Cheese (2005–2008)

[gariotin]

Dave, I'll check out your post over the weekend when I have a little time - I'm sure you have some good tidbits.

I discovered an interesting new cheese from one of my favorite American cheesemakers, Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove. She makes the Humboldt Fog, which I think is one of the very best American artisinal cheeses. This one is similar in texture and size and it is called Truffle Tremor. It is not overwhelmingly truffley, which I find to often be the case and a real turn off. This is just becoming available in stores, so check it out.

Also, for the Cheddar vision fans, the site just won a Media Award at last week's British Cheese Awards! It was a special award for "Media Profiling British Cheese". So, I guess lots of people are watching.

Sheena, I am going to look for Timberdoodle here around Boston - love that name.

I think the rice flour one you are referring to is Franklin Peluso's Teleme. It IS very mild, but has a very milky, lactic flavor that pairs beautifully w/fresh fruit at the end of a meal. Steve Jenkins waxes rhapsodic about it in the Cheese Primer - he calls it an American treasure and has an entire page about it, so check it out.

Hooligan is a wonderful washed rind cheese from Connecticut - hard to find, but worth the hunt.

[SheenaGreena]

I know you can get the timberdoodle in specialty cheese shops in vermont, but that is just too far away for me. I believe timberdoodle is slang for some sort of animal (I forget which one, but if you do a search...you'll find out).

I'm pretty sure the rice flour one I had is the one that you described. I am a cheese novice and I guess I don't appreciate those mild flavours. I am all about the assertive kick you in the butt cheeses and this one just doesn't do it for me. It seems like it would make a good mild grilled cheese, but maybe that is just wrong on so many levels.

[MarketStEl]

Also, for the Cheddar vision fans, the site just won a Media Award at last week's British Cheese Awards!  It was a special award for "Media Profiling British Cheese".  So, I guess lots of people are watching.

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I've got a direct Cheddarvision feed on my Facebook profile. You'll have to scroll down through some stuff to get to it.

As of now (10 am EDT 10/06/07), "Wedginald" is a rugby fan.

[Khadija]

I just added cheddarvision to my facebook. Thanks for letting me know I can do this!

[gariotin]

Hey Cheeseheads -

I can't believe no one is eating great cheeses to share these days!

Here's a couple of cheese events I've done recently:

Did a tasting with about 10 people and knew in advance that half would be French. I purposely decided to avoid French cheese and focus on great cheeses from other countries, and especially American. I served:

La Tur - wonderful sheep-cow creamy cheese from Langha region in Italy

Cruccolo - cow milk, semi-soft from the Piedmont, I think. Has a little kick - very likable

Tarantaise from Thistle HIll Farm in Vt - their take on mountain style cheeses like Beaufort or Comte - farmstead, with Jersey milk - really great.

Grafton Village cloth-wrap ched - a new cheese for them, aged for 18 mos

La Serena - sheep milk from Spain - very creamy and delicious

Truffle Tremor from Cypress Grove - one of my new faves

Stinking Bishop from UK - washed rind with pear brandy

Echo Lake Blue from Rogue River - another of their outstanding blues from Oregon.

I was very pleased that at the end, every single French person thanked me for opening their eyes about American cheeses and admitted that they had highly underestimated how good they could be!

Yesterday, I had an early family Tgiving and served:

Young Mahon - personal preference, I like it much better than aged

Constant Bliss - great little soft-ripened cow's milk drum from Jasper HIll Farm in Vermont

Truffle Tremor - I am just loving turning people on to this great cheese!

Neal's Yard stilton - seemed so timely for this season.

Served all with fig paste, roasted pecans, sliced apples, and various crackers.

Everyone enjoyed it all, and I laughed when my niece explained to her new friend,

"there is always great weird cheese at Aunt Linda's house!"

That's a family tradition I'm happy to be known for.

What are you all eating these days?????

[MarketStEl]

I must regretfully confess my lack of conscientiousness in failing to properly document and photograph the array of cheeses I took with me to a first meeting with an online friend at his Lansdowne apartment. It turns out he is a big ol' cheesehead, like me, so I splurged on several varieties.

