litvak palate

Pont L'Evenque, Roth Kase Gran Queso, Pleasant Ridge Reserve

2010-03-14T21:03:00.003-04:00

Pont L'Evenque
Comes from: cows (and real rennet)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

Gran Queso
Comes from: cows
Puchased at: Whole Foods
$9.99/lb (on sale)

Pleasant Ridge Reserve
Comes from: cows (and vegetarian rennet)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$29.99/lb

You know, I expected these cheeses to be better than they were. The Pleasant Ridge was good, though.

Brie Lepetit, Capriole Mont St. Francis, Abrigo

2010-03-11T18:16:00.001-05:00

Whole Foods was out of the Delice de Bourgogne, was the real problem with today. Still and all I persevered.

Brie Lepetit
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

A standard brie offering. I wanted brie and I got it, yo.

Also, it is *amazing* how much better this "standard brie" is than, say, the standard brie offered at Wal-Mart or Winn Dixie. AMAZING.

Capriole Mont St. Francis
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$27.99/lb

A medium-hard-soft goat cheese. Like muenster on the hard and moist scale, but with a solid goaty flavor. This cheese tasted expensive, if you understand what I mean by that.

Abrigo
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$22.99/lb

A slightly firmer goat cheese. I liked this one better than the Capriole for whatever reason; the bite, probably. Mmm, bite.

Tomme des Bois Noirs, Taleggio, Big Ed's

2010-03-04T18:05:00.020-05:00

Tomme des Bois Noirs
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$16.99/lb (on sale)

Nom nom nom.

Taleggio
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb

Despite smelling like it would be stinky, this cheese was not as stinky as it might have been. In fact, it was quite good.

Big Ed's
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

Satisfying. Mild. Etc.

Robiola Bosina

2010-03-03T19:48:00.000-05:00

Robiola Bosina
Comes from: cows and sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$29.99/lb

I'm not exactly sure what to say about this cheese. It was not as good as I expected, but still good? A thicker rind and more solid than initially anticipated. An odd taste, and then I realized, oh, wait, it's got sheep's milk in it; carry on, then.

Let's do this crazy cheese thing: Delice de Bourgogne and Fourme de Montbrison

2010-03-02T23:31:00.013-05:00

Oh, friends. Friends, I have disappeared again. I disappeared, because I was (and remain) On A Diet, and there are so few diets out there these days that recommend eating cheese, because cheese is delicious, and diets have a problem with that. The only diet I have ever found that is in any way okay with cheese is, of course, the Atkins diet, and it requires you to give up all kinds of lovely things that go well with cheese and also pooping, like grapes.

So that is where I am right now, only I broke down today and went to Whole Foods for the first time in months, because OH GOD I could not stand it any longer; if I did not get a brie-like substance in me immediately I would die.

DIE.

Dear Cheese, I missed you, baby. You're no good for me but I missed you anyway.

-----

Delice de Bourgogne
Comes from: cows
purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

You guys! You guys basically what I want to say to y'all is this: This cheese makes a compelling argument for not giving a fuck what I look like and just eating cheese all the fucking time. This cheese is what my soul looks like. This cheese is *that good*.

Incidentally, this cheese is mild and soft unto liquid and probably has a fat content *over* that of Brillat Savarin or Pierre Robert, which are my other cheeses of heaven.

Hi! I'm one of Gabbiana's favorites! Eat me with a spoon!

In a word: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

------

Fourme de Montbrison
comes from: cows (raw)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$21.99/lb

And that, right there, is an argument for quitting while you're ahead. Not that this cheese was bad, exactly, but it just didn't speak to my soul the way the Delice de Bourgogne did. It's a mild blue cheese, this one, and paired great with grapes, which seemed to bring out the blue notes, but it wasn't, like, my *favorite ever* or anything.

(Still, "not the best cheese ever" is always better than no cheese at all. Dear cheese: Someday, when a pill exists that allows me to eat you all the time and fit in my pants, I will eat you all the time. For serious. It'll be like sex on the pill! ALL THE TIME.)

Coming home means eating cheese: Castelli Mountain Gorgonzola

2010-01-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

Castelli Mountain Gorgonzola
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Rouses
$15.69/lb

I'm on an away rotation right now which keeps me out of my NOLA apartment Thursday mornings to Monday afternoons; of that time, I'm in the hospital Thursday to Friday (call), Saturday until early afternoon (precall), and Sunday to Monday (call again). Luckily I've got Tuesday off, and the hospital unexpectedly gave me Wednesday as a conference day, so it's like a little mid-week weekend. And what better way to start the weekend than cheese?

This cheese, then. This cheese, I purchased at Rouses before I left for Houma, and it's been in my refrigerator all week, and when I get home from call, no matter what I have eaten during call or in the hours since (in my car, cough cough), I am *ravenous*. Such is the power of sleep deprivation. So this cheese is in the fridge, and I ate it. And it was good, because it was made of cheese. It was not great: It was not particularly flavorful, which is odd because I may have eaten it before and criticized it for being too spicy.

(Thoughts on that: (1) It may not actually *be* the same cheese, because that cheese was labeled "picante" and this one wasn't, but we have already discussed Rouses' labeling practices in this column and found them lacking. I swear I purchased a Humboldt Fog the other week that was nothing of the sort. (2) This cheese was just out of the refrigerator -- I know, scandalous! but see: hungry -- and the other cheese wasn't, giving it time to defrost and... flavor up, so to speak.)

