Something Tasty: A cheese pairing to try

Rondo by Andante Dairy

Soyoung Scanlan of Andante Dairy is one of those producers that feels like a kindred spirit to Trust Your Taste, making cheese inspired by music. Almost if not all of her cheeses are named after musical terms!

She says, “Rondo is the festive and faster movements in music. It’s usually for the third movement in sonatas after the introductory grand first movement…It’s the final section to complete the sonata.”

In this metaphor, The introductory grand first movement is the base cheese, Mélange. As the name suggests, it is a mixed milk cheese of goat and Jersey cow milk. The festive addition used to complete the sonata is a sprinkling of herbs de Provence and pink peppercorns, highlighting it’s California terroir.

What was a special cheese you had this holiday season?

Something True: A truth about myself

Using Cheese to Set Intentions

Here’s the truth.

2025 is going to be a big year…aaaand I am a little behind on setting my intentions and goals for the year. Luckily, I have cheese to help me do that.

Yep! You heard that right.

As always, Trust Your Taste has a deep belief that eating cheese with intention, and learning to trust our own taste can lead to powerful insights and trusting ourselves in other areas of life.

And what better way in to your 2025 intentions than through the leftovers of your new years cheese spread?

There are two questions to ask yourself as your are enjoying your dairy delights.

They’re quick and easy, and will help you dive deeper into your hopes and desires for the new year more than you might think.

1. What do you enjoy about it?

2. What does this tell you about what you like (in cheese and in life), and what you might want more of in 2025?

   I will give you an example by showing you my own with Rondo:

And speaking of surprise and delight, this was a fun, delicious, and surprising exercise for me. Everything it conjured up made complete sense, but I was surprised how quickly and definitively it came to me. Writing it all down felt very energizing.

If you do this, please share it! I would love to know what it brings up for you.

Farm to Fable: How food shows up in storytelling 

Fettuccine and Bubbly in The Holiday

The Holiday is, of course, a Nancy Meyers classic, and one I’ll be featuring in my upcoming book. I count this movie as more of a cozy winter watch in addition to a Christmas and New Years film. In my opinion, you can watch it in November, and well into January without feeling that you’re jumping into the holiday season too quickly, or hanging on way past it’s time.

There is a lot of food in The Holiday, but whenever I watch it I feel like I need to be eating pasta and drinking sparkling or red wine. Fettuccine Alfredo is a theme, and the comfort food Jack Black ends up making for Kate Winslet to soothe her broken heart (and his own), and turn commiserating into celebration on Christmas Eve. It’s a quick way to show how caring he is as a character, and how much he cares for her.

This scene also includes one of the best monologues that perfectly describes how and why people stay in unhealthy situationships for so long, and the unique hurt of a one-way love. It’s brilliant.

As you well know by now, anything creamy and decadent is a perfect pairing with anything sparkling, making Fettuccine Alfredo and bubbly a match made in heaven (just like our characters Iris and Miles).

Thank you for being here for the first full year of this newsletter.

Wishing you a surprisingly delightful and delicious year ❤️ 

Until next time,

Anne-Marie

P.S. - Sunday Scaries

A terrifying AI image to help us all rest knowing AI bots could never replace a real human artist:

This week the prompt was “The perfect dinner party with fettuccine, champagne, and lots of music.”

…I can’t tell you what anything is on that table. Disappointing.

www.annemariepietersma.com