wink and went into the kitchen larder returning with what looked like, a full container of borrowed sugar. I returned to Inn Seasons and handed over the sealed container of “sugar” to the Chef. Hours later as I was the waiter waiting on our special guest, Katherine Hepburn, in town performing a play in the Bay Area. I got to see The great Katherine Hepburn spit out her dessert in a most regal way and then handed me her cloth napkin she had spit up into and said, “you might want your chef to taste the dessert you served me before serving it to anyone else” with a wink and a smile. 🤣