Soft cheeses have more lactose than harder, more mature ones. When faced with a French cheese cart, try your luck with a Comte instead.

Your disease: Lactose Intolerance

I hear it all the time: people who, deep down, know they have issues with milk and dairy, but are in denial because they don’t want to have to give up ice cream or cheese.  So they suffer the flatulent consequences and loosen the belt buckle a few notches to accomodate the bloating.  Might I suggest an option B?  If you’ve got lactose intolerance  issues and are loathe to give up cheese, you may not have to.  Here are a few things you can keep in mind:

• If the cheese is packaged, look for the carbohydrate grams listed on the nutrition label: if the label says it contains zero carbohydrate, that means each serving of that cheese has less than 0.5g of lactose.  (Lactose, which is milk sugar, is the only carbohydrate in natural cheese.)  Look for cheeses with 0g of carbohydrate per serving, and test the waters with one serving, which is 1oz, or the size equivalent of 4 dice or one piece of string cheese.  Cheddars are a good place to start: I’m partial to the Organic Valley sharp cheddars, myself.  (They make both pasteurized and raw milk cheeses, so steer clear of the raw ones if you’re pregnant).
• If a cheese is not packaged, remember that the harder the cheese, the less lactose it will have.  This is for two reasons: (1) because the liquid (whey) that drains out of the cheese as it ages and hardens contains virtually all of the lactose, and (2) longer periods of fermentation mean that more of the sugars (lactose) have been broken down by the bacteria for energy.  Therefore, a more mature, harder cheese (like Parmesan, Gruyere, Comte, and sharper Cheddars) will have much less lactose than a softer, younger one (like brie, gouda, and even some milder cheddars–particularly commercially-produced ones).  As for ricotta cheese, it’s made from the whey–so it will have among the highest lactose content out there.  Proceed with caution.  Once again, when testing your tolerance for a new cheese, keep your portions small at first.  Once you establish that it sits well, you can push the limits a bit more the next time to see when your intestines cry uncle.
• Goat’s milk has just about the same amount of lactose as cow’s milk, so be wary of the myth that goat’s milk cheese will be easier to tolerate than cow’s milk cheese.  Still, some people claim that because the fat droplets in goat’s milk are smaller than those in cow’s milk, this cheese will somehow be easier for lactose intolerants to digest.  While I fail to appreciate the physiological connection, I cannot speak for anyone’s intestines but my own.  So I will simply say that if you fancy a trip into goat milk cheese territory, take it as slow as you would with a cow’s milk cheese.  You may also have better luck with the harder, more aged goat’s milk cheeses (like a Spanish Drunken Goat cheese, perchance?) over the soft, spreadable logs of chevre.   Ditto for sheep’s milk cheeses.

Your disease: Milk allergy

Of course, if you can’t eat dairy at all due to milk protein (casein) allergies or because you’re vegan (not that veganism is a disease, mind you), then you’ve likely suffered from an additional affliction beyond your cheeseless existence: namely, the marketing assault of

Dr. Cow's gluten-free, dairy-free Tree Nut Cheese.

soy and rice “cheeses” that purport to be acceptable stand-ins.

To the marketers of rice based “Vegan Slices” or soy-cheeses (you know who you are) I say this: we figured out how to put a man on the moon, and THIS is the best you can come up with for my allergic and vegan friends?!?  (I’ll give some of the rice cheeses, like Vegan Rella, a pass with only a slap on the wrist,  because they are a low-protein cheese substitute that may be appropriate for people with PKU, a rare metabolic disease that requires an extremely low protein diet.  But the soy cheesemakers?  Shame on you.)

If you’ve seen these products in the supermarket, you may have noticed that they are modeled after processed imitation cheese slices rather than natural hard cheeses.  Which is to say: the bar for what passes as an acceptable product is its square shape and its ability to melt evenly.  But as for flavor and texture?  These companies appear to be banking on the fact that you haven’t tasted real cheese in long enough that you’ll have forgotten what it’s supposed to be like.  Without undergoing the fermentation process, these uncultered cheeses lack the telltale tanginess of a real milk cheese.

