365 Cheeses

365 Cheeses tag:www.365cheeses.com,2008://1 2007-10-24T13:12:27Z 365 Cheeses: A Year-Long Cheese Course Movable Type 3.33 157. Bartlett Blue tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.166 2007-10-23T14:15:45Z 2007-10-24T13:12:27Z

If I had paid for it I would like it just as much. Bartlett Blue came as a free extra in my last order from Artisanal Cheese and I cannot thank them enough. It is one of the best...

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If I had paid for it I would like it just as much. Bartlett Blue came as a free extra in my last order from Artisanal Cheese and I cannot thank them enough. It is one of the best blue cheeses I've had this year. The texture is semi-soft, slightly crumbly but not brittle. The cheese is modeled after Wensleydale and captures the charm of that cheese at its finest. The producers of Bartlett Blue are Jasper Hill Farms of Vermont and they know how to craft complex and delicious cheese. Name: Bartlett Blue Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized Type: semi-soft, blue Produced in: United States of America, Vermont, Greensboro, Jasper Hill Farms Date Purchased: 10/09/2007 Date Eaten: 10/11/2007 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $22.00/lb.

]]> 156. Quicke's Cheddar tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.165 2007-10-21T18:11:29Z 2007-10-21T19:08:26Z

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Divas can be a handful. They can reach heights of beauty and produce outrageous joy. Divas also are demanding, tempermental, fickle, and hard to care for. Quicke's Cheddar is a diva. But so again is most any raw milk cheese worth its salt. Tasting it the day it arrived I found the flavors, oniony and chive-like. The next day after a two-hour airing, the flavors became less harsh, but still complex and brilliant. I sensed hints of celery. Quicke's required planning and attention to taste the cheese at its best. Wrapping the cheese in breathable paper, storing it and cool but not cold temperatures, and keeping it apart from other harsh flavored foods were only the start to getting this cheese at its peak. Quicke's Cheddar like most farmhouse cheeses has a labratory of microbes working on it, changing it, pushing it to evolve in the new directions. One wheel can taste different from another made with the same milk, and cheeses of different milkings and seasons can vary even more. If you want consistancy, these are not the cheeses for you. If you want the possability of greatness but are willing to deal with occasional disappointment, this cheese is worth the gamble. The texture is more moist. less brittle than Montgomery's but the same opportunity for a great experience. Name:Quicke's Cheddar or BMF Quicke's Cheddar Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized Type: semi-hard, cheddar Produced in: England, Devon Date Purchased: 9/21/2007 Date Eaten: 9/22/2007, 9/23/2007, 9/28/2007 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $17.25.00/lb.

]]> 155. Montgomery's Cheddar tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.164 2007-10-14T23:58:32Z 2007-10-15T03:33:39Z

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Montgomery's Cheddar is a tradtional farmhouse cheese from southwest England's Somerset, home of the town of Cheddar. The Montgomery family are one of the last producers to still use calf's rennet to separate the curd from whey of the unpasteurized milk. Aged over 14 months the cheese has a brittle texture producing shards instead of clean slices. This is an amazing cheddar. Fleming said this is one of her favorite cow's milk cheeses. Because of the active cultures the flavors can vary greatly from cheese to cheese and from tasting to tasting of the same cheese. Worth finding and keeping and tasting over and over again. Name: Montgomery's Cheddar Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized Type: semi-hard Produced in: England, Somerset, North Cadbury, Manor Farm Date Purchased: 10/1/07 Date Eaten: 10/4/07 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $30.00/lb.

