I have been holding off writing about Carr Valley Wildflower Cheddar for a few weeks now. A while ago I saw this cheese in my local Whole Foods, purchased it, took it home, photographed it and enjoyed it. It was a really good cheese. When time came to research it and find out more details I hit a road block. I couldn't find out anything online or in books, not even a mention on the Carr Valley Cheese web site. Was the info on the label correct? Did it really come from Carr Valley or someone else? It would not be the first time a cheese shop had printed inaccurate information on their labels. I needed to do more checking. My sleuthing has discovered that the cheese does in fact come from Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin. I saw half a wheel of the cheese with the name clearly displayed. It's also clearly a pastueurized cow's milk cheese like most of this producer's other cheddars. Its rind is an azure blue wax, the color of some fresh field wild flowers. The flavor is a departure from most typical cheddars. Lacking bite, Wildflower Cheddar is a young, mild cheese with sweet grassy notes and subtle flavors of fresh milky curds. Well worth a taste.

Name: Carr Valley Wildflower Cheddar, Carr Valley Wild Flower Cheddar
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: United States of America, Wisconsin, Carr Valley Cheese
Date Purchased: 5/6/2007
Date Eaten: 5/6/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $16.99/lb.

Mobay is an award winning American cheese from my good friends at Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin. I've never met them but anyone who makes cheese as good as they do are friends of mine. Inspired by the French cow's milk cheese Morbier, Mobay is a double-stacked cheese of goat cheese and sheep cheese separated by a layer of grape vine ash. Each half is distinct in flavor and a winner on its own. Taste them together and you have a phenominal flavor experience. The ash does little more than keep the two cheeses apart and does not impart much flavor but there is so much here between the goat and sheep cheeses that it doesn't really matter.

Name: Mobay or Carr Valley Mobay
Type of Milk: goat's and sheep's, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: United States of America, Wisconsin, Carr Valley Cheese
Date Purchased: 5/18/2007
Date Eaten: 5/27/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $16.99/lb.

You might make the mistake of calling it "string cheese" but once you taste it you may come to the realization this is not your four-year-old's noontime snack. Don't get me wrong. Farmer's Rope Cheese, a part-skim mozarella from Wisconsin's Crave Farmstead, will not win any prizes but it has something that grocery store mozarella completely lacks--the slightest flavor. It's solidly decent with no pretense of grandeur but still striving ambitions to rise above the less-than-modest state of cheese for kids while still looking like an albino serpent about to strike. Fun.