Cheese
You Are What You Eat
I remember a few years back observing my family eat at the Olema Inn in West Marin. I was so sick that weekend. I laid in bed sweating out a fever, having delusions that the stuffed squirrels on the mantle were dancing around my bedposts. So when my sisters begged me to just come downstairs and sit at the table even if I didn't feel like eating, I decided it was time to get a little fresh air (and escape those demonic squirrels). I stumbled downstairs, and sat in the sweet candlelit dining room admiring the menu and wishing that I could eat just a little something. These days it's common to ask if our meat is corn-fed, grass-fed, free-range etc. But at the Olema Inn, they went so far as to list whose field the cows had grazed on (The Turner's field down the road a bit). At the time I thought this was a little too precious: do we really need to know that many details? Seriously, does it matter whose grass the cows consumed on what day? But the Olema Inn was two steps ahead of me. They understood that what your food eats, where it's raised, and the conditions in which it's raised greatly affect the taste and quality.