Passionfruit Butter

When I first moved to Providence to start school, I was beyond pleased to discover Farmstead, a perfectly suitable stand-in for the St. James addiction I’ve fueled here in NOLA. In fact, my first official purchase as a college student was $30 of cheese — an ashy goat’s milk, a triple-cream Brie, and (a favorite to this day), Ewephoria, a desserty, pun-tastic, hard sheep’s milk cheese that tastes of caramel and bliss in a Gouda-like package. Farmstead (and its acclaimed restaurant, La Laiterie) is deservedly well-respected, and since this first romp, I’ve kept up with cheesemonger Matt Jennings on Twitter as he crafts crazy-delicious things like chèvre chocolate truffles and what appear to be bacon-wrapped pork meatloaf sandwiches (heaven help me). Whoever doubts Providence is a food city would rescind their cynicism upon entering this prolific pocket of savory dairy goodness. I never got the chance to have a sit-down meal at La Laiterie, but I’ll be hitting it before the back-to-school shopping bonanza begins, if I have any say in the matter.

All of this should do something to explain my unbridled delight when, on my birthday this past March, my darling friend Harry presented me with a modest brown paper bag that belied the smorgasbord of cheeses inside, which he’d picked out for me at Farmstead. They were all excellent (no, but really) and Ewephoria was even part of the selection, but it was this Roaring Forties Blue that captured my heart. I’d wear it in a locket if I could.

Because it’s made with cow’s milk, this blue cheese has a mild taste compared to more pungent sheep’s milk blues like Roquefort. That said, it still has a very full-bodied flavor: sweet, almost brown-buttery, honeyed. It’s creamy and moist, and its aftertaste doesn’t at all conjure images of musty, moldy caves and injected penicillin (images that, call me crazy, don’t quite work up my appetite). Instead, it is sumptuous and just a tad fruity, with a lingering richness that’s more cheesy than blue-y. Its mellowness makes it an ideal (if decadent) match for picnics in stolen shade now that we’re in the throes of lazy summer, but I also want to spread it on toast, spotlight it in a pasta dish, eat it with fruit, take it everywhere… Yeah. About that locket.