]]> 154. Parmigiano Reggiano, Cravero tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.163 2007-10-07T10:54:47Z 2007-10-07T15:00:55Z

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Imagine, if you will, a school. An elite school. In the northern Italian countryside, this school takes in the children of only two families. But this school is even more exclusive than that. Not every child of these two families is invited to attend. Only the best and brightest are accepted and not all of students will make it through the rigorous process to graduation. The school is G. Cravero in the town of Bra in Piedmont and the students belong to the cheese families Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano. (No jokes about the milk products that come from Bra or I will keep you after class.) G. Cravero was named in 1855 after the founder Giorgio Cravero whose descendants keep the "G" in the family by naming a son Giorgio or Giacomo, alternating with each generation. They do not produce the cheese; they select the best and mature it in ideal surroundings until it has reached its height.
I have written about Parmigiano Reggiano twice before (cheese no. 1 and 53). How does Cravero's Parmigiano Reggiano compare to others I've tasted? First the texture is the perfect texture for PR. Not too dry so that it still has a great mouth feel but still aged enough so that it shreads well over pasta. The taste was not like other PRs I've encountered. To say it tasted a little like pineapple may sound pretentious, like a wine snob comparing a glass to a everything but grapes, but that was the first word that popped in my head at first bite. Slightly sweet with a detectablt level of acidity. Pineapple. One of my favorite fruits and a welcome flavor here. Pineapple is a symbol of hospitality afterall. For a price between the average PR and the top-of the-chart PR Vacche Rosse, Cravero was my favorite of the three. Name: Parmigiano Reggiano, Cravero or Cravero Parmigiano Reggiano Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: hard Produced in: Italy Date Purchased: 9/28/07 Date Eaten: 10/01/07 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $20.00/lb.

]]> 153. Coulommiers tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.162 2007-10-04T13:53:09Z 2007-10-21T14:21:41Z

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It could be called "Brie de Coulommiers" and people would have an easier time identifying this cheese. Going by only it surname, Coulommiers, after the town in Brie, where it is produced, has all the characteristics of other Brie cheeses: white disk of bloomy rind; buttery, pale yellow center; softening to a gentle ooze as it ages. I was served Coulommiers in a bistro in Denver recently and it was one of the best things I ate that evening, thought that owes more to the quality of the other courses than any inherent qualities of the Coulommiers. Name: Coulommiers Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: soft, bloomy rind Produced in: France, Brie, Coulommiers Date Purchased: 9/28/07 Date Eaten: 9/30/07 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $15.25 each

]]> 152. Brie de Nangis tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.161 2007-10-03T23:51:53Z 2007-10-04T23:40:31Z

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Brie is a region of France outside of Paris and cheese produced there is called Brie. Being over 5000 square kilometers in size there are subdivisions of the region and the Brie cheese form. Brie de Nangis hails from the town of Nangis just as Brie de Meaux, perhaps the most famous Brie cheese, comes from the town of Meaux. Most people recognize any white disk of soft yellow cheese as "brie" or "camembert" and they would stand a good chance of identifying Brie de Nangis correctly. The flavor is buttery and creamy with an earthy, mushroom aroma. Having endured two long voyages, one from France and another from New York to North Carolina, my cheese held up fairly well, suffering only from mild temperature changes and being a few days past its prime. Name: Brie de Nangis Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: soft, bloomy rind Produced in: France, Brie, Nangis Date Purchased: 9/28/07 Date Eaten: /9/30/07 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $14.25/lb.

]]> 151. Cornish Yarg tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.160 2007-10-01T23:50:06Z 2007-10-04T02:09:43Z

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My wife Fleming calls Yarg one of her favorite cow's milk cheeses. "Cow's mik cheeses are not my favorite but this one has so much flavor." The cheese she is talking about is a pale yellow cheese with a distinctive green leaf wrap. Yarg wears a coat of nettle leaves, stings removed, which imparts a pleasing vegetal quality to the cheese. My first description of the taste was asparagus but I decided it was really more like celery. After trying 150 other cheese I can say that I've never tasted one like Yarg and that taste is good. I get annoyed when people talk about food or wine producers they've never met by name so I mention Allan and Jenny Gray who make Yarg because its name comes from theirs. Yarg is Gray spelled backwards. The Grays found a 13th century recipe for a cheese that had gone extinct and brought it back to life. Michael Crichton couldn't write a better story. Name: Cornish Yarg or Yarg Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized Type: semi-hard Produced in: England, Cornwall, Lynher Dairies Date Purchased: 9/26/07 Date Eaten: 9/29/07 Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com Price: $30.00/lb.

