The Cheese Diaries' own Anne Pinckard writes in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about a restaurant chef who makes his own cheese, including chevre, blue, brie, feta and "drunken" cheeses. Chef Nicci Tripp of Theo's Restaurant in Soquel is the only chef in he Santa Cruz area who makes his own cheese, and believes he may be the only one in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Tripp is traditional and precise when making cheese, and Anne does a good job explaining the process for those of us who are not experts. But at the same time he seems to have a willingness to experiment that marks him as quintessentially Santa Cruz. It is hard for me to imagine a four-star San Francisco chef making more than half a dozen cheeses in his own restaurant, or inebriating his cheese with hard cider.
"We're constantly trying new things to find out what we like and don't like," Tripp said.
I wonder how many other restaurant chefs out there are doing this.
Yay Anne!
Posted by ryan at November 26, 2005 08:32 AM | TrackBack