Posted on

Italian cheeses from Wegman’s

Wegman's Italian Cheeses
Wegman's Italian Cheeses

We went across town to Wegman’s, a very large grocery store in/near Lanham. It’s only 12 miles away, but with no easy way to get there, it takes a good 40-50 minutes from DC. It’s in  a megamall area with a Costco, Best Buy, Petco and more. They had 28 checkouts, a cafe, live music, a bakery and more — but we particularly went for cheese. We’d also read the Washington Post article, “‘Club Wegmans’ in Pr. George’s: Smooth jazz and smoother pickup lines” and seen a special on TV (and then we ended up meeting the chef, Joe Serock, there). We didn’t eat there, though, we went to the nearby Levis Restaurant for BBQ.

Anyway, while we were at the cheese counter AKT turned her back on me and I was unsupervised for a while (probably not a good idea).  I found 5 very nice Italian cheese for tonight’s tasting. Wegman’s has a huge cheese selection, including some of the biggest wheels we’ve seen. They have a tasting table, but don’t seem to let you taste the cheese like the Calvert Woodley cheesemonger. However, they did cut several of the large pieces into smaller pieces for us.

We had so many cheeses, we invited neighbor L, who we discovered was also with NC Stat’s Wolfpack. L is a goat cheese fan, and she likes the goat cheese brie from Brookville that AKT likes. She isn’t as much into hard, aged cheeses–we will need to get her a triple-cream next time.

Vento d’estate, a cow’s milk cheese from Monfenera, a historical mountain in Treviso, Italy.  Rolled in hay and aged in oak barrels buried in hay and herbs. The name means “summer wind”.

Pecorino Toscano oro Antico, a semi-hard pecorino (sheep’s milk) cheese brushed with olive oil during aging.  From the Tuscany region of Italy. Aged one year.

Pecorino Ginepro, made from unpasteurized sheep’s milk cheese from Emilia-Romagna, Italy.  Aged for 4 to 6 months and rubbed with juniper berries and basalmic vinegar during aging.

Quadrello di Buffala, a washed-rind (stinky) buffalo milk cheese from Lombardia, Italy.  Said to be like tallegio. We found it wasn’t that strong. It was good with the Olive Fougasse.

Gorgonzola mountain piccante is a cow’s milk blue produced in the Piedmonte and Lombardy regions of Italy. D.O.P Mountain Gorgonzola comes in two styles, the younger sweet, creamy Dolce, and the elder, stronger Piccante with its thicker, drier rind and punchier flavor.

Posted on

Come to Cheeses


The 2010 cheese event at the National Geographic was called ‘Come to Cheeses’. The speakers were Steve Jenkins, Www Xxx, and Yyy Zzz. Steve gave a nice talk on each of the cheeses, and the other speakers extolled the virtues of their beer and wine.

Posted on

new cheesemonger in Alexandria

zamorano and buttermilk blue
zamorano and buttermilk blue

The new cheese store in Alexandria opened recently. It is La Fromagerie, about half way between US1 and the metro stop.

Zamorano
milk: Spanish sheep

Very much like Manchego, but aged longer and thus a bit harder.

Buttermilk Blue
milk: Wisconsin Jersey and Holstien cows
maker:Roth Kase

A very good blue cheese. MS said it was second to Pt. Reyes Blue. It was winner of the American Cheese Society “Best of Show” award in 1999.

Posted on

The last of our Valley Shepherd

first slice
first slice

My sheep cheese that I made at Valley Shepherd finally arrived! We all (at, wt, ms, na, a?) thought it was very good. It was not as firm as some of the other wheels, and a bit more earthy than the others.

Posted on

Fairway’s Pub & Grill at KPTW

If you are passing through the Philidalphia area and need food, don’t hesitate to stop in at Pottstown Limerick, KPTW. The Fairway’s Pub & Grill (610-495-7626) is a few hundred yards up the road from the FBO, but don’t let the name fool you. Yes, it is a ‘pub & grill’, but Marty, the chef, makes up daily specials depending on what he was able to buy at the farmer’s market that morning.

We had crab cakes, which is one of Marty’s own special recipies. They were great! In fact, we had a nice conversation with him. He gave us his cell phone number, and said to call the next time we were flying in and he would prepare something special for us.

