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Cheeses with Turkish Olive Paste Good Combo

From Turkish Art Exhibit

We were downtown to see an exhibit at the National Museum-Women In Arts and A Dream…but not Yours: Contemporary Art from Turkey was pretty amazing — art, politics, video (Canan Senol, Still from Exemplary, 2009, Video; 27:30 minutes) and even postcards. We stopped in Cowgirl Creamery on the way, and got these 3 cheeses — all excellent.:

  • Mona. Blended with both sheep and cow milk, Mona is nutty and sweet on the tongue with a moist but sometimes crumbly texture. Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Coop — and we don’t do many Wisconsin cheeses.
  • Roccolo has an earthy, round flavor with damp hints of forest mushrooms and an accenting tang. Directly under the rind, the cheese gets softer and slightly more golden than the dryer, flakier white center. (made it look like cake since the center was a different color.) Valtaleggio, Italy.
  • Trailhead is an aged, mountain cheese with a mellow, rich flavor. Mt Townsend Creamery in Washington State. We bought it because we’d heard good things about Mt Townsend — and now we can say good things about their cheese.
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Valentine’s Day Cheese Tray

Valentine's Day Cheese Tray
Valentine's Day Cheese Tray

The rest of the dinner created by WWT had a carrot theme (Chicken and Carrot Fricassee, Carrot Cranberry Salad, Bacony Carrots and Green Beans, Pickled Carrots, Carrot Pudding), but the cheese course was cheesy with side carrots. All from Whole Foods:

Cupid’s Choice Camembert, Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, Old Chatham New York. Tasty, and we couldn’t resist the heart-shape of this one. Pasteurized cow’s and sheep’s milk. Our sparkling our New Mexico Gruet was a good match for this.

Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper, Cypress Grove Chevre, California. We agreed: “This sheep milk cheese is buttery in color and flavor with a long, complex finish.”

Blue Castello. Denmark. “This brie-like blue cheese from Denmark is made by Tholstrup, the same company that makes Saga Blue at its factory in the United States. Blue Castello is richer than Saga Blue and is made only in Denmark. Castello is a distant derivative of Italian Gorgonzola but has a higher fat content and a milder flavor. It is a perfect blue for those who like a little blue flavor without being blown away.”

The complete menu included Chicken & Carrot Fricasse, Carrot Cranberry salad, and of course, the annual carrot pudding.

Fun addition for the party: The Cheese Tasting Party Kit: Everything You Need to Host Your Own Cheese-Tasting Party.

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Cheese Bible added to Library

New Cheese Book
New Cheese Book / The Cheese Bible

We bought this at the Burlington NC Barnes and Noble for $10, The Cheese Bible (Christian Teubner) 2009. It not only gives background on some European cheeses we’ve never tried before, but has some great recipes — so good that we even bought a 2nd book for a family member who is a great cook. The illustrations and paper are so nice that is almost an artbook on cheese, but the writing is well-d0ne and easy-to-understand.

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Mimolette: the new Carrot Cheese

Cheese Map
Cheese Map

Okay, we bought this for the look (like a wine label, I suppose), but would buy it again for the flavor. French Mimolette is a hard, brittle, bright-orange cheese with a very nutty flavor. Carrots are pretty popular in this house, so this has been dubbed our new Carrot Cheese.  The Mimolette is spherical like an Edam but with a rough moon-like surface (from cheese mites) and a bright orange interior. It resembles a melon when cut open. The cheese originated in Holland and is made in a similar way to Edam.

Carrot Cheese to us
Carrot Cheese to us
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Castello Blue was the Blue Ribbon Winner

You won't be blue over castello
You won't be blue over castello

Several months ago, a friend had a blue cheese at our house from Calvert Woodley that she just loved. However, we didn’t have the label. We thought it was a French cheese. When she returned to CW, that let her taste about 12 kinds. However, not one was right. However, on Friday, during the DC snowstorm, we got in before they closed, and the cheesemonger remembered us — she had decided it was a Danish blue cheese, Blue Castello.

The Danish Castello Blue is a triple-cream, blue-veined gourmet cheese with a washed-rind. It is also called Blue Castello. It’s fairly mild with a Brie-like texture.

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Cheese in Burlington

burlington_cheese3

When I was visiting in N.C. a few weeks ago, we had the M’s up for a cheese tasting.  I think they liked it — they are now giving cheese as Christmas presents.  We had Manchego, and some others.  It was pretty good.

Saint Andre
milk: French cows

Manchego
milk: Spanish sheep

Asiago d’Allevio
milk: Italian cows

Stori Dimon
milk: Icelandic sheep
This was our first Icelandic cheese.  It was good.  AT  bought it at Whole Foods in Silver Spring. It came in a cute, wooden box (which has already been recycled into a great gift container) .  Another Triple Cream that goes down like butter.

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Holiday season drives high demand for Cougar cheese

Cans of Cheese
Cans of Cheese

See photos and read more about the Cougar holiday season: Some 40,000 packages of Cougar cheese are shipped between the months of October and December, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the creamery’s annual cheese sales. So if you want some for Christmas, order now. Cougar Gold, our favorite,  has remained the number-one seller throughout the years, making up nearly 80 percent of their annual sales. For more information on Cougar cheese or to place an order, please visit http://www.wsu.edu/creamery

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Turkey Day Cheese Tray 2009

all-sheep2_turkeyday

We got fogged in, so it was just the 2 of us in the country. We started the Thanksgiving dinner with a cheese tray. It was a baaa… night = all sheep.

Old Chatham Nancy’s Hudson Vally Camembert. Mmm…creamy New York sheep cheese.. And good with the cranberry sauce (less sugar than most, but added some ruby red port for flavor). Sheep cheese is supposed to be the easiest to digest.

Ricotta Salata. First time for this one. “One of Italy’s most unusual and least understood sheep’s milk cheeses.” Regular ricotta without the curds. A beautiful white. Salty like a dry feta. In Italian, ricotta simply means “”recooked.”” It is a cheese-making process rather than a specific cheese. This ricotta is also a salata, or “”salted,”” cheese. Good.

Cordobes. “Made from Merina sheep’s milk, this semi hard cheese is made specially for Whole Foods Market” — not really much about this. We expected it to be more like manchego- not really, but also good.

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First Portuguese Cheese Gardunha

Cheese from Portugal

An unexpected surprised from a friend — cheese from Portugal. “Gardunha is a raw goat’s milk cheese from the Gardunha Mountain range of Portugal. This cheese has a great texture and flavor. The flavor is intense and rustic.”  I came in a package of 2, and the rind was damp and goaty — washed rind? Goes perfectly with fruit – we had pears. Also olive bread.

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Pineapple Sorbet doesn’t distract from Cheese

CW Cheeses 1029809 AT's house

We just had to try out the new Kitchenaid ice cream attachment. We made pineapple sorbet–mainly because the pineapple was right. And if you have a cheese course in the same meal as a rich ice cream, it’s a bit too much in one meal. Next time we try a cheese ice cream…

The Old Man Highlander was from Cowgirl Creamery, but the others from Calvert Woodley:

Campo de Montalban is a Spanish cheese made from a mixture of cow’s, sheep’s and goat’s milk. This cheese is made in the region of la Manga and looks very similar to Manchego in texture and appearance, both have light to dark, waxy herringbone rinds and light butter colored interiors. In fact Campo de Montalban was considered a Manchego until 1985.

Etorki is a hard cheese made in the French Basque region of the Pyrénées from the milk of black-headed sheep (sic.)

Pecorino is always a favorite from Italy.