If you’re ringing in the New Year with your closest friends and family, you’ll likely need a few nibbles and bubbles to help with the festivities. Here are a few quick ideas perfect for pairing and sharing on the last night of 2015:

Harbison

This lovely, little cheese comes to us from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. Harbison is a small-format, soft-ripened cheese wrapped in tree bark pulled from the woods surrounding Jasper Hill. The result is a creamy, sweet paste with notes of wood and herbs. Cut the top rind off and serve with a spoon at your party; scooping out this paste is a transcendent experience. PairHarbison with crackers, fruit, and champagne.

Luxardo

Take your champagne game up a notch this year with one simple addition. Drizzle a 1/2 teaspoon of Luxardo syrup into champagne flutes, top with sparkling wine, and garnish with a Luxardo cherry. Boom. Bubbly game on point.

Robiola

Is it obvious yet that I love soft-ripened cheeses and sparkling wine together? If not, let me spell it out: I LOVE SOFT-RIPENED CHEESE WITH SPARKLING WINE.

From the same Piemontese producers who brings us Rocchetta and La Tur comes a sweet, mushroomy due latte cheese called Robiola Bosina. Cow and sheep’s milks are blended to form a thin square of soft-ripened cheese. The soft rind gives way to a creamy, oozy paste that coats the mouth. Pair with Prosecco for the ultimate Italian-inspired New Year.

Chocolate

Does there really have to be a reason for eating chocolate? The answer is no.

I love a few nibbles of really exceptional chocolate once the New Year’s toast is over. Why not make your chocolate local? Our Utah Dark Chocolate Collection has some of our favorite locally-made bars for your nibbling pleasure. Want a little more? Stop by one of our locations for a few samples to help you decide on your own curated selection of fine artisan chocolate.

Lentils

Italians will traditionally eat lentils cooked with pancetta and sage and topped with cotechino on New Year’s Eve. The small round shape of both the lentils and cotechino signify wealth to Italians. Plus, it’s an incredibly tasty way to welcome 2016.

Bitters

Here’s another way to raise the bar with your average sparkling wine this year. Have fun mixing bitters and other ingredients for festive sparkling wine cocktails. Not sure where to start? Our Essential Bitters Collection will get you going with our most popular, coveted, and easy-to-use bitters.

Local Collection

Whether you need a hostess gift, a quick party pack, or tried and true treats, we’ve got ready-made collections to get your party started. Choose from any of our gift collections to give to your favorite hostess or as a starter pack for your own party. You can’t go wrong with the goodies we’ve put together for you.

There you have it, friends. I hope you’ve all had a marvelous 2015, and I hope 2016 is even better—and tastier!

The Tuesday Farmer’s Market at Pioneer Park is a much anticipated event for many. It signals the beginning of a bountiful harvest and the last weeks of summer. Tuesdays are a smaller, quieter, and food-focused version of the Downtown SLC Farmers Market on Saturdays. I can stroll listlessly through the handful of stalls in the early evening rather than navigating a path, elbows first, through a sea of fellow food lovers in the early hours of Saturday. There’s more time to chat with farmers about different varieties of fruits and vegetables, more time to make a wise choice, and much less traffic or other elbows.

My first Tuesday purchases were huge, heavy heirloom tomatoes, a small basket of cherry tomatoes, a perfectly ripe watermelon, bread, and greens. Greens, bread, and heirloom tomatoes were bought for specific purposes. The cherry tomatoes and watermelon were for halloumi, but I wasn’t quite sure how they’d all come together, or if one would be chosen over the other. Bon Appetit’s recipe inspired me to create an easy, fresh way to incorporate both components with what Evan has dubbed “the cheese that grills.”

As previously mentioned this month, Halloumi has the uncanny ability to grill or brown, without ever melting. It always feels strange to lay pieces of cheese down on a fiery hot cast iron pan and see it sizzle and brown rather than melt into a cheesy, goopy mess. The salty, sheep’s milk cheese mingles perfectly with fresh, sweet watermelon and warm, charred tomatoes. A sprinkling of chopped mint and basil elevate the aroma and fresh factor, while a decent dousing of Viola EVOO is the perfect finish, because duhhhhh, Viola. Note: I finish everything with Viola, because it makes everything infinitely more delicious…and because I can.