Anyway. There is nothing like being home. Home is where the cheese is! And also my bed.

Polder Blanc Goat Gouda

2010-01-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

Polder Blanc Goat Gouda
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Rouses
$? but not very expensive

God, I love goat cheese. Especially goat gouda. I would eat goat gouda *all the time* if I could. Spreadable goat cheese, meh, but goat gouda? Oh hells yes.

Fleurs de France: (Joan of Arc?) Brie with Herbs

2009-12-27T22:57:00.001-05:00

Fleurs de France: (Joan of Arc?) Brie with Herbs
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Rouses
$12.99/lb

What's interesting about this cheese is this: I'm looking at this photograph -- this entry is, admittedly, written after the fact (and timestamp), for which I'd apologize but my Hebrew school teachers taught me that an apology implies asking forgiveness of the wronged human, asking forgiveness of wronged deity, *and* promising to do better in the future, and obviously that last one is the sticking point here -- and I'm like, Where the hell did Rouses get the idea to call this cheese "Joan of Arc"? 'cause it's certainly not on the commercial label.

Anyway.

Rouses doesn't carry great cheeses; the store up in Mid-City has a moderately better selection than the one on Tchoupitoulas, but it's not Whole Foods (or, sigh, DiBruno Brothers). Also, cheeses that are... herbed (with herbs mixed in, with herbs patted on) are hit-or-miss, and very often miss. This cheese surprised me, though; I really bought it because it was the only brie in a portable size, and it turned out to be really decent. Not, like, the greatest brie ever, but I think it'd be just the sort of thing to fool your guests with at a dinner party.

Unfortunately I just have no the hell idea what it's called.

Cheese party: I recommend the bucherondine, maybe the romao, always the pecorino.

2009-11-28T14:19:00.002-05:00

Port Salut
Comes from: cows
$11.99/lb

Meh. Bland.

Pecorino Romano
Comes from: cows
$14.99/lb

I love pecorino, because it is the saltiest of cheeses. Also, crunchy.

Romao
Comes from: sheep, also rosemary
$17.99/lb

As Rachel said, this cheese doesn't need *all* the rosemary it's wrapped in, but it's still delicious.

Big John's Cajun
Comes from: Utah milk (cows), also garlic and pepper and celery salt
$19.99/lb

Meh. It's okay -- I'm still trying to figure out why this cheese tastes "cajun" to me; I think it's the garlic -- but it's nothing spectacular. Nice try, Mormons.

Pyreneese Ossau Iraty
Comes from: sheep
$18.99/lb

I like ossau iraty, so there.

Cypress Chevre Bermuda Triangle
Comes from: goats
$22.99/lb

Oh, triangle-cheese.

St. Andre
Comes from: cows
$14.99/lb

For a low-market brie, this cheese is just fine. Seriously.

Sea Hive
Comes from: Utah milk (cows), honey
$19.99/lb

I'm not sure I could really taste the honey in this one. Maybe Rachel could.

Bucherondine
Comes from: goats
$12.99/lb

Wow. I'm not exactly sure why this cheese was so cheap, but it's the clear standout in my mind. Wow.

Crave Brothers Les Frères & Holly Springs Goat Cheese

2009-10-24T22:39:00.003-04:00

Crave Brothers Les Frères
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb (Okay, that is pretty much impossible. Yet the only photo I have does not do a great job of reproducing the cheese-price. So... sorry, I have no idea what this cheese costs.)

"Will this cheese taste like French muenster?" I asked the dude in the square glasses who is sometimes at Whole Foods here.
"Yes," he said.
"Okay..." I said. "How much will it taste like feet?"
"It's an amazing cheese," he said. "The cheese-makers' father was Irish, and their mother was French, and they wanted to do something to combine the two."
"Uh-huh," I said. "So it'll taste like feet, then."
"It's a little pungent," he said. "But it's delicious."

Okay, so here is the thing: This cheese doesn't really taste like feet at all, which just goes to show you that sometimes the people who work at Whole Foods, *even at the cheese counter*, don't know what they're talking about.

Onnnn the other hand, this cheese *is* fantastic. Fantastic! That is how good this cheese is. It is not quite runny like brie, though it'd probably get at least minimally runny if you let it sit out at room temperature for longer than I was willing to let it sit out at room temperature before I ate it. But it just has a wonderful flavor to it, not at all foot-y, just... oh, it is so good. (Actually, the flavor was a teeny bit reminiscent of cheddar, which, given my history with cheddar, should not have appealed to me. What can I say? I am nothing if not inconsistent.)

I liked this cheese a lot.

-----

Holly Springs Goat Cheese
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

This cheese is okay, a solidly enjoyable, moderately firm and dry goat cheese. Nothing spectacular, but still delicious and just great for munching. I wished I could pair it with fig jam or something similar, but I don't have any in the house right now. (Note to self: Fig jam! FIG JAM.)

Tomme de Espelette

2009-10-22T13:53:00.003-04:00

Tomme de Espelette
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$21.99/lb

The internet helpfully tells me that "tomme" is just a general term for a semi-hard cheese, especially one made from skim milk (though this label says nothing so dreadful), and "espelette" is a red pepper. I think.

