smoked salmon

On thin slices of NorthWest sourdough heated briefly in the small convection oven with avocado and cumin, and less prominently but no less significantly, tomato, capers, shallot, and cream cheese finished with pepper and sea salt.

This is very good, yes, it always is, but I would rather this wonderful sourdough was less obfuscated with competitive flavors. This would be just as good on plain ordinary baguette, maybe better, because then you wouldn't have strong flavors vying for attention. Each outstanding in their own right, sometimes a party in your mouth becomes a cacophony if not an outright war. Settle down in there, or I'm calling the cops! I'm not complaining, mind you, I'm just thinking this intriguing sourdough can be put to better use with simple olive oil or with a good cheese and leave it at that. These are the lessons that are learned with maturity! It's all good.





Except for this stupid cheese. Lame! I think any creamy cheese other than Philadelphia would be an improvement. I looked for some and asked for some but didn't see anything else except brie, which I didn't want. I don't know what Kraft was thinking when they invented this and decided to besmirch Philadelphia's name with this flavorless cheese. Was it intended purely as a vehicle for Kraft onion soup, or what? Why would cheeseologists produce a cheese with 0 flavor unless they intended a blank slate upon which other flavors are to be written? Like tofu. And now it's become accepted as the norm. Believe me, in the rarified world of the affineur or the fromager this would be scoffed. I only had it around to add chocolate to it for a pie, it was called for by an expert I appreciate, but now I'm wondering if I might have done better. This is one of those moments I'm not proud to be American, on the other hand, I found a new cheese produced in Ft. Collins in cute little individual packages, but I haven't tried it yet so I have no idea what it is, and I also found out the Haystack Mountain cheese farm in Niwot outside of Boulder where you could go right up and pet the cute little baby goats, no longer exists as such. I learned from the cheese guy whose attention I monopolized beyond what was reasonable, that they outgrew the limitations of their tiny farm placed on them by Niwot and now they use milk drawn from outside sources, and this makes me glad for their blazing success but a little bit sad for the compromises associated with expansion.