We have a cheese case darling I want you to know about. Just thinking about its roasted cashew, brown butter, and toasty tortilla chip flavors and velvety texture has me DROOLING. Are you drooling, too??

Tommette Brulée is the sweetheart of which I write. Several farms in the Basque region in southern France, land of excellent semi-firm sheep’s milk cheeses, produce this semi-firm sheep’s milk cheese. Then, famed affineur Rodolphe Le Meunier receives the young wheels to age for a further three or four months in his cellars. Once Tommette has reached the ideal ripeness, meaning it has a balance of all the flavors we salivated over at the top of this newsletter, Rodolphe’s fellow affineurs torch the rind to add just a touch of caramelized sweetness and a burnished look to the outside of the cheese. NOW are you drooling??

There are so many ways we like to eat tasty Tommette: snack on thin slices one after another, melt it on a piece of bread with a slice of ham and a slick of mustard, grate it into fluffy scrambled eggs for extra richness, cut it into cubes and douse in olive oil, honey and chili flakes, and/or use it in your next simple chicken salad sandwich. I’m dying, my stomach is growling, I must go eat this now for the sake of Brie, who works next to me, and I’m sure can hear that I’m HUNGRY.

For the love of cheese and tasty Basques,

Kiri

Shop Tommette Bruleé

P.S. In 2013, Tufts students collected stories and recipes from residents of the Dudley neighborhood in Boston. Check out the Community Stories – they inspired me to get out into the garden (despite my brown thumb). If you’ve got time, check out the Traditions and Recipes, too.