I open the door and the sweetest of aromas envelops me. It's warm and cozy inside on this winter day, and there are charming artisanal products all around. Red onion jelly, pastel pink petit fours, imported Italian pastas. And taking up the entire back half of the store, the glorious display case from which the perfume emanates, where hundreds of beautiful cheeses strut their stuff for the drooling customers.
I am slightly obsessed with the South End Formaggio. Everything about it is so delicious! It's always packed with customers who are deeply interested in the product, the staff of cheese mongers can find you the perfect match for any event, taste, or whim, and their case is filled with cheese you can't find anywhere else in town.As someone who has a serious weakness for cheese (I may hold the record for youngest person alive to test for such high cholesterol I needed to be put on a cheese-restrictive diet as a toddler) I can drop a lot of cash at South End Formaggio. My personal favorite at the moment is Stichelton, an English blue made from unpasteurized milk whose importation is a bit restricted in this country, that goes for $30/pound. This is not the type of thing you
sprinkle on a salad. I typically don't even dumb it down with a cracker, just slice off bite size pieces to melt on my tongue. I was going to take a picture of the block I'm eating right now to share with you, but oops! It's all gone.
Get to South End Formaggio by taking the Silver Line to the East Berkeley stop and walk a block down to Shawmut, and two blocks west until you see the sign or smell cheese. While you're in the neighborhood, walk a few blocks further to get to Flour Bakery for dessert. Their sour cream coffee cake merits a whole post of its own...
Shropshire Blue. Find it. Love it.
ReplyDeleteIt's cheap. It's delicious. It's all you'll need to turn a standard white sauce into a delectable cheese sauce.