One was a Spanish cheese similar to Idiazabal in hardness and flavor.

The second was a half-goat, half-sheep cheese with a layer of ash in the middle, from France.

Third was good old Roaring Forties Blue, which he agreed was as good as I said it was.

Fourth was Shropshire, a British blue Cheddar.

Fifth was a horseradish-cheddar cheese spread I picked up at Whole Foods; neither of us were that impressed by it.

Sixth was a half-pound block of Tillamook Extra Sharp. Folks, I will put this supermarket dairy case cheese up against farmhouse Cheddars costing two to three times as much -- it's that good, IMO. (As he kept half of what we didn't consume -- I offered him his pick of stuff to keep -- he must have agreed.)

Now I need another excuse to serve lots of cheese to cheeseheads. Thanksgiving is not a good one; one, and maybe two, lucrative job offers probably is. The occasion would be the first paycheck from the job I take.

[Dave Hatfield]

I've been far too quiet on this forum. Although I continue to eat my lovely French cheeses I haven't done anything unusual lately.

Yesterday, however, it being Thanksgiving & all we did put together a nice little cheese platter that I though I'd share. These are all goat's cheeses & Jacques & I put together the list. He was told to keep it within the bounds of reason. (last year given a free hand he bought the whole store; or at least it looked that way.)

The cheese platter. Only 9 varieties! Jacques calls this restraint.

These little guys are very soft & creamy. That's a sprinkle of powdered cumin on top.

Slightly older, firmer & sharper with mixed herbs & lots of pepper on top.

The little round guy next to the knife is my favorite. It is much older, very hard & very sharp. Jacques knows that I buy these all the time.

Many of you will recognize the rouelle & the bouche plus the other varieties. I'm terrible at remembering the names of the individual chevres. Still, I'm pretty good at remembering their tastes.

Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving. We certainly did.

[gariotin]

What's the square one in the left front section of the tray, Dave? It doesn't look like goat - more like a smelly washed rind, but that might be the light.

I was very very disappointed in a pasteurized Vacherin I bought at Whole Foods for a Thanksgiving selection. It looked fabulous with a beautiful rind. When I cut a hole in the top for the spoon to go in, the paste was a perfect creaminess, bordering on liquid. Everyone oohed and aahed and dove in. When I finally got in for a taste, I was heartbroken - it had NO flavor! How can something that beautiful be so tasteless??? An example of significant cheese sadness!

[Dave Hatfield]

What's the square one in the left front section of the tray, Dave?  It doesn't look like goat - more like a smelly washed rind, but that might be the light.

←

Not sure of the name, but definitely goat. Mild with just a slight bite to it.

Suspect that it is just the light since for whatever reason that picture had a ad color cast so I had to play with it quite a bit.

[Dante]

What are you all eating these days?????

Hmm...

Cheese plate at Elixir in White River Junction, Vt-

Monte Enebro

La Tur triple cream (sheep, cow, goat)

Abbe de Belloc

and one more that I can't recall off the top of my head. I plan to do a full review of Elixir for the New England forum soon- they had a limited menu when we went and felt it wouldn't be fair to them to do a review under those circumstances. We'll be going there again in Friday.

All quite exquisite, which makes sense4 as the chef for Elixir used to be chef for the Canoe Club in Hanover, Nh, which also has an excellent cheese plate.

Few evenings ago at home we had some of Lazy Lady Farm's Figaro (goat's milk with fig paste) and Cranberries and Cream (also goat's milk, with additions as the name implies), Blue Ledge Farm's Crottina (an American Cheese Society winner), a lovely, subtle little cheese called Rosemary's Waltz from Quebec, and some unpasteurized Stilton smuggled to me by a friend from England.

All quite delightful, expecially the last of those, which was an absolute epiphany.

Sincerely,

Dante

[Dante]

So...

it's occurred to me that while I like to think that I have a good knowledge of cheeses in general, but it's limited by my personal experience. I only know what I've perconally encountered and/or heard about by other afficionados.

so I feel I may need to branch out a bit...

if I were to only buy one book on cheese, what would it be?

