Cheese

We have a new Greek cookbook. Sunday night we made lamb in port wine and fig sauce for my parents. Last night we made mousaka. Today for lunch I made lamb soup (from Sunday's bone) for the little boy's lunch.

A few days ago a friend asked me why I shop at Whole Foods. "What do you get there that you dont get at Safeway?" I explained that I don't think I can in good concience eat industrially-farmed meat and that the animal flesh sold at Whole Foods comes from beasts that were treated with respect. I also told him they have the best cheese department of any grocery store I have patronized.

Case in point: A few weeks ago I needed to buy some queso blanco for fish tacos. I went to Albertson's, your average enormous supermarket. No one in the store knew what queso even was, except for one old mexican man in the meat department. (Queso is a Mexican cheese.) Yesterday, I needed to buy khefalotiri for the mousaka. I talked to the woman at the cheese counter at the Whole Foods in Cupertino. (I go to the one in Cupertino more than the one in Campbell because an old girlfriend is one of the managers at the Campbell store.) I said, "Do you have khefalotiri"
She said, "Oh, I am so sorry. I stopped carrying it because so few people were buying it."
I said, "That's too bad. Is there another cheese I can use to get the same result?"
"What are you going to do with it?", she asked.
"Mousaka", I replied.
"There is something we can do" she beamed.
She came around to my side of the counter and searched through all of the cheeses and came up with a little white ball of cheese (I for got the name).
She said, "Hold on to this. It is the unaged version of khefalotiri", and I did.
Then she found another cheese, an aged sheep milk pecorino.
She said, "In mousaka you can use these two cheeses as a substitute for khefalotiri - it all melts together. Just use equal amounts of each."
Amazed, I said, "Where did you come by this knowledge? You did not learn this on the job".
She blushed and said proudly, "I went to culinary school".

This is why I love Whole Foods Market and own a tiny little bit of the company.