(Incidentally, this website is great; scroll down to the bottom to check out the texture chart. Dear person who is just like me on the internet, Hello and I love you!) (Oh, and he -- and here is where it gets weird, because I thought it was a he, and then I was like, But why? Because his background is black? and then I followed the links to facebook, and it does, indeed, appear to be a he who created the website, but then does that mean that men and women do indeed have gendered voices in the seminonymous paradise that is the internet? and, I mean, of course *some* voices are gendered, and some statements pretty clearly broadcast sex ("So I was pushing a baby out of my vagina the other day..."), but this is a website about *cheese*, and shouldn't it be gender-neutral? BUT IT ISN'T. -- Anyway, but he recommends this other site for you to read, which, meh, but oh, it links to DiBruno and now I miss Philly waaaah.)

Tomme de Espelette, incidentally, tastes like sheep-cheese with peppers in it. Moist, semi-firm (think cheddar but less dense, or, actually, swiss is a close approximation in terms of texture). It's good, actually; sometimes the whole cheese-with-stuff-added thing means that the added stuff overwhelms the cheese, or vice versa, but this is a nice complimentary, even symbiotic (like a lichen!) pairing.

-----

Also I just now ate some more manouri (from sheep, $14.99/lb at Whole Foods), but I'm pretty sure I reviewed it already.

Hudson Valley Camembert, Lavort Herve Mons, & Cypress Chevre Bermuda Triangle

2009-10-20T11:57:00.005-04:00

Hudson Valley Camembert
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

God, I love camembert. More importantly, I love this camembert. It's a sheep-camembert, which perhaps means that the French -- oh, those French -- would quibble (by which I mean "violently disagree, coughing up their phlegmy French throats, setting their rheumy, bloodshot, absinthe-ruined eyes ablaze") with calling it a camembert, since by law camembert comes from cows, just like brie. This camembert, though? It comes from sheep, and it is delicious.

-----

Lavort Herve Mons
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$34.99/lb

You know, when I was eating this cheese I thought, This would be the perfect way to get children to drink milk cheese to illustrate what a sheep cheese *should* be.

That is high praise.

It's sheepy but not throat-destroying sheepy. The texture is firm, slightly moist. It's just... very... al dente, in a good way. (And obviously more firm than pasta al dente.)

If you are a sheep-cheese virgin, start here. Love, me.

-----

Cypress Chevre Bermuda Triangle
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$22.99/lb

You guys know why I had to buy this cheese, right? I mean, look at it! That is a *triangle* of cheese. And in case you *didn't* notice, it is also right there in the name. Bermuda triangle! That is this cheese.

(Does the Bermuda Triangle exist anymore? As... I don't know, a region to be feared? Because I would figure that the gun-toting Somali pirates of the... IndoChinese seas? would make that nautical zone more of a danger, rumored and otherwise, than, like, the drunken Floridian tourists of the Bermuda Triangle. I am just saying.)

Clothbound Cheddar Grafton Village & Mitica Amarelo Alla Beira Baixa

2009-10-16T13:35:00.008-04:00

Clothbound Cheddar Grafton Village
Comes from: cows (raw)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

So the thing is, even though I don't love cheddar (never have, either, even that grocery-store stuff; my brother got cheddar on his sandwiches, and I got muenster, and also butter, on the muenster, which should explain everything right now), I keep *buying* cheddar. Because there are all these interesting cheddars at Whole Foods, you know? And I keep trying to convince myself that, you know, maybe it's just that I haven't had authentic cheddar yet.

But I still don't love cheddar.

That said, this cheese? This is probably the best cheddar I have tasted so far. But then, I also love its texture; a lot of the other fancy cheddars still ran to the moist, sandwich-cheese side of the spectrum, you know, pieces that give to the knife before they cut. This cheese is more to the dry, parmigiano side; it merely fragments. The flavor is cheddar, but subtle; you have to think about it before you recognize it. It's interesting.

-----

Mitica Amarelo Alla Beira Baixa
Comes from: sheep and goats (unpasteurized; is that different from "raw"?)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$29.99/lb

The sign advertised this cheese as "buttery," and if your butter were made of the milk of sheep and/or goats (more sheep than goats, but you could really convince yourself either way), that adjective would be correct. Very smooth, squishy cheese, like... You know, the problem with growing up as an American is that cheese-texture puzzles me. I don't have enough adjectives that are communal. If we'd all grown up in France or Spain, maybe I'd have options other than, "This cheese's texture is like less-dense, melty muenster, and I mean the grocery store muenster, not that awful French stuff." Anyway. A palate-clinging, sheep-inflected (look! I did it again!) uniformly-textured cheese; right up to the rind it's pretty much equal density (as opposed to the last review's cheese, which had noticable... not strata, necessarily, but you could tell how far you were from the core). The flavor is neither subtle nor overpowering; it's a good cheese for mixing, I decided. Midway through my (generous) hunk, I decided it needed something, and then remembered that, lo, I had bought fresh figs on my same trip to Whole Foods, and lo, some of them were ripe. So I sliced a few figs into teeny-weeny hunklets and paired them with thin slices of this cheese, which turned out ridiculously well: The sweet and cool of the figs hits your tongue first, then the salt of the cheese, then the taste of the figs again, and finally, as you're almost ready to swallow, the full flavor of the cheese comes back and clings to your tongue and palate as the bite disappears. It's fantastic.

So. That is this cheese. Is pretty good.

There is nothing like a Dane

2009-10-14T23:59:00.001-04:00

I have no idea what cheese this is.

Oh, hai.

(Clearly I just wanted to use that title.)

Soooo it's been a while, eh? In that my last published entry on this blog is from... three-plus months ago. (I've got one sitting in the hopper that I never published... was it a photo issue? Not sure.)

