Great Gouda!

I love gouda.  It's so good!  Remember - it isn't actually pronounced "goo-da" but "how-da."  Whatever.  It tastes great!  When its been aging for five years, it gets crystals in it that give it a crunch kind of like parmesean and it has this incredible sweet butterscotch, nutty-ness.  I love it aged so much, that I have yet to really try some of the younger versions.  While the older cheese has a crunchy crystalline texture, the younger cheeses have a nice creamy, buttery texture that I can't wait to get to know.  I've got some guidance now.  The latest issue of Culture (an amazing magazine for cheese heads), has a sexy gouda centerfold!  Oh yes it does.  Want some statistics?

1)  All gouda has to be at least 48% fat.  Yum!
2)  Worried about little holes in your gouda?  Perfectly normal.  If fact, some cheese makers add enzymes to intentionally make the curd "burp."
3)  Think flavored gouda is weird?  Actually, since the Netherlands was an early spice trade hub, putting cumin seeds in the cheese has a great, old history.
4)  Wondering where the incredible sweetness comes from?  After the curd has been cut, and the whey is being released, some of it is drained off and the curd is rinsed with warm water to remove some of the lactose.  Less lactose minimizes lactic acid development, and creates a sweeter cheese.  Again yum!  This sounds like a pretty complex process.  In fact, if you change the temperature of the washing water by just one degree, you get a different flavor/texture profile.
5)  Wax on, wax off?  A real gouda isn't covered in red wax like the ones at the grocery store, but it is covered with a thin layer of plastic to keep the rind clean during the aging process.

As with all cheeses, the food the cows eat really impacts the flavor of the cheese.  While cows make more milk when they're eating "silage" (dry feed), grass makes for tastier cheese.  When you can close your eyes and feel like you're in the pasture with the beasties, that's  a good cheese!  Don't take it from me - check out these happy Dutch cows on the first day of spring!   Just remember this as the sun sets earlier, and the skies fill with clouds and snow!

Camembert - it isn't just a small Brie

I love Camembert.  You should too.  There is so much flavor wrapped up in this little bloomy rind.  Not when you get it from the grocery store when it's just Brie with a different name, but when it comes in a little wooden box and arrives straight from France it is just amazing.  (If you can't find it locally, you can always order online from Amazon.com or a cheese shop that ships like Murray's Cheese or the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills.  It'll be fine - it comes in it's own cute little box!) You must, must, must take it out of the fridge at least a half hour in advance to let it warm up and get gooey.  If you take that step, you will be rewarded with cheese that almost needs a spoon for serving.  Incredible on a bit of baguette.  *If your cheese has gone from gooey to runny, your cheese may be a little too over ripe,

Real Camembert only comes in an 8 oz disk.  If you're friends with your cheesemonger, you might be able to get a half round, but I'm telling you from experience that I got in trouble for only having a half at Thanksgiving!  It goes great with Pinot Noir, and has a great sort of sweet mushroom flavor with a bit of nuttiness in the background.  Apparently, if you eat Brie and Camembert in France blind folded, you might not be able to tell the difference.    I can't wait for that "Pepsi Challenge."  Keep in mind - while this isn't a "smelly" cheese, it does have a great cheesy smell, which you might not be prepared for if you are used to the stuff from the grocery store.  You should definitely eat the rind - for two reasons.  First, the rind in this case is really part of the flavor profile of the cheese.  Do your own taste test if you don't believe me.  Without the rind, the flavor is almost too mild.  Additionally, if you do do this test, you'll find that there isn't a lot of cheese left (especially if you let the cheese warm up as directed).  This little guy is really only a half inch thick, so if you cut the rind off, you'll be left with a sad little sliver of cheese.

Fun fact?  According to Steve Jenkin's Cheese Primer, the "Vimoutier parish archives [in] 1680 Camembert was already highly regarded: 'A very good cheese, well-suited to aid digestion after a meal washed down with good wines.'"  There you have it.  You can eat it (as I just did) at the end of a huge eating day like Thanksgiving.  Burp.