This guy owns a bar & grill, is the chef at the place, which is across the street from an airport (outside of the SFRA). What a dream job!.

Posted on

Sheep & Wool 2009

Everona cheese
Everona cheese

The Maryland Sheep & Wool festival this year was again very good.  We went on Saturday, and there were a zillion people there.  It didn’t rain, and thus was very nice.  We found out that the cheesemonger that used to show up (Menhennet) has been replaced by Everona.  We go there at 1pm on Saturday, and they had already old out of most of what they had brought, so we didn’t get any of their blues.

Smokey Piedmont
We’ve had their Piedmont before, so this was our chance to check out their smoked version.  It was very good. (10/27/2010 update: I bought some Smoked Piedmont again at the Crystal City Farmer’s Market but over til next season. Once again, we liked it – went will with some fresh pears; easy to eat in your hand.)

Shenandoah
A milder sheep milk cheese, which was also very good.

Posted on

Understanding the living foods we eat

museum-plate

The evening at the Science Museum was very interesting. The speaker, Dr. Catherine Donnelly, is a Professor of Cheese (well, actually ‘Professor of Nutrition and Food Science’) at the U. of Vermont. Her talk was quite technical. There is a law that you can’t sell cheese made from raw milk unless it has been aged for at least 60 days. Her talk was mostly about this law, and the papers and experiments that have been done on it: where bacteria in cheese comes from, what kind of pathogens survive past 60 days, how to detect Listeria in food, and a lot of other stuff about microbiological safety of raw-milk cheese. There were some pictures, and a few charts and graphs. But really, it was very interesting.

She is also a founder of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese.

And then we ate cheese: Mt Tam (Calif.), Montgomery’s Cheddar (England), Cabot Clothbound Cheddar (Vt.), Comte Reserve (France; we had a Comte at one of the Burlington tastings), Parmigiano-Reggiano (Italy), and Baley Hazen Blue (Vt). All of it cow.

Posted on

cheese from feast!

feast_cheese
We finally got a chance to stop by feast!, a cheese shop in Charlottesville, VA, and what a shop it was! The proprieter, Kate, was very knowledgeable and helpful on choosing the right cheese. We wanted local cheeses, and had the usual criteria: one brie/triple-cream, some sheep, and not much goat. Well, Kate certainly supplied us with what we wanted, and we ended up with this:

Delice de Bourgogne
milk: French cow
a very nice triple-creme cheese

Everona Piedmont
milk: Virginia cow

Grayson
Meadow Creek Dairy
milk: Virginia sheep
Very smelly. Did not get better with age. Creamy texture.

McClure
milk: Virginia cow
type: similar to Tallegio
Yes, very much like Tallegio (very smelly). NA liked this a lot.

Roaring 40’s blue
milk: Austrailian cow

Posted on

Angela & Ken’s B-day

buy-jan-09

We drove to Burlington for the January birthdays (Angela and Ken).  We stopped by Harris-Teeter, which has a good selection of cheese (for a grocery store), and got Manchego (of course), and a blue that we hadn’t seen before.

Butter
Angela gave me a “cookbook” for Christmas, The Home Creamery, by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley. It describes how to make butter from whole cream, which we did, and it was delicious!

Goat Brie
Angela got this at Brookville in Cleveland Park. It was a hit, and everyone (but me) liked it. Well, I thought it was very good for goat cheese(!).

Manchego
Always a favorite.

Amish Blue
Actually it was from Wisconsin, but was a good blue.

Posted on

The Cheese Quiz

One time we were at a restaurant talking to someone, and they said “I like cheese”, but we doubted them.  Well, as you can tell from this blog that we really like cheese, so we decided to develop a quiz to see just how much someone really likes the stuff:

  • How many implements in your kitchen (plates, knives, serving trays, forks, etc.) are solely devoted to cheese?  (about 15)
  • How many pounds of blue cheese have you purchased at one time? (3 lbs)
  • Have you ever smuggled cheese into the country? (yes)
  • How far have you driven just to purchase cheese? (maybe 15 miles)
  • Does your cheesemonger know you by name? (well, not by name, but they recognize us)
  • Do you have rennet in your refrigerator? (yes)
  • How many cheese books do you have? (3)