Clark Wolf gets excited when he starts talking about cheese -- American cheese.
The restaurant and food consultant, who is also an author and occasional magazine contributor, is passionate about the wealth of American cheeses he now has at his disposal when he hosts classes in San Antonio, Texas.
That was not the case in 1976, when Wolf ran a small cheese shop in San Francisco or in 1980 when he helped open Oakville Grocery, also in San Francisco.
"There was nothing to sell, American," he says. "There were all kinds of imitation cheeses; there was dry jack and there was Oregon blue.
"Now, we can actually do a whole class in Cheese 101, really learning all about cheese, using American-made cheeses."
Wolf spent years smelling, tasting and researching the growing number of artisan cheese made in this country. He's fascinated with cheese, and he's not alone.
"There's a huge interest. It's got a lot of good nutritional value. It's a perishable food that isn't real perishable. It's got this sense of freshness," he says.
His book, "American Cheeses," is a guide to "The Best Regional, Artisan and Farmhouse Cheese, Who Makes Them and Where to Find Them" (Simon and Schuster, 2008). He's most proud of the fact that every one of the artisans featured in the book is still making cheese. His favorite is Laura Chenel's California Chevre. Chenel was the first to hit it big making goat cheese in the late '70s. Wolf loves it for several reasons:
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