Rosé and Comté in French Cheese Board's Eclectic New Space

Originally published on Tawk of New Yawk

If you have preconceived notions of what a French cheese shop should look like, you might wonder how well a fromagerie would fit in Nolita, surrounded by high-end boutiques like Le Labo and Aimé Leone Dore. Luckily, French Cheese Board is not interested in recreating your reductive version of a French cheese shop. You won’t find wood accents, warm lighting, or wicker baskets lined with baguettes and bundles of chives. Instead, the store’s thoughtfully designed new space on Spring Street, one block over from its original location, has itself taken on the spirit of a luxury boutique—a fromage atelier of sorts—blending in seamlessly with the rest of the neighborhood in the process. If it stands out at all, that’s only because it’s more sophisticated than the non-dairy ateliers around it.

The store’s noticeable departure from the traditional fromagerie aesthetic can be explained by the fact that French Cheese Board doesn’t just sell cheese. It’s part cheese shop, part art exhibition, and part teaching lab. More than anything, though, it’s a celebration of French cheese—a venue for learning about and tasting the best that France has to offer. Shortly after the store reopened, I was able to partake in that celebration while getting a look at the new space during an evening of rosé and fromage.

Prior to visiting, every time I saw the name French Cheese Board, my first thought was not of an actual cheese board, but a board of directors for cheese—a cohort of dairy-minded individuals making fromage-based decisions for the whole of France. I wrote this off as another defect in my brain, but it turns out I was right (kind of). French Cheese Board is, in fact, a subsidiary of CNIEL, an organization that
represents stakeholders in the French dairy industry, which explains the store’s focus on how its cheese is produced and sourced.

French Cheese Board’s mission to help people explore the world of cheese in France is evident throughout the store. Paris-based agency Ich&Kar created engaging, informative design elements for the original shop, and almost all of them have made their way into this new, roomier space. One of the first things you notice are the detailed diagrams on the walls, illustrating everything from how to properly cut different types of cheese to the specific breeds of cow that produce a Camembert, Neufchâtel, or Roquefort.

Of course, an expertly curated selection of les fromages préférés des France is front and center as well, along with an assortment of proper accoutrements (cornichons, artisanal honey, charcuterie boards, cheese knives, Dijon mustard, etc.). There’s also a well- appointed cooking lab downstairs, which will primarily be used for hosting classes and demonstrations.

What stands out most about the space, though, is its gallery-like infusion of art. Toward the back of the main floor is an array of screens—all of which blend into the store’s black walls—looping digital art that’s meant to visually express the sensual pleasures cheese evokes. Across from that is a blank wall, which at the time displayed a projection of a scrolling vignette: pastoral life in rural France as viewed from the eyes of a person who (we’re left to assume) is deep into an LSD trip. We should all live so well.

The event I attended was billed as “Fromages et Vin Rosé: l’Accord Fraîcheur” (“Cheese and Rosé: The Fresh Pairing”). Matching the textures and flavors of cheese with rosé can be tricky given that you have to find something delicate enough to not overwhelm the wine. Fortunately, we had Anna Viducic of Aroma Wine Co. and John Braga, the store’s cheesemonger extraordinaire, to guide us, and they took turns explaining the tasting notes of several rosés and cheeses and why the pairings worked as well as they did.

Anna took us through an oenological tour of France, explaining the finer points of making rosé and how the terroir in and around specific vineyards affects the flavor. We tasted wines from Côtes-du-Rhône, Provence, and Champagne, all of which were far and away better than the rosés I’m used to. Sipping Provençal wine and talking about the way the salty air affects the grapes, I could have been standing in a vineyard in the South of France (this illusion was abruptly interrupted by the 6 train).

The cheeses also came from all over France: the Alps, French Basque Country, the Vosges Mountains. There was Le Roulé, a soft cow’s milk cheese with garlic and herbs that has the texture of whipped butter and would be fantastic spread on a bagel. We tasted a fresh, feta-style cheese from Occitanie in the South of France, a bleu cheese from Auvergne, and a triple cream from Champagne.

One standout was the Comté, a Gruyère-esque offering that John explained is the fromager’s cheese of choice. An alpine cheese, Comté is unexpectedly complex, rewarding

the taster who goes back for more. Which I did. A lot. My favorite, though, was the Ossau-Iraty, which was new to me. Made from specific breeds of sheep in the Ossau Valley and Iraty Forest (hence the appellation), it’s similar to a Manchego, with a slightly sweet flavor and an aroma that reminded me of freshly caught fish in the absolute best way.

The pairings were amazing, especially given the tall task, and I learned a lot more about rosé and French cheese than I knew before. It’s absolutely worth making the trip to Nolita to look around the shop, chat with John about cheese (did you know that it basically never goes bad? because I didn’t), and pick up a nice St-Nectaire or Valbreso to impress your friends with. Just don’t bring your antiquated ideas about cheese shops please.