This a lovely, plated salad for two to four people, but also a lovely addition to a large barbecue. Lay components in clean lines for a fancy-schmancy buffet-worthy dish. Either way, these ingredients are all in season, and you deserve a delicious salad in your life. Go on, enjoy.

Watermelon and Halloumi Salad 
Serves 2-4

• 1/2 pound rindless watermelon slices, cut into triangles
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, for cooking
• 8 slices  Halloumi Cheese
• 12-16 cherry tomatoes
• Chiffonade of 6 basil leaves
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
• Viola olive oil, or another condiment grade olive oil for drizzling
• Kosher salt

Heat a small cast iron pan over medium heat. Lay watermelon slices on a plate in a whimsical pattern (or in a uniform one if you like that). Season with kosher salt. Add oil and tomatoes to the cast iron; roll tomatoes around the pan every two minutes or so until sides begin to brown and skins burst. Remove to a small bowl to cool slightly. While tomatoes are cooling, lay 4 slices of Halloumi Cheese on the cast iron pan, letting brown for about one minute before flipping. Remove halloumi, and lay over watermelon slices. Scatter cherry tomatoes across the plate, sprinkle with basil and mint. Add more salt if desired, and finish with a good drizzle of condiment oil. Serve immediately.

I’ve done it. Consider those rainy day blues cured—forever and ever. The treatment? Mozzarella di Bufala. Evan recently wrote about Mozzarella di Bufala, and I agree with every single thing he said. It’s a gem of a cheese that’s steeped in history and is a perfect reminder of warm, summer days. Our recently released sale this week on this life changing cheese has me in a much better mood than the current weather situation would normally have me in. This is the time of the year when I begin to look forward to tomato season, mostly so I can consume them in mass quantities with mozzarella and basil. Since there aren’t any mid-August tomatoes laying around, here are 10 ways to enjoy Mozzarella di Bufala with May’s very own seasonal ingredients:

1. Lasagna

Thinly slice your Mozzarella di Bufala and layer between pasta sheets and ricotta for an even more delicious cheese layer in this famous dish. Follow your favorite recipe or substitute it for Burrata in our Asparagus and Burrata Lasagna from last year. Mozzarella will melt deliciously into any baked pasta dish, but this one is my personal favorite.

2. Pizza

This is the most perfect use of Mozzarella di Bufala. Take our frozen pizza dough, a can of crushed tomatoes, and some basil home with your mozzarella, and you have the makings for the most traditional pizza ever. This pizza is why Napoletanos created Mozzarella di Bufala in the first place …. I’m sure of it.

3. Bruschetta

Fancy toast is all the rage right now. Say what you will, but I think bruschetta is the O.G. fancy toast. Select any number of toppings to combine with your Mozzarella. My favorites are locally fire-roasted tomatoes and artichokes, kale pesto, olive tapenade, or thin slices of prosciutto.  Serve cold or toss these under the broiler to begin the melting process of your precious Mozz.

4. Prosciutto Wraps

This is the easiest way to get our cheese from plate to mouth other than eating it by itself. Wrap thin slices of prosciutto around slices of mozzarella and basil leaves. Drizzle with oil and enjoy immediately. If you’d like to make this more of a meal than a snack, add other veggies or lay wraps atop dressed greens. Speaking of salads …

5. Spinach, Pea, & Herb Salad

Dress Spinach, snap peas, basil, and mint with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. Toss chunks of mozzarella over the top and you’re now looking at my favorite springtime salad.

6. Eggs

Pick your means of cooking eggs, and I’ll give you a place for the mozzarella. Omelette? Toss it in with your veggies. Frittata? Sprinkle chunks in before baking. Fried? Between bread and egg, of course! Eggs love Mozzarella di Bufala almost as much as our cheese mongers do.

7. Arancini

Tonight, make risotto. Lots of risotto. Tomorrow, make arancini. These little fried balls of rice and other delectable ingredients are heavenly, but they’re even better when rice is packed around pieces of mozzarella before frying. Just think about cutting into a warm fried ball of rice that gives way to melty Mozzarella in its center. You’d better wipe away that drool before it lands in your lap.