Wow. Seriously, I have not thought about cheese in so long -- that's not entirely true; I've just been eating crap cheeses, because: Houma, and also Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart -- that I'm just skimming my entries. I went to Whole Foods tonight -- hence the above posting -- and I couldn't even remember what I liked. (Besides "mmm, goat." Obviously.)

Anyway. On my desk right now I actually have a whole baggie of little individual cheese-labels, because (1) I am weird, and (2) seriously! I have to catalog!

Here we go. Maybe I'll remember something.

-----

Rosenborg Castello Danish Brie
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Winn-Dixie
$4.89 for 4.4 oz ($17.78/lb)

So this cheese. This cheese, I actually ate only ten days ago, so I sort-of remember it. I needed brie, is the thing. And I didn't want to buy, like, the President brie the size of my head, which is the other option at Winn-Dixie. I don't love President brie; it's not terrible, but, meh. So this brie was smaller than that one. I was a little disconcerted by the nutritional information on the box: How does this cheese have 20-30 calories fewer per ounce than any brie I have previously encountered? What have they done to the fat content?

I still don't know.

So that, in short, is what was wrong with this cheese. It was a fine cheese for a lonely Saturday night, but it wasn't *brie*. It didn't melt, it wasn't runny -- and y'all, I biked home from Winn-Dixie; surely there was time -- it just... was. Chewy-like. *Reminiscent* of brie, yes, but not brie. And consequently I cannot judge this cheese, because on its own merits it might be okay, but it is not what I was expecting.

I thrive on expectations.

-----

Hudson Valley Camembert
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 8/17-8/24
$24.99/lb

I usually like camembert, so this one was probably good.

-----

Gorgonzola Mountain (Picante) (Mountain Gorgonzola D.O.P. Cheese)
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Rouse's in Houma, before 11/1 (duh)
$15.69/lb

I found this blue cheese almost too spicy, go figure. I like stinky cheeses, within reason (have I told you lately how much I hate French muenster?), but this cheese was a little too palate-burning for me. Also, I think it was fairly oily. Which is weird in a blue cheese? For me? Anyway.

-----

Ubriaco all [sic] Birra
Comes from: cows (raw), "red beer (rind bathed in beer")
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 7/30-8/29
$24.99/lb

That is an excellent idea, cheese-maker.

-----

Gorgonzola Dolce
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 7/29-8/19
$15.99/lb

I love me some gorgonzola dolce. Seriously, love it. The cheese-monger at Whole Foods in Philadelphia gave me a piece once, with a knowing look in her eye, and that was it. Love at first bite, my friends. Do you like blue cheese, even a little bit? You will like gorgonzola dolce. Try it.

-----

Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 7/31-8/14
$24.99/lb

I can't say I remember this cheese especially well, but Cypress Grove makes good shit, so it was probably delicious.

(Incidentally,
1. "Chevre" means goat. Thanks, google!
2. Holy crap, I really do love everything Cypress Grove makes. Wow.
2a. How did Cypress Grove come to be one of Whole Foods' main cheese-suppliers? I mean, I'm just curious.
2b. But then, how many large-scale, high-quality (to me), (ahem) "artisinal" cheese suppliers are there in the continental United States? I'm just curious.
2c. Probably I should ask someone. Preferably someone who doesn't work for Whole Foods.)

-----

Rembrant [sic] Extra Aged Gouda
Comes from: cows, presumably
Purchased at: Rouse's in Houma, before 8/30
$17.88/lb

Eh. I guess I don't love all gouda after all.

-----

Abbaye de Tamie Herve Mons
Comes from: cows (raw)
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 7/25-8/24
$26.99/lb

God, I wish I remembered this cheese. Probably it was delicious.

-----

Herve Mons Cone du Port Aubrey
Comes from: goats (raw)
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime
$36.99/lb

Well, obviously I had to buy it. It's cheese in a cone-shape, y'all.

(According to legend -- and per the Whole Foods guy -- the shape is due to the cheese-monger's sudden flash of inspiration and decision to use his wife's underthings as a mold. For what it's worth.)

You know, I just now, after months of loving everything Herve Mons does, googled it. Is it a place? A style? Non, non, mes amis: It is just some dude's name. Some dude in France. Some dude whose life I envied, 'til I realized that he had to get up even earlier than anesthesiologists.

Fuck that noise.

But I'm glad someone does it.

-----

Doux de Montagne French
Comes from: cows, presumably
Purchased at: Rouse's in Houma, before 11/1
$16.87/lb

-----

Lamb Chopper
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 7/8-8/7
$22.99/lb

-----

Rocastin Sheep Brie
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods, sometime 8/3-8/10
$21.99/lb

Mitica Clara Raw Goat Cheese

2009-10-14T23:32:00.003-04:00

Mitica Clara Raw Goat Cheese
Comes from: goats
Puchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

I think the answer is, I like ash. Ash! Who knew? But this is an ash-cheese, and that Humboldt Fog... whatever, the ash one, that one is delicious. So there you go.

When you break it against your palate this cheese has a solid woody goaty flavor. Woody? I dunno, I just needed an extra adjective. It sounds stupid, after all, to say that a goat cheese tastes goaty. This cheese! Tastes like its ingredients! Etc. Anyway, you break it against your palate -- it's a soft cheese, this one, easily fragmented by your tongue, not melty-soft but just not very dense -- and the taste just explodes and when you swallow it clings to the back of your throat, stinging just a little. Bites with the ash in them are sharper, more astringent, and really do sting the back, but in a good way. The occasional bite with no ash at all, meanwhile, has an almost Swiss-cheese note -- yes, I just used the word note -- to it, hollow and... I dunno, something about this cheese sometimes reminds me of Swiss.