But despair not, my casein-free friends.  There are bold new frontiers in Vegan cheesemaking being traversed in Brooklyn under the  fearless leadership of two raw foodists who call their company Dr. Cow.

Dr. Cow’s cheesemakers are turning out cultured, tree-nut ‘cheeses’ using the same techniques used to make natural milk-based cheeses.  Since it’s the culturing that contributes so much of the flavor and texture to natural cheese, Dr. Cow’s variety of cheeses are an attempt to create a vegan cheese with an appearance, texture and flavor that make them respectable–and possibly delicious– substitutes for dairy cheeses. I visited the company’s website and was compelled enough by the flattering photos of their incredibly cheeselike products to run out and drop $6.99 for a teensy 2.5oz puck of the Aged Cashew and $8.99 for the Aged Cashew & Brazil Nut variety.  Like fine aged cheeses, each came wrapped adorably in wax paper.  My expectations were high.  Now I’ll admit that when I opened up the first one, it was more of a putty color than the online photos suggested; and when we sliced into it, my husband remarked that it looked like a cross between a plastic explosive and Halvah.  But when we placed some on a cracker and tasted it, it felt and tasted like a real, bona-fide natural cheese.  Tang?  Check.  Salt?  Check.  Creaminess?  Check. We each had several pieces of both varieties–very much on our own volition–and declared them to be worthy of the next vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, locavore wine-and-cheese party we throw.

I like that the Dr. Cow tree nut cheeses have delightfully short and recognizable ingredient lists: nuts/seeds, acidophilus (the bacteria) and (Himalayan pink) salt.  A few varieties use seaweed, too.  True, these cheeses won’t deliver the calcium that real cheese–or even fortified soy/rice cheese–will, but the nut base renders them an excellent source of protein.  And they’d look way cute on a cheeseboard paired with a variety of gluten free crackers, like Mary’s or, in keeping with the theme, Blue Diamond Nut Thins.

Now as for your friends with nut allergies, might I suggest a nice hummus instead?

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This Northeast tomato blight situation seems to have gotten the foodie world into a serious panic.  The prospect of an August that’s not awash in copious amounts of cheap, gorgeous tomatoes of every shape, size and color seems to have left a void in many late-summer menus.  I appreciated the full depth of the situation when reading this past week’s Dining section of the New York Times, where Melissa Clark touted her recipe for “BLPs“: that’s bacon-lettuce-and-plum sandwiches, with the plum pinch-hitting for tomato to provide the soft, sweet-tart succulence to balance out the crispness of the bacon and lettuce.

Since I’m not much one for bacon (and sandwiches are at best an occasional occurrence for me), I wondered what could I do to keep up appearances during this abnormal lull in seasonal red tomato-bounty.

It all hit me when I encountered a heaping pile of affordable tomatillos at the Farmer’s Market this past week.  Like my imaginary Mexican grandmother always said: When the tomato-growing gets tough, the tough get tomatillos.  (Besides, rumor has it that the Obamas are growing tomatillos in their White House garden, so I figured it was my civic duty to hop on the tomatillo bandwagon.)

My only experience with tomatillos up until this past week had been in their role as the starring ingredient of that tangy salsa verde which accompanies my occasional Mexican restaurant enchilada.

Roasted Tomatillo pasta with salmon is a light, summery alternative to heavy pasta dishes.

But with the heat wave we’ve been experiencing here in New York, there was no way I’d be turning on the oven to bake enchiladas.  So I decided to consult my Rick Bayless Mexican Everyday cookbook to see what else I might do with these blightless tomato-esque beauties.  Rick offered up a simple recipe for Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, where the so-called roasting takes all of 5 minutes: just slice the tomatillos in half and place them face down in an un-oiled non-stick pan until they turn dark, then flip them and repeat. (Roasting, apparently, enhances a tomatillos’ flavor).  He further suggests using his tomatillo salsa to dress a warm pasta dish with chopped salmon or chicken breast (this is a great use for leftovers) and sprinkled with shredded Mexican or Parmesan cheese; for the exact (easy) recipe, follow the salsa link provided above and keep scrolling down.  I used Ancient Harvest’s gluten-free quinoa-corn pasta shells with great results; the shells capture the tomatillo sauce and little bits of salmon and cheese so that each bite is flavorful.  Of course, you can use this salsa for any old thing you can imagine; your favorite home-made tacos, enchiladas or fajitas would be a good place to start. (Try it on this fantastic recipe for Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas from Karina’s Kitchen…  it won last year’s Whole Foods Market Food Blogger Budget Recipe Challenge!) And if these ideas don’t inspire you, check out Eating Well magazine’s impassioned homily on 5 Reasons to Love Tomatillos with four more recipe ideas.  