Enough With the Scaffolding Already

Originally published on Tawk of New Yawk

On the north side of Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, between Hicks and Henry, there’s a pristine span of bright, airy, completely un-scaffolded sidewalk. Walking down this untainted footpath when the sun is out fills me with an overwhelming jauntiness, as if I’ve been spirited away to Barcelona or Monte Carlo. Walking down the south side of the street, on the other hand, can evoke in me a deep sense of dread and anxiety, like I’m a down-on-his-luck extra in Blade Runner. On this side of the street, with all its potential as a beautiful public space, steel pipes meet harsh fluorescent lights and dank green wood in an unsettling melange that obstructs the sidewalk and, quite frankly, ruins my day.

I hate scaffolding. So much.

To be precise, most of the structures that incessantly crop up throughout New York City are not scaffolding but sidewalk sheds. That they’ve foisted these unforgivably ugly and dehumanizing structures on us for decades without changing the design is bad enough; but for them to also name them “sidewalk sheds”? That’s just dispiriting.

A sidewalk shed on Montague Street that was built literally while I wrote this

The proliferation of sidewalk sheds is partly a result of Local Law 11, which requires buildings over six stories to be inspected every five years to ensure crumbling masonry doesn’t rain down on us as we’re exiting Starbucks. Many building owners, however, are content to let these eyesores monopolize our walkways as they casually go about fixing any problem that gets cited. In fact, in many cases it’s cheaper for them to let the sheds stay there until the next inspection.

I know they’re a necessary evil, but in their current form, these sheds are such a pain. First off, they’re often a hazard on their own, having collapsed and/or fallen apart on numerous occasions over the years. (It’s almost as if the answer to the question How do we keep objects from falling on our heads? isn’t always Let’s put more objects immediately above our heads.) They’re also a navigational nightmare. Passing slow pedestrians under scaffolding is like being unwittingly thrust into a parkour competition. Most importantly, though, they obstruct countless façades, and they fragment New York’s architecture to the point that scaffolding has become the city’s most cohesive architectural element.

Look closely and you’ll see spectacularly detailed lion heads in the façade of the old Bossert Hotel

Not so much anymore

So, walking on an un-scaffolded sidewalk is something of an unattainable luxury in New York. But if you can’t eliminate it, why not put regulations and incentives in place that would ensure the scaffolding is at least more pleasant to look at and walk through? If we can beautify these structures, why wouldn’t we? New York has so many aesthetic issues that don’t really have a solution: trash, dog waste, Penn Station, the creepy AT&T building in Tribeca. But sidewalk sheds can and should be better, as evidenced by the innovative solutions that have already been installed in some parts of the city.

As a result of the city’s 2009 urbanSHED competition, a new design was rolled out, the Urban Umbrella. It features sleek supports, stylish LED light installations, and a sheer parapet that’s considerably more attractive than the hunter green plywood that has become ensconced in too many buildings over the years. The company stalled for a while, but after over a decade, the Urban Umbrella has started to catch on. You’ve probably seen their sheds in front of the swankier establishments in town.

There are, of course, plenty of other solutions to the Scaffolding Problem. Carnegie Hall’s shed has red- painted supports, with a designy parapet and renderings of the building’s façade stretched out across the scaffolding’s safety netting. In 2015, Zaha Hadid designed a gorgeous canopy resembling a curling wave that spanned part of the High Line and protected park-goers from construction. There are also minimalist designs that incorporate the exact same materials we use now but without the crossbeams, which are what tend to make the scaffolding look like a scary, mangled adult jungle gym. One of the absolute best options I’ve seen is the cantilevered canopy, which completely eliminates the need for supports that would obstruct the sidewalk.

Carnegie Hall – A simple solution that makes a substantial difference

A slightly more elegant, minimalist shed next to the design we’ve been stuck with for 40 years

The best-case scenario, on 57th and 5th Avenue

At the moment, there are no mandates that would lead to more appealing, less anxiety-inducing sidewalk sheds. Is the scaffold lobby really so powerful? Do we really have to walk through a claustrophobia- inducing morass of aluminum and leaky plywood just so that a building owner can renovate their luxury high-rise? Surely not.

Yes, fancy scaffolding like the Urban Umbrella has become a bit of a status symbol, and its sheds are primarily adorned with names like Ralph Lauren, The Yale Club, and Louis Vuitton. No, I don’t expect every landlord to provide prohibitively expensive, chic construction safety solutions. But I think we can build scaffolding that provides a simultaneously utilitarian, accessible, and enjoyable way for locals and tourists to meet the city on a daily basis; and for the sake of our public spaces—and my nervous system—I think we should.