Today's Forecast: Cheese Degrees Fahrenheit

During the hottest summer days, retailers generally see a significant decline in customer traffic and cheese consumption. At the shop, even the weekends became a manageable trickle of customers when warmer weather arrived. Same goes for farmers markets. Though warmer spring weather brings more products, vendors and traffic, the crowd begins to thin again as the summer mercury inches beyond the temperature sweet spot.

Once a threshold is breached, people just don't seem to want to rub their swollen paws and sweaty face all up in a slimy piece of cheese. To make matters worse, everything smells more ripe in the summer -- public restrooms, garbage cans, sidewalk pee. Odorous cheese nubs wreaking of wet earth or dirty sock don't strike a chord when hunger strikes.

Temperature, however, will never beat up on my allegiance to dairy. Until the day that I die, I'll eat ice cream when it's 10-degrees outside and cheese when it's 100. Yet, even I have to modify slightly when it gets too hot. If you listen to your biological need for cheese...and to me...you'll find there is a way for all cheese lovers and friends to enjoy cheese on a hot day.

In the warmer months, I tend to gravitate towards light cheeses. Fresh cheeses like chevre or burrata are a popular option for the summer. But cheeses with a little age on them can be refreshing as well. St. Maure, for instance, can have a little flavorful bloomy-mold-funk that is partnered with a mild citric tartness reminiscent of summer flavors. Even though the heat can easily turn soft cheese into a puddle, either young bloomy cheeses or un-aged fresh cheeses with higher moisture levels will leave less of an astringent saltiness on the palate. Because who wants the sensation of licking a salty armpit when it feels like you put your face into one as soon as you walk out the door? 

One of my favorite refreshing cheese treats for the summer is mixing fresh berries with fresh cheese. A bowl-full of whole-milk ricotta with honey and berries is a standard favorite. But I can do you one better with Barilotto + berries and honey. Barilotto is a young, pressed, buffalo milk ricotta made from the re-heating of the whey remaining after a buffalo mozzarella make. It's brought to us dairy nerds of America by Casa Madaio in Italy, who give us some of the best Italian cheeses you will find stateside. You should seek out their cheese whenever possible. 

Barilotto is light, smooth, moist, slightly sweet and spongy. It's whey-based so it doesn't bring the same heavy creaminess as whole-milk ricotta; and it's buffalo's milk which is naturally lactose-free and sweeter. When you douse it in raw honey and strawberries, you've basically got a deconstructed (somewhat healthier) cheesecake having a party on your tongue. And, trust me, there ain't no party like a cheesecake party...