]]> 150. Chapel Hill Creamery's New Moon tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.158 2007-09-25T23:43:40Z 2007-10-11T13:19:51Z

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Fresh cheese. Certainly not something we come across too much in in the U.S., even in higher-end food outlets like Whole Foods. So when I saw the sign for Chapel Hill Creamery's New Moon that noted the cheese had been aged for only "9 days" I told my dred-locked cheese monger to wrap one up. New Moon viewed from the top has a bloomy white rind resembling a full moon on a cloudless night or as Fleming described it, "about the size, shape and color of an albino Ding Dong". Upon getting it home I couldn't wait to cut into the fresh creamy goodness. Major disappointment followed.

I screwed up in leaving the store without first inspecting my purchase closely. Had I given it a thorough exam of smell and touch or at least asked the cheese seller to do the same, I would have spotted that this New Moon was on the wane. Bloomy white rind cheeses like Brie, Camembert and New Moon can go through a similar transformation: from firm and underage, to softening and almost ripe, to soft and starting to ooze, to super-soft and really oozy, to hardening from the outside in, to hockey puck. If cared for improperly, some cheeses can skip the soft-stage all-together and go straight into an awful childhood of aromas of rotten-mushrooms. The cheese I took home hadn't been abused but it certainly was well past the 9 day mark. The rind was chalky, the center dry and unappealing.

Knowing the temperamental nature of some cheeses and the demands of retail, as well as wanting to support my local cheese producers, I decided to give New Moon another shot. I went back the following week and saw the same sign describing the youthfulness of this cheese. This time I asked the cheese seller when the small white disks had come in. "I'm not sure," he said. "I know it wasn't this week because we didn't get any this week." I asked him how they looked and if they were ripe. He bent down, peering into the case, and shook his head. That was all I needed. I passed on New Moon that day.

Eventually almost two months later I decided to seek New Moon out again. This time I had better luck and better cheese. Again I asked the right questions but the answers I needed to hear. The New Moon was ready to take home. Still a little young I kept it cool in my cheese fridge for a day before bringing it out to breathe two hours before dinner. I could tell from the pale peach fuzz mold, the soft center and the milky aroma that the New Moon was ready. As the knife cut through the center I could see it was perfectly ripe, at least to my liking. The edges still had some solidity while the center flowed like honey. The taste was good. Not as rich as a camembert but buttery with a hint of grass.

New Moon appeared in full form on the menu again just last night at a local food bloggers’ dinner in Durham, NC with special guest Michael Ruhlman, author of some of my favorite books on the craft and careers of passionate chefs, The Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef, and The Reach of a Chef. He announced a new work available soon titled The Elements of Cooking, modeled somewhat after Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, the bible of writing well. It reminded me of a quote by, I think, George F. Will who said wanting to meet a writer because you like his work is like wanting to meet a cow because you like her milk. If her milk made great cheese I’d want to meet her too. Name: Chapel Hill Creamery's New Moon or New Moon Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: soft, bloomy rind Produced in: United States of America, North Carolina, Chapel Hill Date Purchased: 7/22/07, 9/15/07 Date Eaten: 7/22/07, 9/15/07 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods Price: $5.99 each

]]> 149. Cambozola tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.159 2007-09-22T21:47:13Z 2007-09-24T03:17:51Z

