Spring Sale 4 Cured Meats & Cheeses plus Bread Custom Gift Box

What to expect when you’re expecting cheese

In warmer months (early April to mid September), we ship cheese with two business day service plus warm weather care. We employ an ice pack and insulation defensive strategy to protect against warm delivery trucks and warm warehouses and ensure your shipment arrives in great shape. The rest of the year (late September to the end of March), the shipping method will either be flat rate service (1-4 business days) for our durable hard, aged cheeses or two business day service for our younger and more perishable cheeses.

If you see oil, that’s just moisture leaking out of the cheese. Cheesemongers call it weeping, which sounds sad, but it’s natural and there’s no need for condolences. Just wipe your wedge with a cloth.

When you open a wrapped piece of cheese that’s been closed in a box the aroma can be strong. The tight quarters don’t let it breathe well. Don’t worry. Give it a half hour of fresh air when you want to eat it

How to store your cheese

Cheeses love temperatures around 50 degrees. Don’t worry if it arrives a bit warmer or a bit colder – cheese is durable. Place it in the door of your refrigerator or in a drawer where the temperature is consistent but not too cold, ideally the spot closest to 50 degrees. 

Keep the cheese in the cheese bag it came in, which will keep it better for longer. The next best option would be parchment or wax paper. After you open the cheese for a nibble, any remainders can be put back into the bag and closed with a simple roll or fold. 

Do not freeze your cheese! Cheese is a living thing. Freezing will stop the natural processes that keep cheese so tasty. 

How to enjoy your cheese

Take your cheese out of the fridge about 20 to 30 minutes before you plan to serve it. Cheese tastes better at room temperature. It makes a world of difference: the aromas expand, becoming more complex; more of the fat spreads on your tongue, which makes the flavor more intense. When cheese is warm you’ll eat less of it and enjoy it more.

What to expect when you’re expecting bread

We ship our breads using two-day service. Each of our breads comes wrapped in a paper bread bag ready to eat for a few days, or to be wrapped in plastic and frozen for longer storage. 

Do not be alarmed if the bread seems hard or dry… our crust is the best (and only!) preservative in our bread! It’s almost magical how well it returns to that “fresh-baked” status with a little time in the oven. Crispy, thick crust; soft, chewy crumb inside.

How to store your bread

Store your loaf in its paper bag on the counter – out of reach of hungry husbands, wily wives, clever kids – for a few days. Don’t put it in the fridge, it’ll wreak havoc on the texture. If your loaf is sliced it’s best to wrap it in a plastic bag so it doesn’t dry out.

If you don’t plan on eating your bread right away, double bag the loaf–or part of it–in plastic and freeze. When you’re ready to enjoy it, remove the plastic bags and follow the heating steps below.

How to serve your bread

All of our breads are completely baked all the way so reheating is not necessary.  You can eat the bread right out of the bag (ripping pieces or cutting slices – no judgment here). If it’s frozen, you can leave the bread to thaw fully on the counter and then eat it. We only suggest that the bread will give you the “just out of the oven” experience… if you reheat it in the oven..

Starting with frozen bread? Let it defrost on the counter for 30 minutes, then follow these same directions.

1. Heat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Take the bread out of the bag
3. Throw the whole, half, or part of the loaf on the oven rack naked
4. Leave it til it’s hot the whole way through — about 15-20 minutes
5. Take time to smell the roses, or better, the amazing aroma coming out of your oven
6. Eat!

Cured for flavor and longevity

Curing is an ancient process that makes meat safe by keeping it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Most commonly, this is done by salting, smoking, and drying. When cured slowly and traditionally, these techniques not only make the meat safe to keep, they also make it extra delicious.

We don’t necessarily ship salami with ice packs. Since it’s cured, it’s healthy and happy at warm temperatures. To prolong its life at home keep it refrigerated. But hours or even days at warmer temperatures won’t harm it a bit.

