Murray’s

Italian Plum Oatmeal

The idea of a natural sweetener isn’t a concept that resonates particularly well with my family. “Can you pass the Equal?” “Is there a Splenda?” These are words you will hear often if you ever eat with my mother or grandmother. And when I put that brown “raw” sugar packet in my coffee? I may get scolded with: “Why do you have to use sugar? It’s fattening!”

The Return of CHEESE FOR DINNER (with Heidi’s Oat Soda Bread)

You may remember May 12, 2009 as the day in history when I served cheese for dinner. I wrote a post about it called Cheese For Dinner and 47 of you left comments because you were so shocked and disturbed by the idea. Cheese for dinner? How can you eat cheese for dinner?

Actually, most of you had the opposite reaction. “I love cheese for dinner!” one of you wrote. So, last week, traipsing through Murray’s Cheese on my way back to the apartment I decided to revisit the concept. I picked up two kinds of cheese, a box of salad greens and a pear from the bodega close by and prepared myself for the return, the return of CHEESE FOR DINNER.

Cheese For Dinner

Murray’s Cheese is often celebrated as the best cheese shop in New York. Frequently I walk past it and wonder, “If I go in there, what will I buy? And how can I make a meal out of that?” I’m very meal-oriented when I food shop: I usually ignore long-term ingredients like high-end oils and designer vinegars in favor of short-term ingredients like vegetables and meats that I can put to use right away. And with cheese, there are very few short-term things you can do with it, in terms of making a meal, that I find satisfying. 1: you can make mac and cheese; 2. you can…? See my point? So the only reason to buy cheese is if you want to keep cheese around long-term to snack on. But I don’t shop for long-term snacking, I shop for meals. Which is why, the other night, walking past Murray’s, I had a provocative thought: what if I served cheese for dinner?

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