What would my fellow conoisseurs here recommend?

Sincerely,

Dante

[gariotin]

That cheese course sounds pretty good and I am not surprised, as there is a great distributor in White River Jct. The Vt cheeses sound great.

I think that Steve Jenkins' "Cheese Primer" is still a great book, altho I wish he would update it and provide pictures. He is very opinionated, and I don't always agree with him, but the info is still very solid.

For French cheeses, there is the definitive "French Cheese", DK Eyewitness Guide, which is invaluable for the color photos.

A good Italian guide is published by Slow Food.

American cheeses are well served in Laura Werlin's"All American Cheese and Wine" and "The New American Cheese", but the newest is "American Artisan Cheese" by Jeffrey Roberts.

I am also a huge fan of the books of Max McCalman: "The Cheese Plate" and "Cheese" not only give you wads of info, but tell you the best ways to serve and partner great cheeses.

I have just recvd 2 new books - one is the "Murray's Cheese Handbook" by Rob Kaufelt and also "The Cheese Lover's Companion" by Sharon Tyler Herbst. Haven't actually checked them out yet, but there they are...

Have at it...

[pennylane]

Hi guys!

Okay, I've been living in France for the last eight years, and feel that in all that time I have totally failed to take advantage of all the cheese-tasting opportunities around me (due partly to a rather hesistant foray into the world of veganism and partly to a somewhat xenophobic desire to resist French culture for as long as possible). But now the time has come for me to explore all these opportunities, only I am not sure how best to go about it and my initial attempts have not met with much success.

I have read through the past 19 pages of this thread and noted down everyone's favourites, so I don't need any specific recommendations, but would appreciate some advice on the following topics :

1) What is the best way to discover new types of cheese - to seek out specific cheeses based on other people's recommendations or to just get whatever looks good? (I have been trying the latter technique but haven't had much success with it - I seem to end up getting a lot of different cheeses which taste the same.)

2) How does one know the best way to serve/eat different types of cheese? (Not just on their own, because the last time I did that I consumed 1% of my body weight in Comte and don't want to make a habit of it.) I mean, there are so many different kinds of cheese that it would take too long to list all possible combinations, but is there a general rule of thumb as to, for example, which kinds of cheese are better for melting, which are better to eat with fruit or jam, etc? (For instance, I tried using up some brie in a quiche a while ago and it was a complete disaster! The brie totally EVAPORATED! There was no trace of it whatsoever in the finished product - what a waste.)

3) Is it possible to get smoked cheese here in France? 'Cause all the self-professed cheese addicts I know here have never heard of it and seem almost incredulous that such a thing could even exist.

Well, thanks in advance for any helpful tips or pointers any of you cheese-lovers can give me on my quest!

[Dave Hatfield]

Hi guys!

Okay, I've been living in France for the last eight years, and feel that in all that time I have totally failed to take advantage of all the cheese-tasting opportunities around me (due partly to a rather hesistant foray into the world of veganism and partly to a somewhat xenophobic desire to resist French culture for as long as possible).  But now the time has come for me to explore all these opportunities, only I am not sure how best to go about it and my initial attempts have not met with much success.

I have read through the past 19 pages of this thread and noted down everyone's favourites, so I don't need any specific recommendations, but would appreciate some advice on the following topics :

1) What is the best way to discover new types of cheese - to seek out specific cheeses based on other people's recommendations or to just get whatever looks good?  (I have been trying the latter technique but haven't had much success with it - I seem to end up getting a lot of different cheeses which taste the same.)

2) How does one know the best way to serve/eat different types of cheese?  (Not just on their own, because the last time I did that I consumed 1% of my body weight in Comte and don't want to make a habit of it.)  I mean, there are so many different kinds of cheese that it would take too long to list all possible combinations, but is there a general rule of thumb as to, for example, which kinds of cheese are better for melting, which are better to eat with fruit or jam, etc?  (For instance, I tried using up some brie in a quiche a while ago and it was a complete disaster!  The brie totally EVAPORATED!  There was no trace of it whatsoever in the finished product - what a waste.)

