Stravecchio etc.

This cheese from Antigo, WI, is more crumbly and moist than the king of cheeses and not quite as salty; the local product is better, I daresay, for eating just as is. The brick I bought the other day fell apart as I was beginning to take its picture and boy was I happy. All those pebbles of cheese crumbling off the side found their way in short order onto my eager tongue. I also liked the way the wounded cheese resembled a rockface alongside a TNT-blasted road. Wisconsin produces enormous quantities of cheese and almost none of it is as good to eat as this. More pix at my Flickr.

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Because I am a sucker, I would see any Pixar film and any culinary romp set in Paris and any film named for a Provençal vegetable preparation, so it's just my luck that next summer's Pixar release is comedy about a Parisian foodie mouse in search of good eats and is called Ratatouille. It took me about an hour to get the pun. Here's the trailer (via BB.)

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Staying in southern France: I missed Bittman's travel piece in last weekend's NYT, but I caught up on it reading Language Log. The nut: niçcois gnocchi are also known as merda de can, which is Provençal for dog shit, and served with gorgonzola, pistou, or tomato sauce. (LL calls Bittman out for claiming that merda is unprintable.)