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Cambozola and I have had a strange past. Something about the pre-printed Bavarian-blue cheese label seemed too processed, a little too contrived to me. The name had a fake, manufactured quality to it. I thought of it as a stuck up girl in the cafeteria who had no real grounds for her airs. With that prejudice I avoided even approaching her to find out if my assumptions were correct. Finally, having taken out all the other local girls and needing a date for Sunday night I decided to give Cambozola a try. We hit it off swimmingly.
Labeled as a triple cream, this cheese bears more of the qualities of enriched camembert-like cheeses than of its blue relatives. It is mild for a blue and may be a good starting point for anyone who thinks they do not like blue cheeses. Germany is not famous for its cheeses, sitting at the foot of the great Swiss cheeses to the south. Many might find Cambozola too processed but I really enjoyed every bite.
According to the manufacturer's web site the name is a tribute to a 4th century Bavarian settlement called Cambodunum. The name of the producer Käserei Champignon, "Champignon Cheesemakers" or "Button Mushroom Cheesemakers", confused me for some time. I was unclear if "champignon" was a reference to the blue fungus seeded into the soft cheese. Instead the name came about from the mushroomy smell that many of the bloomy white rind cheeses have and that being the main style of cheese the Käserei produced, they took the French word for mushroom as their brand. Name: Cambozola Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: soft, blue, bloomy rind Produced in: Germany, Bavaria, Lauben, Käserei Champignon Date Purchased: 9/23/07 Date Eaten: 9/23/07 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raliegh, Whole Foods Price: $14.99/lb.

]]> 148. Mimolette tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.157 2007-07-24T23:20:51Z 2007-07-25T23:45:58Z

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Mimolette in its whole form resembles a cantaloupe. In in its sliced form it resembles a sliced cantaloupe. The outer rind is simply dried aged Mimolette cheese that has been fed on by cheese mites. The interior orange color like most orange cheeses comes from the annatto of the Achiote plant. The flavor of this cheese is great. My wife Fleming said "Wow" four times. I counted. It tastes something of a mix between gouda and cheddar. It was aged but not to the point of being dried out. It still had some elasticity. Name: Mimolette Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: hard Produced in: France Date Purchased: 7/19/2007 Date Eaten:7/20/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raliegh, Whole Foods Price: $16.99/lb.

]]> 147. Celebrity Dairy Chevre tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.156 2007-07-15T14:51:21Z 2007-07-22T15:48:26Z

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I've held off on writing about Celebrity Dairy goat cheese for a while. It is the most famous of the locally produced cheeses of the Triangle area of North Carolina and maybe that is why I thought it deserved special mention and careful review. I also knew it was a cheese I could readily obtain so I would wait until my options for cheese purchases narrowed and it would mark the point in the journey where my job of finding great and unique cheeses got a lot harder. I have been familiar with Celebrity Dairy cheese for many years but to be honest I have not tried it for some time. It was one of the first goat cheeses I tasted and it really helped me enter the bigger world of cheese outside cow's milk. But now I come back to it after having tried some of the best goat's milk cheeses of France and Spain, Portugal and Italy, Vermont and California. The experience of those cheeses made coming back to Celebrity Dairy Chevre a little less welcoming.
Do not get me wrong. Celebrity Dairy Chevre is a wonderful cheese, a fresh goat cheese like many of the best of similar style in France. But compared to a Humboldt Fog or a Coupole goat cheese, chevres like Celebrity Dairy are prepubescent sisters of the buxom college coeds. A lot of people of talked to think they do not like goat's milk cheeses. My guess is the only ones they've tried are those like Celebrity Dairy chevre. It can be a little acidic, the tangy bite of goat's milk singing through. To the uninitiated this is a new experience that their history with cow's milk cheese does not prepare tem for. It really can be an acquired taste.
But one thing Celebrity Dairy Chevre is great for is as an ingredient in other dishes. I baked a Leek and Goat Cheese Tart with a pastry crust, sauteed leeks in butter and thyme, a mixture of sour cream, egg and heavy cream, and good-sized chunks of Celebrity Dairy Chevre. Accompanying the tart was a salad of mixed greens, pinenuts, thyme and chevre in a balsamic vinegrette. Served with a cold Pilsner beer or crisp Riesling it was a great summer dinner. Celebrity Dairy Chevre comes in different flavors: plain, confetti - a mix of different pepper corns, party - the everything bagel of goat cheese, and dill. I didn't find the herbs and spices necessary and think they tended to mask a lot of the chevre's charm. Still, I am lucky to have access to this local treat. Name: Celebrity Dairy Chevre Type of Milk: goat's, pasteurized Type: soft Produced in: United States of America, North Carolina, Chatham County Date Purchased: 7/14/2007 Date Eaten:7/15/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raliegh, Whole Foods Price: $16.99/lb.