8. Salt, Oil, Pepper

This was my Nonna’s favorite appetizer, and I’m sure it had everything to do with how quickly it quieted the entire room. Sprinkle an entire ball of mozzarella with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, then drizzle your very best condiment grade olive oil over it. Serve with crackers or warm bread and enjoy the peace and quiet while you finish making dinner.

9. Roasted vegetables

Roasting brings out all the natural sugars from veggies like beets or carrots. Find your favorite recipe for these or roast simply with salt and oil and serve over slices of mozzarella. In this case, the simplicity is as beautiful as the flavors.

10. Strawberry and Balsamic

It almost sounds like dessert, doesn’t it? Lay slices of mozzarella out in a circle on a salad-sized plate and top with sliced strawberries, hazelnuts, and chopped basil. Finish this dish by sprinkling the entire plate with sea salt, and then a drizzle of your thickest or favorite balsamic.

April, you love it or you hate it. I love it, and I love this month’s cravings. We kept it short and sweet for April since we’re all busy scrambling to clean up Easter eggs and get our taxes submitted. Here’s what we can’t get enough of this month:

CHEESE: Leonora

If you’ve visited any of our stores recently, namely downtown, there may have been an incredibly eager cheesemonger or two nearly force-feeding you a sample of this little beauty. What you’re experiencing is cheese geekiness in its more exhuberant, pure form. Leonora was an all-star staff favorite years ago at Caputo’s. We lost it for a long period. All of a sudden this winter, it was back, gracing our cases and palettes with its acidic perfection. This log of pure goat’s milk cheese from Leon, Spain has an intense acidity in its flaky, dry interior, but blanaces itself with a cream line just beneath its thin rind that makes it its own best friend. Wanna guess what I like to pair with Leonora? More Leonora. If that’s an unacceptable answer, then I’d say white wine. All the white wine, to be exact. Stay tuned for musings from Evan and make sure to come by for a taste of this cheese. It’s a knockout. But be warned, no one has ever loved Leonora more than Evan.

SWEET: Marou Ben Tre 78%

Don’t look at me, Matt always says it best when it comes to the chocolate obsessions.

“Marou evokes many thoughts and emotions. From exhilaration, lust, fear, and back to comfort. It is an incredibly complex and exotic chocolate. It manages to be ethereal and visceral at the same time. On the one hand it is like an exotic and mysterious woman whispering in a language you can’t remotely comprehend. On the other it is like a musical journey from slow Asian instrumentals to death metal.

Using 100% Vietnamese ingredients including shade grown cacao from 5 different provinces, Marou captures aromas and flavors never before experienced by our Western palates. While it will take us much more tasting to really get to know the soul of Marou’s chocolate, one is perfectly clear. The two French expatriates behind Marou live in Vietnam make chocolate that is a cousin to French, but distinctively Vietnamese. Marou makes globalization look sexy.”  -Matt Caputo

Yep. Marou. The Ben Tre region along the Mekong River lends itself to cacao that is well balanced and not too acidic. It’s a thing of Vietnamese beauty, and one that I’ve loved using this for budinos and flourless cakes. My craving extended beyond the bar, but be sure to give this a try next time you visit one of our stores. You’ll see what Matt’s talking about.

SAVORY: Salame Beddu Cacciatorini

We’ve got a soft spot for small batch salami, and boy does this fill that soft spot with delicious, porky goodness. Salame Beddu is a small artisanal production in St Louis that is nothing short of exciting. I first tried this at a recent dinner gathering with some work pals. One of our warehousing guys brought it along as an afterthought and hostess gift for yours truly. Turns out it was the star of the entire evening (even more so than my famous Amatriciana). We couldn’t get enough and immediately polished off the piece, and then we couldn’t stop talking about it. Seriously, half the night’s discussion was about this new brand none of us had ever heard of. Salame Beddu passed the taste test well before we heard their lovable story of artisanal passion and dedication to quality. Due to such a small production and recent well-deserved attention, we may run out of this little guy. But fear not, we’ll stock whatever we can get from our friends in St. Louis. Everything we’ve tried is equally as delicious as the devilishy spicy Cacciatorini.

After the Easter decorations are stashed away for 2016 and you’ve submitted those pesky taxes, you’re going to be hungry. And you’ll definitely want something tasty and satisfying, whether it’s pork, cheese, or chocolate. You deserve, we’ve got your back on this one.