If you're heading from one end of Italy to the other (south to north or north to south), make sure you add a stop at Caseificio Rosola to your road trip! It's not really on the way to anywhere except maybe Modena, but it's so worth the extra half hour or so tacked on to your itinerary. We recently stopped by for a visit on the drive from Firenze to Vicenza. It added about an hour to our trip. We didn't mind thanks to the beautiful views and bags and bags of amazing cheese/dairy products we took home! Rosola has been specializing in cheese made from the milk of white cows, "Bianca Modenese," since 1966 and they are masters at their craft. They are the cheese makers Massimo Bottura sources from for his 3-Michelin starred Osteria Francescana and Stanley Tucci visits on the show, Searching for Italy. Despite their 15-minutes of fame, the shop is a humble operation giving off major family owned and operated vibes. (They're actually a co-op -- founded in 1966 by a group of farmers.) When we stopped by on a Monday morning, we were the only customers in the shop, and were treated to tons of info from the absolutely delightful woman working the counter. She told us all about how the cows are raised, what type of milk is used in which products, difference between the aging/flavor/texture/etc. of each product, and my favorite part of all... gifted us with fresh ricotta as we checked out. Y'all. This ricotta was so fresh it was still warm!! She gave us a plastic spoon so we could sample it in the car. It was, literally, the best thing I've ever eaten. While we stocked up on the infamous Parmigiano Reggiano, we were also excited to score panna cotta (quite possibly the second best thing I've ever eaten, right behind that fresh ricotta), yogurt, butter, marscapone, and even goat cheese! read more

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