In short, this cheese is delicious, and you should eat some.

Fin.

Polder Gold Dutch Goat Gouda

2009-08-16T18:18:00.002-04:00

(Henri Willig) Polder Gold (Polder Blanc) Dutch Goat Gouda
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Rouse's
$13.67/lb

The problem with working nights is that you get home, and you feel utterly ridiculous because c'mon, you've been at work 12-plus hours, and you should just go to bed, and then you end up eating anyway, because you need to stay awake to surf the internet for fifteen minutes. And what you end up eating depends entirely on what you brought to the hospital last night to eat during your shift, and then you never got a chance.

Sometimes, that something is goat gouda.

So this cheese. At extreme room temperature -- which is probably the name of the blandest metal band ever, like, EXTREME a comfortable 72 degrees -- anyway, when kept at room temperature for approximately 13 hours, this cheese develops only the slightest oil-sheen, and it still tastes good. It would be better slightly (slightly!) chilled, probably, but it's a pretty solid goat cheese all the same. Hooray, Rouse's! Sometimes. Who knew?

Président Brie and Gusto Antica Taleggio Raw Milk

2009-08-04T21:43:00.003-04:00

Président^® 7 oz Plain Foil Brie Wedge [no, seriously, that's what the website calls it]
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Wal-Mart
$3.98 (or $28.14/lb)

I don't have a photo, but it used to be in that foil there.

Meh. You know, I needed brie, and this brie was there, and not ridiculously expensive, and it wasn't bad, exactly, but it just wasn't very flavorful or very creamy. Part of that is my fault; I mean, I ate it, quickly, bite-by-bite, when I had a minute in the ER, and it was just out of the fridge, but then, it never did melt well. I dunno, I expect brie to melt after a while.

-----

Gusto Antica Taleggio Raw Milk
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$16.99/lb

A lesson in unintended consequences:

The purchase and consumption of a not-great cheese will sometimes lead to the purchase and (I assume) consumption of ~~some cheeses that cost significantly more.~~ Wait, WTF? I just did the math up there and at least some of the Whole Foods cheeses cost less, ouncewise, than the Wal-Mart brie. WEIRD.

Anyway.

I liked this cheese. I mean, not my favorite ever-ever, but it was pretty good, or maybe it's just breaking the cheese-fast after far too long (or a week and a half, whatever). At first bite it's so smooth the only taste my mind can come up with is "plasticy," which is wrong because it's good, so maybe I mean... astringent? Then the salt kicks in when you squish it against your hard palate, and it's almost bacony, and then when you swallow there's the aftertaste, which is just pungent, like foot cheese but milder. The rind is crunchy, sandy almost, but that's pleasant too. It's very soft, melty if you leave it out of the fridge for a bit (or, um, bike with it for twenty minutes through 85-degree heat and then eat it more or less immediately).

Nameless stick cheddar from the drug store.

2009-07-21T23:59:00.001-04:00

Deerfield Farms Mild Cheddar
Comes from: cows, presumably
Purchased at: Walgreens, the 24-hour one
$.59 each, or two for $1

Part of a well-balanced American meal. A meal *you can make*! Using only supplies found at your local 24-hour pharmacy.

Y'all? You know what? For stick cheddar, it ain't bad. Not great, but then, not bad.

What I really ought to do is start testing out mozzarella sticks again. Since WaWa doesn't exist down here.

(And perhaps that is why it is named WaWa, for the noise I am apt to make now that it is denied to me: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAAAAAAAAAAA.)

(Etc.)

Torta Serena and Cypress Chevre Midnight Moon.

2009-07-12T23:02:00.006-04:00

Serena! Look! There is a cheese named for you!

Cheese-blog! Look! I am back! For a little while! For this post, specifically! I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH AND BY "YOU," I MEAN "CHEESE."

(There is no cheese in China. Kate and I were supposed to go to Parc for the cheese plate after we got back but then I moved and she started being a surgeon and it never happened because I SUCK.)

Anyway.

-----

Torta Serena
comes from: sheep
purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

This cheese, I think, ranks a solid okay-to-good. The texture when I cut it was surprisingly grainy, but it turned out to be very soft at room temperature, not runny or anything, but solid-soft, turning gummy when I chewed it. Not at all a sheepy flavor; not a very powerful flavor at all. I dunno; just not my favorite. Not *bad*, not by any means, but just... not my favorite. Sorry, Serena.

-----

Cypress Chevre Midnight Moon
comes from: goats
purchased at: Whole Foods
$27.99/lb

You know, I was going to snark on this cheese's name -- who the hell names a cheese "midnight moon"? it is a cheese, not a selection on late-night Cinemax -- but whatever, it is a pretty good cheese and I suppose the cheese-makers can call it whatever they want. A medium-hard cheese (high, I arbitrarily made that designation up right now!), solid goat flavor, not overpowering. Just... good. I ate this one much faster than the other one, is what I am saying. So fast I didn't have time to think! That is what this cheese did to me.