Beautiful Berkshire Blue

As part of my Thanksgiving "Pilgrim's Progress" cheese spread, I needed a cheese from Massachusetts.  Trouble was, Andrew's Cheese Shop only had one cheese from MA in the case on Wednesday when I went in to procure my dairy delights.  It always makes me nervous when I don't have choices, but the one cheese they had sounded kind of interesting.  I took Berkshire Blue home untasted.  What choice did I have?  It was all about location, location, location for this tasting.

I wasn't disappointed!  This blue cheese (on the right - duh) is a great find for anyone who loves blues.  It might not be a great cheese for introducing your blue cheese phobic cheeses to your obsession with blue mold.  It is a bit on the tangy side.  That said, it also has a great earthy sweetness, with a great creamy texture.  It was great on a bit of cracker (I tried to eat it without carbs, but it stuck to my fingers!  Not a terrible problem to have, but it was slowing me down.) with a glass of port.

The website for this great artisinal cheese betrays their love for their Jersey cows.  I can't say I blame them.  Not only are they adorable, with their big brown eyes, but their milk has a higher butterfat content, and they are apparently smarter than your average cow.  Kind of fun.  And really, if you devote your life to turning someone's milk into cheese, wouldn't you prefer if they weren't just a bunch of great udders?  I digress.

If you can find this one, buy it!  You won't be sorry.  It's only available in a few shops around the country, but they'll ship it to you for special occasions if you ask nicely (and give them your credit card number).

Have I Mentioned Marisa?

I've been meaning to share this sheep's milk cheese with you for a while, but I've been too happy munching on it!  This amazing cheese (named for the cheesemaker's daughter) from Carr Valley Cheese Company in Wisconsin is aged for six months and has an incredible earthy, nutty-ness.  Plus, as a sheep's milk cheese, it has a naturaly high butterfat content, which gives it a great richness.  I could snack on this all day (and I have been)!

I've now shared this cheese at two parties - a Pinot Noir tasting and at Thanksgiving.  (In the picture, it's the one in back.) It went great with the Pinot, and at Thanksgiving, even though it was competing with a lot of stunners (more on that later), it really held it's own.  The Professor appreciated it's mid-western roots, and I love the fact that it almost has the texture of a cheddar, but it is clearly something else all together.

I read a restaurant review lately that described one dish as "the nice sister that holds your hand after [another really strong flavored dish] has verbally assaulted you." Perhaps out of context it doesn't make any sense, but Marisa really is the nice, interesting sister who might not  be the one you notice first when you walk into the room, but once you meet her, you keep wanting to go back and spend more time with her.

If you can find this one, buy it!  Keep it around for snacking on and sharing with friends!

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope your day was full of friends and family, lacking in drama, and sporting a great cheese plate!  Even though all of my genetic family was hundreds of miles away, I enjoyed a beautiful day with friends, starting with turkey in the park under sunny skies, followed by a movie and a cheese course curated by yours truly.  The good part was that I didn't have to cook, the bad part was that now that I'm considered the "cheese expert" of the group, the pressure was on!

I couldn't just bring any old cheese.  The good news is, I am definitely feeling more confident about my cheese choices after six months of experimentation.  The only problem - there are too many great cheeses to pick from!  What to do?

Why, track the "Pilgrim's Progress" of course!  "Huh?"  you say?  Well, those poor persecuted Pilgrims started their journey in England (amazing cheese choices from there!), spent a while in the Netherlands (can anyone say 5-year Gouda?), and finally ended up on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts!  I am so clever!  Well, at least when I went into Andrew's Cheese Shop on that mission, they said they hadn't heard of that theme before...  Anyway, the RSVP list started out at 5 (including Darling Husband and myself).  I had picked up a Lancashire from England, a 5-year Gouda from the Netherlands, and the amazing Birkshire Blue from the Birkshire Mountains of Massachusetts (ok, the Pilgrims probably didn't get that far inland, but whatever!).  I had about a pound of cheese, which would have been fine, but then the list grew to 8 and then to 10.  Yikes!  Man Who Sneers at Goats (Cheese) jumped in with a few additional cheeses, including a Petit Basque from Spain.  I also brought along a Camembert from France.  We rationalized that the Catholic Pilgrims who traveled across Spain and France to the beautiful cathedrals during the Middle Ages were also Pilgrims (albeit not the kind that ate turkey and corn pudding with the Native Americans who hadn't yet realized that they were a threat to their very existance).

