Party Time

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us (and wasn't it just the best? I love Thanksgiving!), the holiday parties will be in full swing. I'm pretty sure I'll eat too much, drink more than I do the whole rest of the year combined, and fetch up in January feeling both happy and fat. I never seem to learn moderation at the holidays.

Here's one reason why. Medjool dates spritzed with fromage blanc and topped with an almond. I first tasted these when My Beloved and I last went to the Marin farmer's market. The Date Lady (I'm sorry, I don't remember her name) was giving these out as a sample of why one should purchase her dates. Her sales technique worked - we immediately hunted up a bag of raw almonds and some Bellwether Farms fromage blanc to go with the fat package of dates we bought from her.

I decided to take these to our pal Sari's cheese tasting party. I cut the dates in half, spooned the cheese into a cookie press with a decorative tip (you could use a pastry bag just as easily) and squeezed out a little pfffft of cheese at one end of each date half, then placed an almond in the other end. The dates are slightly sticky, so it all stays neatly in place.

Sweet date and tangy cheese flood the tongue with conflicting flavors, leaving behind the crunch of the nut for texture and yet another mellow flavor. I intended these to be a dessert but they were mostly gone before dessert was even dreamed of. It was party time, and moderation is something best practiced in January.

Ingenue vs. Siren

We've been having plain sliced peaches for dessert for weeks, which is not exactly a hardship, I admit, but we liked yesterday's black and white dessert so much that I decided to try a riff with peaches.

I used the same Bellwether Farms fromage blanc to fill the middle of halved, pitted peaches and they were delicious as well as deliciously easy.

Note that some of these peaches are darker than others - those are the rest of the smoked peaches we made a few days prior. My Beloved and I can't decide which we preferred - the smoked or the fresh peaches. Both were equally delicious, but quite different.

The fresh peaches and the fresh cheese are naturals together - simple, straightforward in a no-nonsense, stand-up kind of way. The smoked peaches were softer, slightly sweeter, more complex, darker, if you know what I mean - the difference between a light romantic comedy and a film noir drama (with a happy ending).

Black and White Dessert

Velvety black mission figs stuffed with fromage blanc from Bellwether Farms make a great dessert on a hot summer evening, sweet and savory in the same bite. Eaten on the deck with a view and a light breeze, it may not be heaven but you can see it from there.

It was easy, quick and pretty. All I did was halve the ripe, sweet figs and arrange them on a plate, spoon a generous amount of fromage blanc into a sandwich size plastic bag, cut off a tiny corner of the bag and twist, squeezing the cheese into the corner and out onto the figs.

Easy as falling off a log but I didn't tell My Beloved that.