I suggested to Jeff that we move off of the blues and onto something else - truffle cheese, goat, anything cheese, just something to move us to another genre of cheese. Of course, I threw that out the window when I started looking into more blues. Really, I wasn't ready to move on.

So, after a night full of Bacon-Cheddar Easy Cheese (more on this later!), we got more blues from the Cheeseboard.

Try before you buy, a novel concept.
The awesome thing about the Cheeseboard is that you can try a bunch of different cheese. So, what did we try?

- Stilton. The little taste I had was good, but not as exciting as the Bleu des Causses or the Rouge River Blue. This one didn't come home with us.

- Bleu des Causses. I knew the flavor of this one. Jeff wanted more and who am I to say no when cheese is involved? The slab that we got this time tasted fresher and creamier. Perhaps there was a reason that they were advertising it last time? This one knocked my socks off. I've got a big crush on this cheese.

-Rouquefort (Société, Le Papillon, and Le Vieux Berger). I can't remember the flavors of all of these, but the Papillon ended up in our bag. It was creamy, full of flavor, delicious. Another crush-worthy blue.

- Verde di Capra. OMG, I was in cheese heaven the minute I put this creamy piece of cheese goodness in my mouth. WOW. Not only do I have a crush on this one, I think I just might marry a whole wheel. Is that legal? Do I care!? No. Creamy, mellow blue flavor mixed with that yummy goatiness that I love. The Cheeseboard sign described it as having a slight "champagne" flavor and you know what, it did. YUM. This one would be perfect post-dinner (or eaten on a nice, bright, sunny day in Mountain View cemetery with the one you love).

I also asked about Castello, but the woman helping us said that we've moved on from that. At that moment, in the Verde di Capra-haze, her words were enough to sway me. I still might have to pick up a piece to see what it's all about.

And now to the next favorite cheese subject - Easy Cheese. Bacon-Cheddar Easy Cheese is actually quite delicious. It's perfect on Triscuits or Gwen's tasty BBQed wienies. Seriously. I would buy it again. I noticed, too, that there is a Cheeze-It brand spray cheese. Supposedly it has real Sharp Cheddar in it. mmmmmmmmm. I might have to try that sometime. Perfect picnic purchase. Perhaps.

Tags: cheese
Current Mood: sick

mmmmm, this and a Triscuit, it'll be in your house soon.

Cow
Rouge River Blue - 01/11/08
Bleu des Causses - 01/11/08
Gorgonzola (mountain) - 02/02/08

Cow & Goat
Valdeón - 02/02/08

Tags: cheese

While I haven't consumed any cheese for a couple weeks, I have had many a discussion about certain cheeses that I will refer to as, errr, "fringe."

The first one is Casu Marzu, "rottent cheese" or Maggot cheese. Yes, I just typed Maggot and cheese together. My lovely uncle brought the cheese to my attention this weekend and I've been slightly curious (and a thoroughly disgusted) by it since. From Sardinia, the Casu Marzu is teeming with live maggots who essentialy ingest the cheese, then poo it out, making a soft, liquidy cheese. Gross. Oh, and as an added bonus - the maggots jump.

Apparently the Casu Maru is banned even in Italy and therefore certainly unavailable in the US. One question I have is around aging....isn't it 6 months that cheese (is that only raw-milk, unpasteurized?) must be aged before it's imported to the US? Wouldn't this maggot cheese pass those standards. I mean, c'mon, it's crawling with larvae!

The second cheese that's been floating around my brain is way more fun - figuratively and literally: Spray Cheese! Also known as "Easy Cheese" in some circles. For some reason I've been utterly fascinated by the notion of the miracle spray cheese, cheese in a can, cancheese, as Gwen calls it. The cool thing about Easy Cheese is that it comes in four unique flavors: Cheddar, American, Sharp Cheddar, and Cheddar N' Bacon. If you're not convinced about the merits of Easy Cheese, check out Nabico's FUN! Cheese Activities.

Tags: cheese

Tried more blues last weekend. It's addicting, how will I be able to move on to another kind when there are so many more blues to try? I got the bluuuueeeesss.

Gorgonzola (mountain), which I read is also like Piccante, although its taste was far from the Piccante I had in Italy. This was an okay cheese. Not as tasty as the Rouge River or Blue de Causses, less "deep" in flavor. Delicious with a little honey and Sauternes - at different times, not all together, sillies.

The second one we wanted to try was Spanish Cabrales. The Cheese Primer guy says that this is one of his most favorite cheese. Unfortunately, when we asked for it at the Cheeeseboard, all the woman said that they had was Valdeón, which is kind of like Cabrales, but not Cabrales. I like to say "Cabrales." Try it...kinda rolls off the tongue, non? The Valdeón was tasty, better than the Gorgonzola, more depth and fresher tasty. Blue and delicious.

My favorite is still the Rouge River.
So, the big dilemma is: Do we move to a different type or try the Stilton route in a couple weeks? Cheecisions, cheecisions.

Tags: cheese
Current Mood: cheesey

Here I am reading my cheese book, trying to decide which one will be next.

I love fake bacon bits.

This weekend started my 2008 Adventures in Cheese. With the Cheese Primer in-hand, I was ready to go. The most difficult part of embarking on a monthly cheese adventure is picking which type of cheese to try that month - and, as an aside, wondering if one type of cheese a month is *really* enough!? Seriously, I could open the Cheese Primer to any page, circle my finger, and whichever cheese landed under my digit - that one - would be a worthy culprit. Fortunately, the pressure wasn't all on me to decide, as Jeff said he'd join me in my Cheese Adventures. Two brains are better than one. Or is that two cheeses?

