When Boston’s food lovers around town see fresh mozzarella on their favorite menus, there’s a good chance Lourdes Fiore Smith had something to do with it. The daughter of Italian immigrants has cheesemaking in her blood, and supplies handmade mozz, burrata, and mascarpone to some of the area’s top restaurants (think Oleana, Beacon Hill Bistro, and 51 Lincoln). When Chowder learned that Smith was joining Chef Jody Adams at her monthly cooking class at Rialto a few weeks ago, we jumped at the chance to see how she makes curds and whey.

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Good news for avid home cooks (and folks whose appetite for high-end eats exceeds their dining-out budget): three new gourmet shops have come to town.

In Union Square, husband and wife team Ben Dryer and Karen Coughlin recently expanded the space next to their popular Sherman Cafe to include the newly opened Sherman Market, selling locally-grown goodies and other household staples. As the store’s been open for only a couple of weeks, the  shelves will be stocked “as they go,” says manager Jodi Malone, and already feature a selection of New England cheeses (heavy on Vermont), B&R Artisan Bread, homemade jam, and milk and produce from local farms (delivered by fellow local entrepreneur Metro Pedal Power). Many of the farmers and artisans sold at the market have long supplied Sherman Café, Malone says, so the market is simply making use of these existing relationships. Our favorite feature? Sherman Market will sell herbs in smaller bunches, putting an end to our sad practice of throwing out shriveled yellow bunches of unused parsley.
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There’s a special potluck supper in Hell reserved for food bloggers of the indulgent, navel-gazing variety. Fastidious diarists, they can be counted on to chronicle every single morsel they eat, smell, bake, nuke, ponder…regardless of the interest, even potential, of any sort of audience. These “I Ate a Cheese Sandwich Today” bloggers give food blogging a bad name. It’s almost enough to make Chowder go on a diet.

But Chowder ate an egg sandwich today, and before you click outta here, here’s why you should care: First off, it was fantastic. (more…)

Road trippers, rejoice! The next two months bring arguably the most pleasant driving conditions we get all year in New England (crisp, refreshing temps in the high 50s to low 70s) and, by mid-October, the most stunning visuals anywhere (brilliant-hued, leaf-shaped eye candy).

It’s also just about this time that once a year, every year, the brilliant-hued notion dawns on local foodies to take a gastronomic day trip to some farflung restaurant. Noble plan—if only the target weren’t the same tried-and-true restaurants every time.

To demonstrate that there are journey-worthy culinary destinations beyond the excellent Fore Street in Portland, ME, and Simon Pearce in Queechee, VT, Chowder put pedal to the metal to come up with new and exciting (and appetizing) alternatives that probably aren’t on your radar yet, but should be.

Every Thursday, for the next six weeks, Chowder counts down the best new foodie road trips, starting with No. 6 and working our way up to No. 1—which will be revealed in the November print edition of Boston.

Let the countdown begin. (more…)

Until now, Brookline craft beer fans have been somewhat puzzled by the arrival of Publick House Provisions. The retail arm of the beloved Publick House—the Washington Street mecca for microbrews, obscure European suds, and comfort food—promised fancy cheeses (a la Formaggio, but smaller-scale), gourmet packaged goods, incredible beer-appropriate glassware, and a vast selection of bottled beer to go.

Problem was, they couldn’t procure the retail liquor license they needed, owing to (surprise!) local blue laws that prohibit the owner of a sit-down watering hole from also selling beer to go. Though DailyCandy promised back in April that the beer would be arriving soon, the cold cases stood empty for months, while the Publick House’s lawyers hit the books. (Check out manager Jamie Hios’ plea for support on Beer Advocate; after all this headache, methinks these Brookliners—Brooklinians?—deserve a tall one.)

Thankfully, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. (more…)

There was a time when I considered driving tours little more than field trips for grownups—who, presumably, should have worthier, more-grownup things to do. That outlook was bred from my growing up in the heart of Kentucky’s bluegrass country: Blessed with both legendary horse farms and notorious bourbon distilleries, its back roads play host to an ant-line of tourists who keep slowing down to either ogle a few million dollars on the hoof or simply let the boozy vapors of the car’s occupants dissipate a bit, or both. It’s hard to grasp the allure of such pilgrimages when you’ve been jaded by grade-school outings to Wild Turkey and Maker’s Mark. (Possibly the racetrack, too.)

As an adult, though, and especially as an adult living in New England, I find I’m as big a sucker as anyone for these things. Pub crawls, wine loops, diner treks, even (gah!) foliage tours—I’ve done them all. And now along comes The Vermont Cheese Book by Ellen Ecker Ogden (The Countryman Press, $19.95), and I discover a whole new reason to get out the map and gas up the car. (more…)

Last week, at a Chef’s Collaboriative lunch meeting, I sampled two fantastic new cheeses from Massachusetts. The first, from Fiore di Nonno in Lexington, is a cow’s milk burrata, a fresh mozzarella “purse” filled with fresh cream.

How to best convey the pleasure of eating burrata…of biting through that tender exterior and releasing a pool of creamy goodness? Go to the 0:55 mark of this video for a good illustration. Or at least, that’s how I felt. (more…)