3) Is it possible to get smoked cheese here in France?  'Cause all the self-professed cheese addicts I know here have never heard of it and seem almost incredulous that such a thing could even exist.

Well, thanks in advance for any helpful tips or pointers any of you cheese-lovers can give me on my quest!

←

What a great post! Lots of 'food' for thoughtl in it.

I promise to give a more complete and considered reply when:

a) I' back in France.

b) I'm not just trying to recover from a wonderful 7 hour Christmas lunch at my in laws next door neighbors house.

Merry Christmas! If you haven't guessed by now that I've had more than my fair share of wine then you are in worse shaope than I am.

[Dave Hatfield]

Hi guys!

Okay, I've been living in France for the last eight years, and feel that in all that time I have totally failed to take advantage of all the cheese-tasting opportunities around me (due partly to a rather hesistant foray into the world of veganism and partly to a somewhat xenophobic desire to resist French culture for as long as possible).  But now the time has come for me to explore all these opportunities, only I am not sure how best to go about it and my initial attempts have not met with much success.

I have read through the past 19 pages of this thread and noted down everyone's favourites, so I don't need any specific recommendations, but would appreciate some advice on the following topics :

1) What is the best way to discover new types of cheese - to seek out specific cheeses based on other people's recommendations or to just get whatever looks good?  (I have been trying the latter technique but haven't had much success with it - I seem to end up getting a lot of different cheeses which taste the same.)

2) How does one know the best way to serve/eat different types of cheese?  (Not just on their own, because the last time I did that I consumed 1% of my body weight in Comte and don't want to make a habit of it.)  I mean, there are so many different kinds of cheese that it would take too long to list all possible combinations, but is there a general rule of thumb as to, for example, which kinds of cheese are better for melting, which are better to eat with fruit or jam, etc?  (For instance, I tried using up some brie in a quiche a while ago and it was a complete disaster!  The brie totally EVAPORATED!  There was no trace of it whatsoever in the finished product - what a waste.)

3) Is it possible to get smoked cheese here in France?  'Cause all the self-professed cheese addicts I know here have never heard of it and seem almost incredulous that such a thing could even exist.

Well, thanks in advance for any helpful tips or pointers any of you cheese-lovers can give me on my quest!

←

edited to eliminate double post. Blame it on the wine!

Edited December 26, 2007 by Dave Hatfield (log)

[Kerry Beal]

For the second year in a row I've had the family over for wine and cheese instead of a traditional turkey dinner. There is a wonderful little cheese shop in the nearby town of Dundas called Mickey McGuires that carries an extensive selection of quality cheese.

Anna N and I spent over an hour there last week, tasting everything and deciding what I should buy for my Christmas meal.

A few of the standout cheeses this year were a wonderful creamy cheese with caramelized onions, a hickory smoked aged white cheddar made by the store, 'vento de estade' a sheeps milk cheese aged in hay that had a wonderfully herbaceous flavour, 'Gighla single malt cheese', a 2 year old manchego that paired beautifully with slices of Ace Bakery walnut and raisin loaf topped off with a bit of fig jam and 'Le Chevrot' a fairly sharp creamy goat round.

Repeats from last year were an apple smoked process cheese that is particularly nice, 'Singleton's Appledore Lancashire' a crumbly cheese with apple bits and 'Premier Cru' gruyere - award winning and very tasty.

The owner suggested a bleu cheese and when I explained I wasn't a fan - he gave me a sample of 'St Agur' - what he called "an entry level bleu cheese". I did actually enjoy it and brought a small wedge home.

Finally we had a small wedge of Sticky Toffee cheese, more like cheese cake than cheese - still quite pleasing.

Now what to do with all the leftovers.

[gariotin]

There is a wonderful story about the Vento d'Estate, which means "wind of summer".

The cheesemaker was taking a walk in the countryside in early summer, when the air was full of the sweet aroma of fresh-cut hay. He was inspired to create the cheese to recapture the experience - washed with white wine, and wrapped to age in fresh hay.

Who knows if it is true, but an inspiring story.....

