After a quick afternoon nap, my mother and I headed down to a local bar (that was conveniently attached to the Hotel Ballard) called Stoneburner with intent to grab a quick glass of wine to kill some time before dinner. We ended up ordering some charcuterie and a wine flight.

My latest fancy has been French Grenache which I picked up from an ex who worked as a waitress and had a solid foundation in wines. I ordered a Grenache blend and my mother the flight which we then shared.

Charcuterie is essentially an appetizer that includes a spread of cheeses flanked with other finger foods that either enhance the flavors of the cheeses or cleanses the palate. These often include cured meats, chutneys, pickles, and crackers. In this case we ordered prosciutto, salami, and three kinds of cheeses which were served with a helping of roman mustard and rhubarb chutney.

Prosciutto is a cured ham primarily indigenous to the Italian peninsula and it exists on our continent primarily in eateries of luxury. I am told this is a result of excessive FDA regulation on the production of prosciutto – because it is not cooked it is subject to an arduous inspection process which most would-be producers are not willing to subject themselves to and, therefore, most of the prosciutto in America is imported and hence expensive, however I am assured it is quite pedestrian over there. I am normally not a fan of the meat because I have always found it to have a rather gamey flavor which I have traditionally liked to steamed goat hair. This was far from that – it was thinly sliced to increase the surface area and enhance the flavor (typical rendering) and was soft and creamy on the palate. Because it is not cooked, there are often strands of tissue with different consistency, and I found it was best consumed by cutting with a knife into smaller sizes.

The salami, likewise, was delicious, however it is a mixture of different kinds of meats chopped up, seasoned, repackaged, and sliced thin. With salami, there should be no strands at all. This was not your typical Subway salami, mind you, it was perfect on its own. The downside of these meats, however, is their salt content, which is part of the reason you should not do as we did, and consume them in moderation. I estimated that our charcuterie plate had 3/4 lb of meat between the two types.

The three cheeses were Gorgonzola, Umbriaco Alla Birra Rosa, and Taleggio. Gorgonzola is a blue cheese, firm but still soft and should easily crumble in the fingers. It is strong and full of flavor like all blue cheeses, and tends to be on the stronger end of the spectrum. This did not disappoint, and was easily enjoyed by itself. The Umbriaco is a hard cheese, a lot like a weaker version of Parmesan. Where Parmesan is typically a garnish scrapped and scratched into small pieces because of its strong flavor onto a larger plate of pasta or salad, the Umbriaco was perfectly happy by itself, on a cracker, or paired with one of the meats. The “alla birra rosa” means that the cheese was rinsed somewhere in the production process with a red Italian beer and gave the outside the slightest pink tint. The Taleggio was a soft cheese with a nice kernel was most similar in terms of consistency to brie or Camembert.

The Roman Mustard was fun. It was easily the second strongest mustard I’ve had (the top seat still being held by Colman’s), but where its competitor is finely ground and brilliant yellow, this was the deep brownish yellow with what appeared to be stoneground mustard seeds that crunched and popped in your mouth. There was a nice plating of homemade pickles that were mostly asparagus and celery that crunched and snapped nicely and had a fine balance of sweet and vinegar. The Rhubarb chutney had a nice flavor – not nearly as potent in-your-face rhubarb as I was expecting. It was tempered with a nice sweet flavor and the mix between salty meats, spicy mustard, each of the different cheeses, the pickles, and the sweet chutney was a perfect plating for charcuterie.

We ended up ordering far more than we had intended, completed the plate and the wines, and made our way up to the hotel to prepare for dinner, and we ended up having to rush to get to dinner on time.