]]> 146. Trentingrana tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.155 2007-07-14T15:37:25Z 2007-07-15T04:20:24Z

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Trentingrana is cousin to Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano, a hard grateable cow's milk cheese from Italy, in this case Trentino in the north. The cheese I bought was showing its age, probably in the two-year range, very dry but sharp and tangy in flavor. I broke out the rasp and grated it over a Caesar salad and then over some pasta and butter. It is not up to the same level as parmigiano or even grana padano but still delivers in flavor. Not the best cheese in the world but no loser either. Name: Trantingrana or Trentingrana DOP Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized Type: hard Produced in: Date Purchased: 7/10/2007 Date Eaten:7/14/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season Price: $16.99/lb.

]]> 145. Rossollino tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.154 2007-07-14T15:35:24Z 2007-07-15T14:50:04Z

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Rossollino is another cheese I can find very little information about. Usually that is not a good sign. Here's what I know. I bought the cheese in Chapel Hill at the cheese counter of A Southern Season. The store-printed label says "Rossollino semi-aged peccorino". I have not always found accurate information on these labels and I am a unsure if the spelling of the name with two "l"s is even correct. The sliver of label from the manufacturer stuck to the cheese's rind mentions "...ated in rind with tomato's extract..." and may account for the reddish hue of the rind and the "rosso" in the cheese's name. Basically Rossollino is a peccorino vecchio, an Italian sheep's milk cheese probably aged a year. It is on the salty side and not the best cheese of its type I've had. It's okay but not memorable. Name: Rossollino Type of Milk: sheep's, pasteurized Type: hard Produced in: Italy Date Purchased: 7/10/2007 Date Eaten:7/14/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season Price: $18.99/lb.

]]> 144. Lamb Chopper tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.153 2007-07-14T15:33:05Z 2007-07-15T03:37:33Z

Part of my job of finding great cheese is done for me by shopping at places that do most of the work for me. Sometimes it can even get a little boring writing about good cheese after good cheese....

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Part of my job of finding great cheese is done for me by shopping at places that do most of the work for me. Sometimes it can even get a little boring writing about good cheese after good cheese. Mostly it is still great fun to taste something I love, cheese, made by people who really care about what they do, trying to make the best product they can. Lamb Chopper is a super sheep's milk cheese by people who specialize in goat's milk chevre. The cheese is mild but not lacking in flavor. The texture is also of a young cheese, semi-soft and pliable making it ideal for melting on pizza or baked tomatoes. Name: Lamb Chopper Type of Milk: sheep's, pasteurized Type: semi-soft Produced in: United States, California, Cypress Grove Chevre Date Purchased: 7/12/2007 Date Eaten:7/14/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season Price: $20.99/lb.

]]> 143. Haystack Goat Cheese Queso de Mano tag:www.365cheeses.com,2007://1.152 2007-07-14T15:30:21Z 2007-07-15T02:49:41Z

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The Spanish name hides the origins of this wonderful American-made cheese from Colorado. Produced by Haystack Goat Cheese outside of Boulder the name refers to the handmade quality of this fantastic cheese. Queso de Mano is the first raw milk goat cheese by these producers and it is as good as any produced in Europe. I have been recommending a lot of goat cheeses recently but do so without hesitation. Goat's milk cheeses can be just as amazing as any great cow's milk cheese and Queso de Mano is that good. Nutty and rich this cheese has delicious flavor and can pair with almonds or membrillo or fruity wines. Name: Haystack Goat Cheese Queso de Mano Type of Milk: goat's, unpasteurized Type: hard Produced in: United States of America, Colorado Date Purchased: 7/12/2007 Date Eaten:7/14/2007 Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods Price: $24.99/lb.

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