-----

Also, yesterday at my local Whole Foods, all the featured sample-cheeses were cheddar. Which, guys, hi, it's *just cheddar*. I mean, yes, Seaside and Quickeus and Keen's and that Australian cheddar you guys made up? Okay, that last one was pretty good. But it's *cheddar*. Moving on.

Meadow Creek Mountaineer & Herve Mons Le Chartreux

2009-05-13T22:09:00.000-04:00

Meadow Creek Mountaineer
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

Herve Mons Le Chartreux
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$29.99/lb

So neither of these cheeses was really my Favorite Cheese Ever. The Meadow Creek had a vaguely foot-ish scent, a sort of horseradishy sour flavor to the rhindy bits, but overall had just a totally mild almost acidic taste, which is, well, I mean, I've said before that I suck at mild flavors. A moist cheese, sort of palate-sticky, like muenster but a tad wetter. Think this one or this one or this one. (The flavor of the cheese was *extremely* familiar, actually, and I could've sworn I'd had it before, but of those four I can't narrow it down. Which says something about my writing skills. DESCRIBING FOOD IS HARD.)

Herve Le Mons Chartreux, you'll notice, cost twice as much as the other cheese, and sometimes I guess that means something, in that I liked it better; it had a more powerful taste, more of a bite, was a little drier, but still wasn't anything near parmesan in texture or fragmentability. You know, how some cheese fragment and some just bend? This one compromises. If that is at all possible.

WaWa Cheddar, Pecorino Tartufello, Hollandaise Chevre Goat, and Gruyere Grand Cru Surchoix.

2009-05-12T00:36:00.003-04:00

WaWa Cheddar
Comes from: cows, probably
$3.99/10 oz
Purchased at: WaWa, 'natch

Pecorino Tartufello
Comes from: sheep
$29.99/lb
Purchased at: Whole Foods

Hollandse Chevre Goat Cheese
Comes from: goats
$13.99/lb
Purchased at: Whole Foods

Gruyere Grand Cru Surchoix
Comes from: cows
$18.99/lb
Purchased at: Whole Foods

You know, I think it's just that I was (am) exhausted/pissed/drunk but none of these cheeses impressed me all that much. I mean, the WaWa cheddar was clearly the weak link; I guess the good thing about eating expensive cheese all the time is that now I shrug at cheese sticks and cheese bricks (except when it's 2 AM and only WaWa is open). WaWa cheddar: Kind of tasteless. Moving on.

The pecorino tartuffo was interesting, seriously interesting, and I think I'd buy it and gladly for a dinner party. It's strong in flavor, like a pecorino, but the texture... I'm going with "bendable" but also "feta-like." Maybe if you took a bunch of feta and squeezed it all together so it wasn't so much crumbly as rubbery, but the good kind of rubbery? But still sort of sandy-dry on the tongue like feta is? That's this cheese.

And then the Hollandse Chevre. A good strong goaty flavor but still and all the bite is too smooth and, eh, I don't know, it just didn't strike me as anything special. For what it's worth.

Annnd finally we come to the Gruyere Grand Cru Surchoix, which is, I'm told, gruyere-like; it's just, meh, not anything special. For me.

Incidentally, I bought some Mount Tam earlier, because I liked it the last time, and it was good, though I guess it didn't impress me as much, either. So maybe someone has just destroyed my cheese-receptors this week.

(That someone is BOOZE.)

(Oh, holy shit, I *haven't* mentioned Mt Tam here? Really? Because I thought I had. Um, really? Not even... New Orleans? Didn't I eat Mt Tam in New Orleans? No, apparently not... Shit. Well, Mt Tam is a very good, creamy, brie-like cheese, and we all know that butterfat + me = happy, so I like it a lot. That is Mt Tam.)

Calkins Creamery Pastured Paulin

2009-04-27T20:44:00.000-04:00

(God, I've been reading "pasteurized" for "pastured" this whole time.)

Calkins Creamery Pastured Paulin
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99/lb

... Meh? I mean, it's not a bad cheese, and it's better than, like, supermarket cheese, but it's not... astounding.

Old Chatham Nancy Camembert

2009-04-23T20:42:00.002-04:00

Old Chatham Nancy Camembert
Comes from: sheep *and* cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

You know, I may not know the difference between camembert and brie, but I know what I like, and I like them, and also this one.

Aged Reserva Mahon & Quickeus English Farmhouse Cheddar

2009-04-21T20:17:00.004-04:00

Aged Reserva Mahon
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

So I've reviewed mahon before in this space, but I have a terrible memory (woo! medicine!) and, y'know, it was available in small pieces. So, mahon. Mahon is a firm cheese, very similar in texture and moisture to parmesan, and it smells a bit like gouda, but while it's not a ridiculously strong cheese, it's stronger than either of those. Mahon just hits the top of your palate (your soft palate, if you must know) and almost burns the back of your throat. It's got an aftertaste almost reminiscent of banana (and you have no idea how long I had to ponder, cheese disintegrating in my mouth, before I figured that one out). It is not my thing, exactly, but I could see where people would dig it. "People."

Quickeus English Farmhouse Cheddar
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

What's interesting about this one is that immediately after unwrapping it, I said, "Wait, does this cheese have horseradish in it?" The answer is no, but it smells so strongly of horseradish that I suspect something. It does not taste of horseradish, however; instead, it's got a lovely, almost sticky, cheddary thick and moist(er than your flaky cheeses, anyway) consistency. It reminds me of Seaside Cheddar, but that might just be because they're both British cheddars and both "the wrong color"; thanks to America, cheddar is, was, and always will be bright orange. Whatevs. Nice ched, Brits.