If you’re a tomatillo novice like I was, Bayless offers us a few additional tips by way of orientation: if you remove the papery husk, you can store tomatillos for up to a month in the refrigerator.  And before cooking/using, be sure to rinse them of the sticky residue that lies between the husk layer and the flesh.  He also suggests choosing the smaller-sized ones for better, citrusier flavor.  Easy!

What is a Tomatillo, anyway?

Tomatillos are members of the same nightshade family as tomatoes, but they’re not the same as an unripe green tomato used to make fried green tomatoes down South.  They taste tart and citrusy–more lemony/green-appley than grassy and sweet like a red tomato, to be sure.  

Gram per gram, tomatillos have around an equivalent amount of vitamin C as your average red tomato and a little bit more potassium, which is an important nutrient for helping maintain a healthy blood pressure.  However, tomatillos lacks the vitamin A and lycopene found in its red tomato cousin; important nutrients respectively, for vision preservation, immune function and (in men), prostate health.  But what they lack in Vitamin A they try to make up for in their low calorie and carbohydrate density; according to the USDA, 1 medium tomatillo has just 11 calories and 2g carbohydrate… which makes tomatillo salsa an excellent substitution for sugary and sodium-filled jarred/canned red tomato sauces to dress those summer pasta dishes.  (Are you listening, dear friends with diabetes and high blood pressure?)  To compensate for the absence of Vitamin A, saute up a side dish of spinach, kale or broccoli with your tomatillo dish and you’ll be good to go.  Alternatively, if you use your tomatillo salsa to top those sweet potato enchiladas, you’ll be more than covered in the Vitamin A department.  And that watermelon you have for dessert will stand in for the tomatoes on the lycopene front.

Blight or no blight, tomatillos are a delicious (and apparently patriotic) food to add into your summer rotation.  Locally-grown tomatillos should still be around through the end of September, so try them while you can!

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If you’ve written off sardines based on a fear of the silvery supermarket version sold in tins, then you’ve probably never had the privilege of tasting the real deal: fresh, big, fat sardines, salted, oiled and grilled outdoors until the skins are charred. These “Sardinhas Assadas” are a Portuguese summer staple, as much a national signature as gelato is in Italy and crepes are in France.  And they are absolutely nothing like the kind you get from a can.  Well-grilled, they are packed with smoky flavor and not the least bit fishy-tasting.  

Not that I have anything against canned sardines.  Quite the contrary: I have grown to appreciate canned sardines, which is a good thing; a 3oz serving of the canned variety (with bones) has 38% of the daily value of calcium, in addition to a full day’s worth of heart-brain-and eye-protective omega-3 fats. Sardines are also one of the rare natural food sources of Vitamin D, an essential nutrient that many (most?) Americans may be deficient in, according to a handful of recent studies; that same 3oz serving has well over 100% of the recommended daily intake.  But if you’ve been unable to acquire a taste for the canned version of these swimmingly healthy fish, the fresh variety are worth giving a second look.  After all, sardines are low on the food chain and reproduce rapidly (one might say they’re like the bunnies of the marine world), making them a very sustainable fish option in a sea (literally) of overfished and endangered seafood options.  Being low on the food chain also means being low in mercury and PCBs, which makes sardines an especially smart choice for pregnant women looking to meet their recommended fish intake goals to support brain development in their bundles of gestating joy.  

Sadly, the USDA does not publish nutrition data for fresh sardines, and I don’t quite trust the random data floating around the internet, so it’s probably safe to assume that fresh sardines more or less compare to canned on the Vitamin D and omega-3 front (perhaps slightly less, since you’ll be removing the skin, where many of the fish oils are stored), but will have considerably less calcium since you’ll be removing the bones before eating.  Ready to give them a try?

