• Five Oregon cheeses that truly stand up above the crowd.
• An Oregonian staffer tries her hand at making cheese. First comes a mozzarella class where she has mixed results, but an attempt at making chevre at home boosts her confidence and readies her for more cheesemaking accomplishments.
  
• Resources for the home cheesemaker. Once you've made the cheese, check out these recipes for ways to use it.
  
• The Market Basket's got tools of the barbecuing trade (perfect since the summer grilling season kicked off this weekend).
  
• Despite legal issues and a few health scares, people still want raw milk (and small dairies want to give it to them.
  
• Pork chops make for a quick, easy and delicious dinner. Pair them with some quickly cooked stone fruit (coming into season now) and you'll have yourself a tasty meal.
  
• Wine writer Alice Feiring is trying to stop the homogenization of wines, advocating instead a natural approach.

• Something I have to try soon: bacon with brown sugar and orange juice.
• Mmmmmm...ant egg salad, jelled blood, and anise-scented spleen!
• Video: How to make a Spanish tortilla.
• A tribute to beer writer Michael Jackson, who died last month.
• Alice Waters is single.
• A guide to picking apples in Massachusetts.
• Will Massachusetts restaurants have to list calories of foods on their menus?
• This week's recipes: Pork Chops with Apple Cider, Macadamia Nut Chicken, Apple Galette, and Green Peppers with Toasted Almonds and Golden Raisins.

• Figs are an often neglected fruit. Why is that? Check out this recipe for Pork Chops with Red Onions and Figs, and this one for Arugula Salad with Figs.
• Espresso fanatics head for Boston and New York for the perfect cup (also check out the audio slide show on how to make the best espresso).
• And if you drink espresso or coffee, what's the best dark chocolate to have with it?
• What, you don't drink coffee? Me either. So check out tea! It's not just for breakfast anymore.
• How to live with a gluten-free diet.

This is a great recipe for Cooking Live because it is so quick. It's definitely the kind of meal that can go from nothing to the table in under 30 minutes - provided that you have the ingredients, of course. Fortunately, the ingredients are things that you are likely to have around the house, so if you pick up some pork chops on your way home from work, you will be good to go. First, we'll prepare the rice and as it cooks, we can cook up the pork chops. Serve the pork, with a bit of sauce, over the rice and add a small side salad and you have a delicious and simple meal.

I picked out a package of pork chops for dinner tonight, and I was walking home from Trader Joe's, I got to thinking: are pork chops romantic?

I'm making a nice meal for my husband and I to eat after the boys go to sleep, so it will be just a touch romantic. And I like to think of pork chops as in this photo from the Saveur recipe I'll be following: entwined, bone-to-bone, in the carnivorous equivalent to entwining your arms when you perform the all-time most cheesy possible champagne toast.

But pork, it's pig, and pigs - they're not so romantic. But then, neither are cows, or strange-looking red shellfish with pointy claws. Can a hunk of meat be romantic? And if so, which one is worthiest of your special ménage à deux?