[Kerry Beal]

There is a wonderful story about the Vento d'Estate, which means "wind of summer".

The cheesemaker was taking a walk in the countryside in early summer, when the air was full of the sweet aroma of fresh-cut hay.  He was inspired to create the cheese to recapture the experience - washed with white wine, and wrapped to age in fresh hay.

Who knows if it is true, but an inspiring story.....

←

The story that I was told was that the cheesemaker was hiding the cheese (from tax collectors or invading forces) in the hay, found it later and discovered it was tasty. However a quick search on line seems to suggest that it has only been around for 10 years or so and that the cheesemaker was inspired as you suggest by the smell of fresh hay.

The wrapping includes rosemary and mint - giving the cheese a very familiar flavour - like when you roast a leg of lamb with rosemary and serve with mint.

[gariotin]

You are right, Kerry, about the story of Ubriaco cheeses - supposedly they were thrown into vats of wine to hide from invading soldiers, altho why the soldiers would overlook the vats of wine is beyond me! The Vento is a type of Ubriaco, but I have met the family who makes it and that's the story they tell.

[suzilightning]

getting ready for our christmas celebration so i picked up a few cheeses for us to try:

i also have a new york state mcadams cheddar with which i will make a gratin to go with our prime rib.

[tamiam]

What a great thread...the thread has been around, but it is new to me. I am kind of new to the world of cheese, and decided that now is the time to take the plunge.

I had great fun at the cheese counter the other day purchasing several fresh cheeses to taste and compare and play with. I've always been a bit intimidated by how expensive good cheese can be (Not that I begrudge the prices (please don't jump me), but the cost does make me feel like choosing carefully and i never really try enough to learn my way around).

Anyhow I found out that buying small quantities lets me try and compare several varieties and buy an amount that will get eaten before it is too late. And the cheese guy didn't seem to mind making small packages. So now I am curious about cheese buying etiquette---is it OK to buy small , i.e. 3-4 oz.? For all kinds of cheeses, or are there some where cutting is verboten?

Sorry for the dopey sounding question, but I really do want to know.

[pennylane]

I do that same thing, because I hate to waste food, and yeah, there are some cheeses which can't be cut, generally the ones that come in their own little boxes, or some that come already in smaller sizes. Then, over here at least, there are some which the sellers are willing to cut into halves or quarters but no smaller. I've found that generally the softer the cheese, the less willing they are to cut it. But today I got a small piece of Epoisses and an even smaller piece of Mont d'Or. They were already cut in the store so I didn't have to ask. I did ask them to cut some Brillat Savarin but they wouldn't give me less than half a round of it, so since I had already bought three different types of cheese and had two others at home, I decided to wait until the next time for that one.

[LindsayAnn]

Tamiam:

Welcome to the WONDERFUL world of cheese. I entered this wonderous world back in 2004....at the time when I had graduated college(University of Iowa, Iowa City), and moved into the city of Chicago. Once here (where I still reside, although three moves later) I found myself loving cheese more and more with each passing day! I was introduced into the world of cheese (beyond that of kraft, deli counters, etc...which I always loved my cheese!) all on my own. I lived in Streeterville in a one-bedroom apt. my first year in the city....one block away from Navy Pier. In other words - I was in the heart of the city....Chicago being such a big city - I had so many wonderful cheeses to choose from! One afternoon, during what must have been my first month residing in Chicago, I wandered into Fox and Obel. A wonderful wonderful (wonderful must be emphazised - as this is one grand specialty shop) upscale food store...selling everything from fresh fruits and bakery items, wide assortments of salami's and other meats, and the grandest cheese counter I had ever met. I started tasting cheeses - once I noticed other shopers asking to try "this or that", prior to purchasing. With each passing week I tried new cheeses. The cheese mongers got to know me and my tastes....thus offering cheeses that I liked more and more each time. As the days, weeks and months passed I found myself liking cheeses with increasing punginess (sp? Oh well!), stinkiness, and cheeses from all sorts of milk producing animals (i.e. goats cheeses, sheeps, buffalo, etc....). I found myself adoring goats cheees....all the way from fresh chevres to stinky goats/cows/sheeps varieties.