Greek Manouri

2009-04-20T18:36:00.003-04:00

Greek Manouri
Comes from: sheep and goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb

This cheese is tough to describe. It tastes a whole lot like feta, but when I think of feta I think of chunklets that are a bit chewy, but also... full of holes, you know? And this cheese's texture is... well, it's lightweight, as if it were full of holes, and yet there are no holes to be seen. It is *less dense* than its appearance might suggest. It's like, if you had a chunk of, well, Capricho de Cabra or La Tur, and then cut off all the melty outside bits, so only the vaguely-sandy-but-that-sounds-bad-so-I-don't-mean-sandy-maybe-I-just-mean-drier inside bits remained? This cheese would be like that. Soft enough to crush with your tongue alone, but not melty or liquid soft. Just... soft.

It is very good.

Mons-Cazelle de Saint Affrique and Pata Cabra

2009-04-19T23:59:00.003-04:00

I would like to dedicate a post to the two cheeses I enjoyed in New Orleans as part of my healthy and balanced Whole Foods-based dinners on Friday and Saturday nights. (Yes, I was in New Orleans, during French Quarter Fest, during a weekend, and I... ate at the Whole Foods salad bar. Because I was alone, and exhausted after house-hunting, and I AM NOT ASHAMED.)

So. Mons-Cazelle de Saint Affrique and Pata Cabra.

Mons-Cazelle de Saint Affrique
I gotta hand it to the cheese guy at Whole Foods. He recommended this cheese -- I mean, Whole Foods is pushing it this month -- and it was quite good and I was not sorry at all. Perhaps I should use my cheesemongers as a source of cheese information, as well as social gossip. Maybe. A little? Anyway. This is a soft/semisoft sheeps' milk cheese, not too sheepy but strong enough, and as always I recommend crusty bread if you have crusty bread in your lonely sterile hotel room. If not, well, you have the internet. Maybe. When it doesn't die.

Pata Cabra
And this cheese was also quite good, though I picked it out in classic G-fashion of finding a hunk of cheese that would not, when consumed in its entirety, make me feel like a fatass. Ahem. A goats' milk cheese to balance out the previous day's sheep-round, this cheese was delighful. You should buy some and eat it, if you like goat cheeses. And... that's all.

Capricho de Cabra vs. La Tur

2009-04-07T20:23:00.002-04:00

So I don't have pictures of either of these cheeses, because I sort of brought them along to school and ate them with my Healthyman cafeteria salads yesterday and today, and it would've been even more distracting during lunchtime lecture if I'd whipped out a camera *in addition to* slowly licking each morsel of cheese off of the plastic it'd been wrapped in. Which I may or may not have done.

Annnnd not like it would've helped y'all much, either. By the time I got to them, the cheeses were more or less semi-solid balls of goo. Like... I dunno, sort of like brie that's been sitting at room temperature for a while. Deeeeeeelicious (and the "delicious" is serious).

Oh! Hey! I'm on the internet! Here is the Capricho de Cabra, and here is the La Tur. Woo!

So. Picture two white semi-solid balls of goo, and the Capricho de Cabra cost, I think, $10.99 or $11.99 a pound, and the La Tur was more expensive, say $19.99 a pound, and both are, of course, available at Whole Foods or whereever you have a cheesemonger you love and another one to crush on. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.

What I am saying here is that both of these cheeses were delicious and well worth eating with a fork in the back of a dimly-lit roomful of sad radiology residents, occasionally crinkling the saran wrap and cementing your reputation as that annoying bitch who eats weird shit loudly.

And despite the fact that the Capricho de Cabra comes from goat, and the La Tur comes from both goat and cow, the cheeses tasted very similar, a lovely fatty goaty crush-it-on-the-roof-of-your-mouth... orgasm? We'll go with orgasm. The La Tur was a little stronger -- I might prefer the Capricho de Cabra for taste -- and had a nifty dry-on-the-inside, melty-on-the-outside thing going, but honestly the differences in texture between the cheeses were probably due to their locations in my bag and my bag's location on the floor before lunchtime. You know, what we scientists call confounders.

(Science!)

Soo. You should buy one of these cheeses, is what I am saying. Either would go well with crusty bread, not sweet and not too strong (I'd stick with classic baguette or sourdough), and maybe a little bit of some kind of fancy lettuce (... arugula?). Yes. That would be delicious.

(Soooo delicious I wish I were eating it right nowwwwwwwww.)

Gorgonzola dolce

2009-04-05T20:37:00.001-04:00

Gorgonzola Dolce
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$10.99/lb

Oh god this cheese is so fucking good.

It's soft and melty, almost like brie, and not at all like blue cheese; this cheese has only the occasional small chunky bit. It's really almost mild, for a blue cheese; hell, it *is* mild. It's the sort of blue cheese you'd serve to your friend who hates blue cheese. But it's just... so good. There's a creamy bite, and then if you sort of wait and hold the cheese in your mouth (hi, this blog is basically porn, isn't it?) there's a sweet, almost fruity taste. Seriously. It's weird. What the hell is that taste? Why does it remind me of something? What does it remind me of?

God, this cheese is delicious.

Brabander

2009-03-21T23:41:00.002-04:00

Brabander
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Fair Foods Farmstand
$21/lb

This is a pretty good cheese; the man at the stand described it to me as a gouda, which seems about right. It's not a particularly strong or sharp cheese, but it's got a solid mild flavor and a really good bite to it: chewy, not too dry, just... mmm.