When the skin is blackened and bubbled over about 50% of its surface, it's time to eat!

How to make Portuguese Sardinhas Assadas

I’ll admit that I’m a relative latecomer to the world of grilled sardines, so I consulted my friend Peter (of Morel mushroom-hunting fame) so that we could all benefit from his vast sardine-grilling experience. His recipe and sardine-grilling tips follow below.  

Buy fresh sardines.  Here in the New York area, Whole Foods sells them, and you can buy them pre-gutted.  (Chances are, you’ll encounter wild-caught sardines from the Pacific Northwest, which the Monterrey Bay Aquarium deems to be a ‘best choice’ from both a health and sustainability standpoint.)  If you’re planning to grill them, leave intact the skin, scales, heads and tails. (You will easily deal with this when the fish is cooked and on your plate.)  You can also buy frozen sardines, in which case you would thaw them before proceeding. Peter says to plan on about 6 fish per person, but it will vary widely by fish size and appetite size.

Sprinkle the fish with coarse salt and rub on some olive oil. Lay the fish out on a piping hot grill.  (The fire/heat should be hot enough to give their skin a good char quickly enough such that the fish don’t dry out.)  Peter recommends grilling the fish for around 5 minutes before flipping, and further suggests that we not be afraid to give our fish a good char. Most of the recipes online, he laments, show sardines not nearly grilled enough for his taste.  For a visual guide, see the photo above; those fish are just about done.  When they have an even char on their skin, they are ready to eat.

Next: Remove the sardines from the grill and peel the charred top skin off.  Insert a knife along the backbone near the tail and work the top fillet off the bones. Remove the top fillet and set it next to your roasted pepper salad (more about that later). Next, insert your knife under the backbone, grab hold of the tail, and separate the  tail, bones and head in one peeling motion away from the bottom filet.  You will be left with a head, bones and tail that remind you of the cartoon fish from Tom & Jerry when you were a kid.  

Finally, eat the filets. You will smile. Traditionally, Portuguese sardines are served with a roasted green pepper salad.  To do as the locals do, Peter recommends placing green peppers on the fire until the skin turns black and bubbles over the whole pepper. When they are well roasted and cooled, skin and seed them under running water, slice the peppers up, then toss with sea salt and some sliced sauteed onion.  Dress with a simple dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, and  pinch of thyme dressing.  And if you’re looking for a nice white wine to pair them with, might I suggest a New York State chardonnay?  And don’t forget drink a toast to my friend for the fantastic sardine tutorial.  (Obrigado, Peter!)

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My sister Ariella, an NYC Sommelier-at-Large, suggested that I dedicate this week’s installment of What I’m Eating Now to What I’m Drinking Now.  It just so happens that she’s been on a quest to help me find local (New York State) wines to serve at an upcoming event on Sustainable Seafood.  The quest has led her to fall in love again with the much-maligned Chardonnay grape, which, being the grape of most champagnes, has a special place in her boozy little heart.  And so, I’ve agreed to turn over my soapbox this week so that she can plead her case in favor of us giving New York chardonnays a taste this summer as we grill ourselves some healthy and sustainable fish.

Perhaps you’ve overheard someone order “ABC” wine (that’s code for “Anything But Chardonnay”), and have been shamed into eschewing this varietal of wine.  Or perhaps you’ve tasted enough mediocre chardonnays at weddings to have categorized the entire varietal as a sort-of generic catering-hall white.  Ariella explains that Chardonnay’s current reputation results from the fact that chardonnay grapes  themselves are not aromatic per se, so the flavor of the wine depends more on a winemaker’s skill than the characteristics of the grape itself.  In this way, chardonnay is like the tofu of the grape world: it’s sort of plain when cooked by itself, but it takes on the flavor of whatever you “cook” it with.  Traditionally, California winemakers have chosen to flavor their Chardonnays by fermenting them in brand-spanking new, toasted oak barrels, which impart a strong vanilla smokiness to the wine that totally overwhelms the fruit.  The result is a heavy wine that isn’t particularly “sippable” on its own during cocktail hour.  Rather, it needs heavier foods to stand up to it: think richer, meatier deep sea fish.  Unfortunately, many such fish are of the overfished–and therefore environmentally unsustainable– variety (think Chilean Sea Bass and Bluefin Tuna).