The Blue Bleus
Since we'd opened up the world of cheese with our discovery of Gorgonzola Piccante, the blues seemed a good place to start. We combed the Cheese Primer, reading about the different blues, seeing which ones Steven Jenkins, the author, recommends and came up with a list of four. One of the four included und1sk0's suggestion of Rouge River Blue. Thanks, you! The others on the list were: From Italy, Gorgonzola Piccante (Naturale) - not dolce or dolcelatte (I kinda know what the heck that means!!), Blue D'Auvergne from France, Cabrales from Spain. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs.

Buying the Cheese
I was a little apprehensive about going to The Cheeseboard , since I'd only been there for bread. I think I was worried about being deemed a "cheese impostor" or something. Silly, I know. When we got there it was the usual Cheeseboard chaos. We took our number, then scanned the b i g list of cheese. Right away we noticed a sign on the wall "Bleu de Causses, $12.50#, it'll put hair on your chest!"...we wanted hair on our chests - well, Jeff did and I thought it might just keep me a bit warmer during the winter, so what the heck. I remembered that Bleu de Causses was like Bleu D'Auvergne, but more rare and better - because it's got more cow's milk and the cows are happier or something (I made that last part up). Anyway, we decided to go for that, rather than the Bleu d'Auvergne. Not on the list of cheeses was Gorgonzola Piccante. They had a dolce and a dolcelatte-type and one other than the cheeseman said was similar to Piccante. All that said, we ended up with two cheeses: The Bleu de Causses and the Rouge RIver Blue, both stellar choices. Wow.

This is the part that I'm not so confident about - talking about the taste. The only thing I can say is: "Hot damn, those cheeses knocked my stockings off (and put a little peach fuzz on the chi-chis)!" I could tell you about wine and components of flavors, but cheese - no, not yet. NOT YET. All I can say is that I liked them - the two choices were amazing- Jeff liked them. The Bleu des Causses was STRONG (I like strong), pungent, not overly crumbly, but not completely soft, delicious. The Rouge RIver Blue was less pungent than the other, but well-balanced in its flavors, completely edible and, again, deeeeelicious.

Of Truffles & Things
Oh, AND, at The Cheeseboard we tried the Truffle Tremor. It was delicious, hard to detect the truffle, which might have been due to the tastes we were given, but the goat is pure goaty-tasty-quality! AND, when the cheeselady (the cheeseman who initially helped us went on a break) heard us asking about the Tartufo Tremor, she mentioned that we should try this other Truffle cheese, Boschetto. Oh_my_god. Talk about a complete truffle experience in one's mouth. At $27.99/# I won't be buying much of the Boschetto, but it's sure to be on the list for one of the month's Cheese Adventures. Yum. Truffle party in my mouth.

Overall, a super cheese experience. I don't know how I'm only going to do this once a month. "Hello, My name is Lisa and I'm a cheese addict."

Tags: cheese
Current Mood: sick

So, all day yesterday I was thinking it was January 13th (Nada's birthday) today (Monday). When it was actually all day yesterday (the real 13th). Imagine the horror and shame I felt when I opened up my email this afternoon to find that today is actually the 14th and that I completely missed wishing Nada a happy birthday yesterday.

So, happy belated birthday Nada. Or an early happy birthday for next year! :)

I heard today that *some circles* are trying to eradicate the hyphen from English grammar. Have you heard such a thing, too? It's preposterous, ridiculous, and another kind of 'ous' that I can't think of right now.

I was told that in these hyphen-eliminating-circles, "non-monetary" is now "nonmonetary."

Which one makes sense to you?

Current Mood: cold-like

From Mercato Centrale in Florence. I miss Italy.

I've always been perplexed by smoked things, especially cheese. Don't get me wrong, I love smoked cheese, especially Smoked Gouda. My real dilemma is whether it's trashy and considered the "K-mart of cheeses" or just a middle-of-the-road, easy to tote on a picnic, good to throw on a cracker kinda cheese.

I'm going to head towards the latter only because I don't want to be pegged as a "bottom of the barrel" cheese eater. But, maybe I already am by confessing my love of Smoked Gouda. Who cares.


My point is that I just ate some Holland Smoked Gouda, I liked it, I will buy it again and that I think it would be a super addition to mac and cheese...

Smokey, creamy, apparently Holland's most famous exported cheese, delicious.

Say cheese.

Tags: cheese
Current Mood: cold

To bring in the new year (and try to toss out the sickness of the past week+), I danced around to Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" whilst sipping a bit of my uncle's stellar, homemade Limoncello. It was a good time.

This year I want to eat more cheese. Won't you come along with me? I'd also like to learn more about cheese and be cheesey, in general. I think I have the latter covered. Seriously though - I am going to get my hands on some of that delicious Gorgonzola Piccante and roll around in it like I purchased it for Italy prices.

I'm also going to visit more places around the state: the beach, Monterey Bay Aquarium, the beach, cowgirl creamery, cheese factories (not the sonoma on, although they have some tasty garlic jack!), head to the north coast for camping fun time.

Thirdly, I'll be cooking something new every month, perhaps this "new" dish will involve cheese. Perhaps. I know it will involve fungus, provided we'r ein the correct season. Ohhhh, I'd like to add a #4 - mushroom hunting. I' dlike to find some chanterelles in the wild, not just at the wild Monterey Market.

2008 is the year of cheese. Suggest your favorite flavor, win a prize*!



*Gwen, don't I owe you cookies or something!?

1. What is a question that people ask you that always gets on your nerves?
Are you a natural redhead?

2. Name something you have in common with all your siblings?
I don't have siblings

3. What is the greatest amount of physical pain you have ever had?
being stabbed in the face with scissors

4. What number of drinks constitutes your limit?
ummmm...I dunno anymore - 2?

5. Do you fold your underwear?
HA! Hell, no.

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