Cheese, Book, Restaurant, Thing #7
A new urban creamery, marrying ketchups, dreamy fish & chips, great bamboo plates
Hi there!
Cheese: I only recently found out about the existence of Perrystead Dairy, a sustainable urban creamery in Philadelphia, which opened in the very food-forward neighborhood of Kensington. After reading the cheese descriptions, I immediately ordered some cheese.
Intergalactic reminded me A LOT of La Tur so naturally I devoured it and did not share it. While it lacked some of the goat-cow-sheep complexity of La Tur—Intergalactic is made from exclusively cow’s milk—it’s a very impressive cheese, especially considering it’s only been in existence for a year. It’s ripened for two weeks, giving the rind that super soft wrinkly texture I tend to gravitate to when choosing cheese. There’s a very evident lactic tang as well. Loved.
Treehug’s description gave off Harbison-meets-Rush Creek Reserve vibes, which were rather accurate. Like both of those cheeses, Treehug is wrapped in spruce bark and has a super creamy spoonable inside. It’s a little less mustardy than Harbison, but still rather superstar-worthy. This is a cheese you want to eat deliberately, in which you bring it to room temp (or bake it!) and go to town.
The Real Philly Schmear: Good cream cheese, like labneh but even tangier.
I’m super psyched about Perrystead.
Book: Jennifer Close is a keen observer of personalities and habits. Her new novel Marrying the Ketchups is ostensibly a story about a Chicago restaurant family and what happens when the patriarch and matriarch aren’t around to keep the family together anymore. But really, the book is full of piercing snippets of 30 and 40-somethings trying to act like adults when sometimes (oftentimes?) they just don’t want to. Close succeeds in having the reader both empathize with and criticize all the characters’ choices because hey, we’re all just flawed humans trying to get by.
Also, there are some great restaurant scenes.
Restaurant: The covered and excellently heated patio at Rooster & Owl in DC was a welcomed respite from the legitimately frigid and super rainy Saturday we had this week (in May no less!). The four-course menu offers four choices per course… meaning if you go with four people you can try every single dish. This was the right move; while there were definitely highlights, there were very few lowlights! If I was to go back on my own, my perfect order would be:
Octopus ceviche with red onion, avocado, passion fruit vinaigrette. The octopus was just the right level of chewy, with chunky pieces of the above accouterments that blended beautifully together.
Monkish with IPA batter, spring aioli, Granny Smith, chili-lime vinaigrette. The fish & chips of your dreams.
Lamb ribs with pomegranate, peanuts, green goddess. Probably everyone’s favorite dish of the night. Very tender lamb. The tenderest.
Chocolate panna cotta with birch namelaka, morello cherry. A controversial choice because everyone had a different dessert favorite, but I appreciated the super silky yet thick panna cotta. PS “Namelaka” means smooth/extra creamy in Japanese and can take you down an Internet pastry rabbit hole should you so desire.
While the menu isn’t cheap—$75 for four courses but going up to $85 in June—Rooster & Owl does feel like a worth-it semi-special occasion dinner. Spot-on service, good drinks, overall fairly flawless actually. Is it a restaurant I will be dreaming about for years to come? Probably not. Would I return as the menu changes? For sure.
Thing: After admiring the designs of these Xenia Taler bamboo plates for several years, I finally bought a mix-and-match set of six. I love them! They weren’t that expensive! I don’t know why it took me years! They are dishwasher-safe!
Have a great week,
Carey