No more wrapping your cheese in plastic wrap -- cheese is alive and needs to breathe! Cheese paper allows oxygen and moisture to pass through, and manages the humidity level of your cheese. Many of you have requested it, so we're now offering packages of cheese paper from Formaticum so you can keep your cheese happy at home. Each package contains 15 sheets of cheese paper and 15 labels. The labels are very cute -- they let you keep track the name of the cheese, origin, producer, purchase date, and type of milk (just place a check next to the corresponding animal).

After I long day yesterday I plopped down on the couch and stumbled upon the History Channel's "Secret Access: Air Force One." Despite the show's claims to be revealing "secrets" about the world of "elite government insiders", the show was really about the huge amount of behind-the-scenes effort that goes into presidential travel. And that includes food! (You were wondering how this was related to the store, weren't you?)

Fun facts I learned about food and Air Force One:

• All of the food for the trips is purchased by undercover Army folks, dressed in civilian clothes, to reduce the possiblity of anyone poisoning the food supply.
• Every last bit of food and drink to be served on Air Force One is loaded on board -- no food is purchased en route. With the capacity for nearly 100 passengers and crew, that's a lot of food! Fortunately the plane's 6-story height and 231 feet length has a lot of storage space.
• Much of the prep work is done kitchens on the ground at Andrews Air Force base to save time onboard, and to take advantage of more prep and cooking space.
• Air Force One has 2 full kitchens to churn out the hundreds of meals needed on each trip. The kitchens look like small version of home kitchens, complete with electric ovens and drawers full of knives. They are an enormous step up from the galleys on commercial airliners.

That's just a peek into the highly classified off-limits secret world of food production on Air Force One. For more details I think you'll just have to get invited on board.

(Air Force One photo courtesy Andrew McCloud)

It was a good morning at Noe Valley Farmers' Market today. Here's what I brought home:

1) Red grapes - these are so sweet and refreshing that they often make my sweet tooth happy (other times it demands chocolate!)

2) Mixed greens - for quick salads, to liven up a sandwich, nothing beats the ease of these mixed greens. I dry them in our salad spinner and then just leave the whole spinner in the fridge. It acts as a crisper and gives me easy access to the greens

3) Pattypan and yellow summer squash - they cook so quickly you can use them in all sorts of dishes. I like it chopped and sauted and added to an omelette. Or, slice thickly, toss with some olive oil, salt, and pepper and grill on a grill pan. Last night we had chopped squash in our Thai stir-fry. I fried some tofu, and then stir-fried some squash and sliced onion. I then mixed in a mixture of a little corn starch, brown sugar, veggie broth, and fish sauce and let it simmer for a couple minutes. Finally, I added a couple handfuls of shredded basil and a small handful of cashews. Yum!

4) Dry farmed tomatoes - dry farmed tomatoes are farmed with no (or little) irrigation. The lack of irrigation gives them a concentrated flavor that's unmatched by other tomatoes. I had my first dry farmed tomatoes last year (from Dirty Girl Produce I think -- I got them at Buffalo Whole Foods in the Castro.) They were amazing, and I'm hoping these live up to last year's!

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After a long hiatus, Stonehouse's Lisbon Lemon Olive Oil is back. We know it's a favorite with many of you, so enjoy!

As for the Blood Orange Olive Oil, it's been replaced with the equally tasty Tangerine Olive Oil. Here's what Stonehouse has to say about it:

This year we were fortunate to procure Organic Honey and Royal Tangerines to make a fabulous Tangerine Oil. (Blood Orange were simply not available when it was time to make the citrus oils this year.) We purchased our tangerines from the Rucker Homestead in Mecca, CA, in the Coachella Valley, where the soil is rich in mineral deposits left over from the when the valley was a sea. This soil is instrumental in producing exceptionally flavorful and colorful fruit—the color this year is gorgeous, and the flowery, sweet scent of tangerine is refreshing and delicate. We hope you will enjoy this oil as a variation on the orange oil you have come to love.

Both the Tangerine and Lemon oils are wonderful when paired with their White Balsamic vinegar for a salad dressing. Use them also for finishing fish, chicken, or veggies, and even for light sautes. Yum!

When we saw these tools we fell in love. They are adorable and functional. Think Gumby, add suction feet, and then replace the head with a useful kitchen tool. The result: a Head Chefs tool. Use them to get kids involved in the kitchen, but beware -- before long the grownups will want their own set!

We've got them in store and on our website.

These super-cute lunch bags from Mimi the Sardine are a great alternative to a lunch box. It's good looking, easy to care for, and fashionable to boot! The bag is made of acrylic coated cotton with a black nylon lining. It's got a zipper on top, and measures 8 1/2" tall by 10" wide by 4 1/2" deep.

Pia Andersson, mother of two daughters, started Mimi the Sardine in the late 80's. The company now specializes in functional products made from eco-coated cotton fabrics. All of their items are manufactured locally in the San Francisco Bay Area, from fabric designed in Sweden and made in Estonia. They take great pride in their "made-to-last" quality, produced in accordance with strict environmental laws.

All of their products are made from cotton prints that have been treated with an environmentally sound coating to make them permanently water and soil resistant. Just wipe and wear and machine wash as needed. The fabrics are produced in accordance with strict environmental laws and are Oeko-Tex certified; the coating is made from acrylic and not PVC. They use no chlorine in the production process, and only water soluble dyes.

Drop by the shop to see them or check them out online

Flipping through the current (August) issue of Food & Wine Magazine, I came across a nice article about Noe Valley chef Chris Cosentino. The article profiles Chris as he grills various meats over an open pit fire. And, for the finale, San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti makes his version of s'mores. Yum!

Just in case you haven't seen the sign, it's official: Kookez has been sold. It's been on the market for a while now -- the owners are moving out of the city (no more of Lynn's tasty cupcakes!) We've been sworn to secrecy so we can't say much about what's moving in, but we have high hopes!

And speaking high hopes, work on Contigo (the forthcoming restaurant across the street from us) continues. While there's been no blogging for a couple of weeks, we see workers plugging away. Most recently they poured a nice new sidewalk. We can't wait for them to open! (Brett's current guess is late August/early September)

To make your life easier, we now offer online class registration. Simply visit the Cooking Classes page and select Register Now, or register from any of the individual class pages (Pies & Tarts, for example.) It's just one more way you can sign up for our fun, hands-on cooking classes. You are still welcome, of course, to give us a call or drop on by to sign up – we're flexible.