It’s October, Provisioneers, and that means everything is getting a little colder and quite a bit spookier. What that means for the foodie set is that there’s candy everywhere and you want some. Not all that’s sweet is candy, though, and anything here at Mongers’ Provisions is fun sized if you know how to have fun.
We actually have a wealth of sweet cheese in our case, all of which is less guilt inducing than killing half a bag of mini Milky Ways. First, from the goat cheese whisperer at Andante dairy is their Tomme Dolce: a beautiful little goat tomme that’s been washed liberally with June Taylor’s delectable blackberry conserve and develops a lovely sweet, salty, and goaty character as a result.
We even have a remarkably sweet blue cheese from our friends at Point Reyes; their Bay Blue. It’s a drier blue with a lot of little salt crystals buried within that compliment the sweetness and cause it to burst a little in the taster’s mouth. Like the Gusher you found between the couch cushions from last Halloween and couldn’t just throw out. The cheese is intentionally moldy though.
We even have a case of the most candy-like cheese this monger has personally encountered. Brunost (brown cheese) is a Norwegian specialty made from carmelized whey (goat’s and cow’s in our case) with some cream added to give a more firm, cheesy, and sliceable texture. Norwegians will have it with sour apples to make their own cheesy caramel apple experience.
As for the chocolate, this is the perfect time to disregard percentages, origens, and other pretensions and just grab something sweet and tasty.
Nothing could be more perfect for this time of season than Omnom's Black 'n' Burnt Barley bar; a white chocolate that appears to be just the opposite. Once you get past the ravens "nevermore"-ing at you from the packaging, you will find this white chocolate has been turned jet black by activated charcoal. I can't think of anything scarier than a chocolate bar with an ingrediant that might give you cancer eventually maybe.
Also, a personal favorite of this monger is the Fruition Dark Milk with Flor de Sel; a beautifully salty dark milk chocolate. Fruition in upstate New York is generally unconcerned with bean-to-bar orthodoxy and does extra things to make chocolate tasty; like adding vanilla. It makes this one more candy-like than some of our more self-serious bars.
Finally, if you anticipate having a bunch of little vegan ghouls and goblins running around the neighborhood this Halloween, Vietnamese chocolate makers Marou have you covered with a lovely coconut milk chocolate. It's one of the few vegan things in the store.
That's our sweet stuff for October and, if you're a paleo or sugar-free person, you can come in, grab a %100 cacao bar, and hunker down for the month.
-Zack "Socks" Rovinsky