I'll be posting about a few of the cheeses over the next few days as you recover from turkey overload and start planning your holiday parties.  Are you planning cheese boards?  Let me know!

Is that a cheese knife in your pocket?

When you have a cheese blog, and you are eating lots of cheese, you tend to have some left overs.  Left overs are great!  You can keep them in the fridge a few days to be a little memory of your new cheese discovery (allowing their delightful cheesy smell to permeate the corners of the deli drawer).  You can enjoy them again on a cracker, or you can get a little more adventurous the second time around (blue cheese with brussels sprouts anyone?).  Alternately, while you are getting around to figuring out what to do, your Darling Husband might squirrel it away and take it off to school to share at an English Department meeting.  Doh!

Usually this is ok, when it is actually a left over, but as you might remember from his guest post a while back, Darling Husband sometimes takes cheese that isn't actually a left over at all, but a $13 uncut Le Gariotin goat cheese from Soutwest France.  To be fair, I had gotten two of these cuties for a wine and cheese event (tastes great with Pinot Noir!), and there was an extra one left in the fridge.  But this was a whole cheese!  It may have been left over, but it hadn't been compromised, for crying out loud!

What's kind of charming is that this cheese ended up at a English Department meeting, where, as it turns out  many English teachers fantasize about dropping out and raising goats and making cheese.  Who knew?  As such, sharing a delightful, wrinkly, sweet, savory nugget of goat cheese (cut with the cheese knife that has been missing from my kitchen for about a month) with some incredibly hard working folks who regularly eat "shepherd's pie" of ground beef and mashed potato flake from the school cafeteria seems a small price to pay.

Sweet dreams teachers!  I hope you enjoyed that cheese!  It was my pleasure to share with you.

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 13 I've got the Blues!

Unlucky #13!  Sigh.  It has been quite a week.  I have been eating cheese, and taking notes, but between team meetings for class, late nights at the office, and a Basset Hound puppy visiting for the weekend drooling on everything and amping up the energy, I just haven't been able to share.  I've missed you guys!  Hope the feeling has been mutual.

Anyway,  I have been meaning to share with you the joys of Blue Cheese (again!).  I picked up my favorite Roaring 40s from Australia, and decided to compare it with Bleu de Bocage from France.  This was a crazy "Pepsi Challenge!"  The Roaring 40s, as you know, is a sweet blue that comes in a pretty blue wax shell.  I don't have to go on about that one again, other than to bore you with my undying love for it.  Blah, blah, blah.

Bleu de Bocage, on the other hand, was not an immediate love.  In fact, if you are a fan of CheeseDreaming on FaceBook, you might have seen me comment on how I had finally found a cheese I didn't like.  Egads!  This cheese is really unique.  It is one of the few goat cheese blues out there.  Obviously Man Who Sneers at Goat (Cheese) wouldn't be a fan.  I didn't even ask him to try this one.  My first taste made me tear up.  It is really "assertive."  I put it down and ran!  Embarassed, I went back to try again.  And again.  And again. It really grew on me.  There was a really interesting crunch to it from the salt crystals (I think that was the source).  There was a complex minerally sweetness underneath that tang that made me cry.  This one is not for the faint of heart, but give it a try!

So, in the "practical application" department, I put some crumbled Roaring 40s on my steamed Brussels Sprouts last night with some fresh ground pepper.  Yum!  The Bleu de Bocage on a cracker went really well with a Cosmo made by Darling Husband this evening.

Don't be afraid!  Get the blues.  Sometimes its ok.