You can’t have a salami without mold

Downy white mold is as essential to salami flavor as blue mold is for blue cheese. Every good salami has mold on it at some point in its life. It’s a sign the salami is aging well; the mold protects the fat from going rancid. If you’re buying one without mold it was probably washed off at some point. It’s edible, but you can also wash it off with a bit of vinegar and water if you’d like. If a little mold returns in time it’s a good sign.

Sliced to order

A whole salami keeps its integrity. It stays moist and sweet. As soon as you slice a bit off the air starts to change the flavor. We ship all of our salamis whole so the flavor stays intact. Slicing them is easy. Don’t worry about slicing thin pieces. Many salami lovers think a little thicker is better.

Don’t be mislead by visible fat

Just because you see more fat in one salami than another doesn’t mean it has a higher fat content. It often means it was ground a little more coarsely. Most good salamis are about 1/3 fat, give or take.

Smaller is bigger

Smaller salamis usually have more intense flavors. In a similar way to wine, where petite grapes have a higher skin to fruit ratio and therefore more tannins, small salamis have more rind to meat ratio, therefore the rind molds have a greater effect on flavor. Smaller salamis also expel moisture faster which intensifies their flavor.

Use your senses

A good salami has a short ingredient list with no corn syrup. It is glowing pink on the inside, but not too red (in which case it might be artificially colored). It has a sweet, porky smell with clean flavors and no chemically, powdered garlic aftertaste or sourness which is a telltale sign of a bad cure.

Like with most traditional foods, if you serve salami at room temperature you’ll get a lot more flavor than if it’s eaten cold, just out of the refrigerator.

1. First things first: What cheeses should you get for a cheese board?

The classic answer is to get a variety. Get a young soft cheese. An aged harder cheese. Maybe a blue. Maybe a goat or sheep’s milk option. That is still a safe and delicious way to go. But it’s not the only strategy.

An old vs. new world pairing is fun, too. Try two clothbound cheddars, like Cabot from Vermont and Montgomery’s from England. Or a classic Swiss Gruyère and a cheese inspired by it, like Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin.

You could expand that comparison to a trio. Try three goat cheeses, one fresh, one bloomy, one well aged and firm. Or three blues. You get the idea.

Or perhaps my favorite of all: just one giant piece of cheese. Get a four-pound hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano, stab it with the old, weird knife you’ve got lurking in the drawer.

2. Then add some accompaniments.

Pick items with a lot of flavor. When you eat something flavorful, a little bit goes a long way. I like to go for variety. I’ll start with some sweet pairings, like fresh or dried fruits, preserves, and honeys. Then I’ll add a few savory pairings, like bread, crackers, nuts, olives, pickles, or cured meats like salami or prosciutto. There’s no “right” answer as to what you should include—it’s your cheese board, so the only “right” items are the ones you like best!

3. Don’t give me the cold cheese.

Serve cheeses at room temperature. Take them out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving. I can’t place enough emphasis on this advice. A cheese at 40° and one at 65° taste completely different. The aromas expand, become more complex. More of the fat spreads on your tongue, which makes the flavor more intense. When cheese is warm you’ll eat less of it and enjoy it more. The same goes for cured meats: give salamis and hams a chance to warm up for twenty minutes and you’ll taste a world of difference.

4. Play with the plating.

All those old platters, the hand-me-downs and vintage shop finds—now is the time to use them. If they’re interesting, serve cheese on them, please. Slate, wood, porcelain, or cut glass are awesome. In a pinch you can use a big cutting board or even a cookie sheet. The same rule goes for cutlery. Bring out the strange Baroque silver, the ivory-handled one-offs, the loot that you never get to share.

As for the presentation, if you want to go all out do a quick Instagram or Google Image search for #cheeseboard. There are some crazy good Van Goghs of cheese out there, sharing their art with the interweb world. You could use those as inspiration to create your own masterpiece, or keep it simple and let folks dig right in. Either way, have fun with it!