So what to pair with those lighter, more sustainably-caught fish, you might ask? 

Our resident sommelier recommends you give a New York State chardonnay a try.

All across the state, from Long Island to the Finger Lakes, winemakers have been producing un-oaked chardonnays fermented in stainless steel tanks (or lesser-oaked chardonnays, in which only a small portion of oaked wine is mixed into a batch of unoaked wine to produce a more balanced flavor).  The result is new wave of “fruit-forward” chardonnays (don’t you love it when sommeliers say things like that?) that are crisp and bright and summery with apple-y and stone fruit flavors.  These light and lovely wines are way more versatile and sippable, and pair divinely with sustainable fish at the low end of the food chain: think grilled fresh sardines, clams and mussels.

Interested in trying some of New York’s Finest?  Ariella recommends Channing Daughters 2007 Scuttle Hole chardonnay (~$16/bottle), which she likes for its sweet, peachy quality that tastes like summer in a bottle.  Try pairing it with any seafood, or spicy foods of all varieties… like Thai or Vietnamese.  She also likes Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Salmon Run (2007) chardonnay from the Finger Lakes region, which has crisp green apple and citrusy notes for about $10/bottle.  The wine is named in honor of the wild salmon that live in nearby Keuka Lake and pairs well with briny shellfish or a happy wild fish like salmon, wild striped bass or brook trout.

Of course, all this talk about white wine begs the question as to whether it’s indeed healthy to drink wine at all?

Perhaps you’ve heard that red wine is heart healthy… and healthier for you than white wine, at that.  Well, although it’s true that red wine contains higher levels of a phytochemical called resveratrol that has been associated with cardiovascular health benefits, there isn’t much scientific data that compares health outcomes of red wine drinkers to white wine drinkers. Therefore, it’s not clear that red is definitively “healthier” than white… and there’s certainly no evidence that passing up a heavy, spicy red in favor of a cold, fruity glass of chardonnay on a hot summer night is somehow going to put you at some sort of disadvantage health-wise.  For me personally, supporting small, local NY State wineries does my heart quite good, thank you very much.

Now as for whether to drink at all, the best answer researchers have is the same, vague party line: *if* you choose to drink any alcohol at all, moderation appears to be associated with the best health outcomes. As a reminder, I’ll re-state what I’ve said before.. and apologize in advance for being a buzz-kill:  

1. If you currently drink ~2 drinks/day or less (males) or 1 drink/day or less (females), you may get a slightly protective benefit against heart disease, so enjoy! While it seems that red wine may possibly afford an even better benefit, any type of alcohol should do the trick. If you’re drinking more than this amount, you may want to consider cutting down.  
2. Bear in mind that “one drink” is not necessarily one glass of wine as poured by your neighborhood bartender in a monster-sized goblet. It’s 5 fluid ounces of wine. In other words, 1 bottle of wine is 5 standard servings. So if you’re used to splitting a bottle every night with your best friend or spouse, try inviting a few more people on on the fun.
3. If you don’t drink at all now, I wouldn’t recommend taking it up for ‘health reasons,’ as there are plenty of ‘health reasons’ not to drink, too.  Even moderate drinking appears to increase the risk for breast cancer in women, and regular drinking can aggravate high blood pressure and increase your triglyceride levels, both of which are actually risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Got a wine pairing question for our resident sommelier?  Looking for a special recommendation?  Post a comment on this post for Ariella Duker, Sommelier-at-Large, and she’ll respond to your every wine query!

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A blog carnival is like an online magazine of articles contributed by bloggers and published by a rotating host blog.

I was recently invited to contribute to a Gluten-Free Blog Carnival, and the first edition has just been published!  Click on the link provided to check out gluten-free inspiration from all across the blogosphere… from recipes and tips to restaurant reviews and lifestyle articles.

While there are no carousels to ride or cheap stuffed animals to win at this virtual carnival, at least there won’t be any creepy sideshows or greasy Funnel Cake to resist, either…

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