I, was a new-found, self-pronounces and self-proclaimed cheese afficianado. My incredibly picky eating, bland eating fiance (think kraft mac and cheese, I too like this sort of food....but he does not extend beyond much of his "Normal" comfort foods....think all the things a 'normal, non-foodie" loving five year old would enjoy), loved me SO much that he bears my cheese collection (which at times is stinky....when I have a "stinky" cheese or two on hand...which varies weekly) in the fridge. There are weeks when I open the fridge and the fiance can smell it from the couch in the family room (only 20 feet away, or so) "OMG that smells like sh*t", he mumbles from the couch.

Anyhow - sorry for all that ramble...just wanted to convey that you are entering a WONDERFUL world.

I often purchase 1/3, 1/4 of a pound of cheese. Since, I am the only one eating cheese (beyond things like kraft and sargentto, which the fiance adores cheeses like these...as long as its not the "sharp" varieties at least....I told you he was PICKY!). I am in agreement with Pennylane....as long as its not the soft oozy variety that "ozzes out of this rind/exterior" once cut....the professionals at cheese counter should not give you and grief or "looks of annoyance" if you ask for 4oz or so...which is 1/4 of a pound. I, myself love having about 6-10 varieities of such cheeses on hand at a time...I prefer a small amount of each one (or at least 4 at a time) on a plate for nibbling versus one big ole' hunk of one. Thus, my need to purchase in quantities like 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 pound chunks versus larger portions.

In my expereince, the more you shop at your cheese counters, the more you get to know all the different cheese mongers, the more they will enjoy introducing you to new cheeses, resulting in new found favorites. They too, if they are cheese lovers, which they should be if working behind the counters, will also find pleasure in this. So many of my cheese mongers love the fact that I enjoy cheese so much...the fact that I get to much excitement (I am a very expressive, personable girl....I do not shy away at thanking my cheese mongers and converying to them how much I adore this or that, or how much they just made my day, because - I just found a new favorite...thanks to their help!).

Have fun, because - well, cheese is plain old fun fun fun!

Now, I am going to get off my butt and go to Pastoral cheese shop. I wasn't planning on it, nor do I need to (my stock is pretty full at the moment) - but you have motivated me to go there...I haven't been to that particular shop in a while.....over a month actually. I have been sticking to Marcy's Cheese counter in Sam's Wine Depot and WHole Foods as of recently....they are a bit closer in distance. But, Pastoral is well worth the 3 mile drive (in the city that can take 15 mins, driving!).

[tamiam]

Thanks for the encouragement Pennylane and LindsayAnn. Combining my love of the side-by-side taste test comparison with my hatred of wasting food makes for some silly self-induced dilemmas.

Luckily my guy is the opposite of picky, and is always there to help finish things off but the kids are still kind of tentative. They grew up in a small town without a lot of choices, though as they get exposed to more and more good food, they are coming around.

My plan is to taste thru some basic styles of cheese just to get familiar, so I started with some fresh ricotta, chevre, ricotta salata, sheep feta, and caviocavallo (sp?). All kind of plain-ish, but fresh and milky and subtle in a nice way. Still in real life, I'm drawn to stronger flavors--love Rogue Smoky Blue.

I've had lots of wonderful cheeses before, but never in any kind of organized way. I tend to find one I like then keep on repeating it instead of branching out. So its time to jump on in and play. Love LindsayAnn's energetic way of talking about what I am talking about. This will be fun.

[suzilightning]

tamiam,

at least you have cheese counters where you can purchase cheeses by a few ounces. yeah, i can go a few miles and buy italian cheeses by the wedge but if i want something more interesting like a nice bleu like even a maytag i have to go about 20 miles to the nearest good cheese counter for fresh cut. that's why you saw all the i bought was prepackaged. now if you want cooper american by the slice or jarlsberg you can get that anywhere. whine, whine, whine. ok the pity party is over now and back to my real life with a wonderful man who wouldn't know kraft american from velveeta. oh, is there a difference?!