Have you seen Andy Cohen on Bravo TV?  One of his shows is Watch What Happens: Live, where Andy hosts one or few guests from the popular Bravo reality show.  What does this have to do with my blog?  Well…patience!  One of the segments on the show is Andy’s list of things he has been obsessed with during the week – it can be an outfit, a particular word, or an incident on one of the shows.  So I thought – why not share my weekly obsessions with you?  Here we go!

While going through a stash of papers, I found a gift certificate to ChefShop that I received last year as a gift from Queen Anne Farmers Market.  At the time, I was working at Kaspars, and Chef Kaspar and I did a demonstration at the market, grilling pizzas – vegetable and rhubarb.  Fastforward a year later, the certificate was to expire the next day, and I had some shopping to do.

I received great service from ChefShop and was opening a box packed with goodies just a few days later.

This weekend I had the perfect occasion to try some of the goodies from the ChefShop box.  A good friend from Dallas was visiting me in Seattle, and as if we weren’t already eating and drinking enough, we thought that a cheese and cracker platter would be a lovely snack. 
And now we are getting to my weekly obsession: Yuzu Marmalade, La Panzanella Garlic Flavored Mini Croccantini and Extra Sharp White Tillamook Cheddar (ok, the cheddar came from QFC, but the other two components were from ChefShop).



photo from ChefShop



Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit that is said to taste similar to a cross between tangerine and lemon.  Depends on your taste buds, you might pick up different notes.  This Yuzu marmalade has only three ingredients – yuzu, sugar, and honey.  To me, the marmalade taste a bit like orange marmalade, but more floral, with a bit touch of bitterness.  But oh, so delicious!
The La Panzanella Mini Croccantini might be more addicting than potato chips.  They are dry and superbly crisp, with a slight hint of garlic.  Try one, and you’ll have a hard time stopping.
photo from ChefShop

The choice of cheese was easy.  I wanted something local, thus Oregon Tillamook, and delicious – Extra Sharp Cheddar.  Creamy and smooth, the sliced Cheddar made a perfect topping for the La Panzanella Croccantini spread with Yuzu Marmalade.

photo from Tillamook

To round up our fruit and cheese platter, we added slices of fuji apple and some Wheat Thins (to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t be bothered with Wheat Thins and concentrated completely on La Panzanella crackers).



And if you couldn’t tell by now, I’m also obsessed with orange and turquoise colors, and often put the two together.

Now that I’ve shared my weekly obsession with you, won’t you share yours?  Let’s try to keep it to the kitchen theme 🙂

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