"america" news and stories

The holiday season usually means plenty of us will be saying "cheese!" But the smiles it brings doesn't only have to be for family photos.

Consider mail-ordering a festive cheese platter for holiday events or as gifts. From one-time cheese platters and cheese-of-the-month clubs to special cutlery and distinct pairings, the gift offerings available from some of the nation's top cheese stores can't be beat. Here are three of our favorites.

Two down and two to go in our exploration of the Italian tradition of the "four Ms" of making espresso coffee. The third part of our list also happens to be my favorite: la miscela, or the espresso blend.

The word "espresso," contrary to relatively common belief, has almost nothing at all to do with the beans themselves, but rather the magically delicious elixir they produce when put through the process. You can actually toss any beans into il molino and extract them using la macchina and what you'll have is, by most definitions, espresso.

But that doesn't mean it's going to taste very good. Find out why after the jump.

Last week, you may recall, we started tackling the old Italian concept of the "four Ms" necessary to make espresso, with an introduction to la macchina. It's only fitting, then, that today we cozy up with la macchina's best buddy: il molino or la machinadosatore, the espresso grinder.

To put it in terms of that Neil Simon classic, "The Odd Couple," your grinder is to your espresso machine as Felix is to Oscar: It's precise, acute and fickle, while la macchina's less prone to acting than reacting.

Cheese-making is getting closer to the city. Lisa Schwartz of Rainbeau Ridge Farm farms in areas surrounding New York City, such as Westchester County which borders Manhattan to the north. Recently, Alan Glustoff of 5 Spoke Creamery finalized an agreement to operate the last remaining farmland in the county -- Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

For Manhattanites, this development means it will be easier to get a hold of Glustoff's Port Chester, an exceptional raw cow's milk cheese. Glustoff already produces small batches for city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, Per Se and Dirt Candy and sells at select stores nationwide.

"This bold cheese packs an olfactory journey to the field," says Glustoff. Indeed, the earthy taste has a lot to do with the cows' rich diet. "The Holsteins are on pasture during the grass season, which is roughly from early March until the end of November," Glustoff explains. "Their varied diet of different grasses, flowers and herbs contributes to Port Chester's flavor and appearance."

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

In the Italian tradition, espresso is impossible without the "four M's," or the elements necessary to craft the tiny, potent elixir we know and love. Over the next four weeks, the CoffeeMeister will delve into the four elements that make possible our favorite little jolt: the caffè espresso.

Of course, anybody who's ever desperately craved a latte at 3 p.m. knows that people generally work better and are more focused after a coffee. The same held true during Europe's Industrial Revolution, and before long, bosses started getting tired of watching the minutes tick by as factory workers slowly got caffeinated. That all changed in 1901, when an enterprising gentleman named Luigi Bezzera built a contraption that allowed captured steam pressure to force very hot water through very finely ground coffee, creating a kind of quick coffee concentrate meant to be slugged faster than you can say "coffee break."

And presto! La macchina was born.