Maybe I really eat cheese just for the texture?

Crap. Now I have to think about that for a while.

Cheese party!

2009-03-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I have already disposed of the labels, and also most of the cheese, so this won't be much of a review. That said...

Clockwise, from the whitish one Marjorie's hand is cutting: goat milk gouda (Trader Joe's), pastore sini (Whole Foods), drunken goat cheese (Whole Foods), abondance cheese (Trader Joe's), Saint Andre (Trader Joe's), brie (Trader Joe's).

Really I was impressed by the Trader Joe's cheeses here; I wasn't expecting them to be spectacular, because, eh, Trader Joe's, but they held up well. Special props to the goat gouda, the abondance (which I thought would be stinky when I first pulled off the wrapper, but instead was just pleasantly pungent and wound up being one of my favorites), and the Saint Andre, which, go figure, is brie with a higher fat content.

Yay, cheese-party. Yay.

I do still eat cheese, I swear: Oregon Rogue Blue

2009-03-14T13:45:00.004-04:00

Oregon Rogue Blue
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$21.99/lb

Hi. I am a pretty good blue cheese.

Honestly I just wanted somewhere to put these comics.

2009-02-28T16:51:00.005-05:00

title text: the mystery of the exotic produce

And since this blog reads more or less as an extended ad for Whole Foods, well. Here is good.

title text: poor people have got sore junk

Carr Valley Goat River Blend & Fiore Sardo

2009-02-26T21:38:00.000-05:00

Carr Valley Goat River Blend
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$22.99/lb

You know, every so often I think, man, maybe goat cheeses are not my favorite. Maybe I do like sheep cheeses more, since I don't hate sheep cheeses as much as I thought I did. (Logic! It is not there.) Maybe... cows?

And then I have this cheese, and I realize I am wrong.

-----

Fiore Sardo
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

But then, I don't hate sheep cheeses either. How often do I have a double play where I say, "Man, these cheeses are both pretty awesome?" Um... pretty often, really. I am not that selective.

Oldwick Shepherd & PA Noble

2009-02-21T18:32:00.001-05:00

Right. So it turns out that I haven't bought any cheese in eleven days, which is some kind of record for me, and also which is a lie, because I totally bought some cheese sticks at TJ's last week. But! HERE IS A POST ABOUT SOME CHEESE I ATE BACK THEN AND I HAVE FINALLY UPLOADED THE PHOTOS.

-----

Valley Shepherd Creamery, Long Valley, NJ: Oldwick Shepherd
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Fair Foods Farmstand, Reading Terminal Market
$25/lb

So this cheese. This cheese was good, a very mild sheep's cheese. Or do I mean sheeps' cheese? Can I assume that all of the milk that went into making this cheese came from a single ewe? I don't think I can. But "sheeps' cheese"? Really? And yes, I know that the sheep did not make this cheese, did not consent to be slaves of The Man and have their nipples macerated every day by giant milking machines so that a certain zaftig, largely sedentary female human in a bright and shiny apartment building in a far-away city could consume their lipidated sweat.

(Unlikely words that spell check does not disapprove of: "lipidated.")

But given all of those things, the fact remains that "sheeps' cheese," or even "sheeps'-milk cheese," with the apostrophe *there*, looks ridiculous, and maybe it is "sheep's milk," you know, one sheep representing the herd, all "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Only it bungles the quote at the last minute because it's on the MOTHERFUCKING MOON with RHINOS and maybe some OCTOPI*.

* Cf. pp. 42, 43.

(Even though I know that the sheep that gives milk is automatically a ewe-sheep*, my brain defaults to "it" for subject-pronoun. I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ANIMAL-KIND EVEN WHEN IT GIVES ME CHEESES.)

* June is bustin' out all over. IN MY HEART.

Um, like I said, the cheese was pretty good. Not my favorite -- kind of, like I said, mild, and my palate isn't refined enough for that -- but pretty good all the same.

-----

Green Valley Dairy, Lancaster Co, PA: PA Noble
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Fair Foods Farmstand, Reading Terminal Market
$25/lb

This cheese was also a solid choice, if *also* a little too mild for my tastes. I mean, it's *supposed* to be mild, I think. But, y'know, too mild to eat alone. Which is how I eat my cheeses. And all of my meals. For the rest of my life.

[runs away sobbing]

Blue post-call day: Neal's Yard Shropshire Blue and Valley Shepherd Creamery Crema de Blue

2009-02-06T22:18:00.006-05:00

Neal's Yard Shropshire Blue
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

This cheese was okay. It was very sharp; I'm trying to think of what it'd pair with, food-wise. Salad, obviously -- it's not exactly traditional-crumbly enough for salad, but I bet it would be good sliced thin and scattered over spinach leaves -- and I'm coming up with only beer. Beer, salad, maybe stick some of this cheese on toothpicks at your fancy-shmancy dinner parties, though be warned that it's probably crumbly enough to get all over your inherited carpets. Whatevs; that's what the help is for.

(OH GOD MY FANTASY LIFE.)

(HONESTLY I JUST WANT A ROOMBA THOUGH.)

So. Sharp cheese, softer than muenster, harder than brie, moister than a traditional crumbly blue cheese... maybe edge towards feta a little bit from regular blue, and that's where this cheese sits. Good, solid, a little too blue for my tastes which I didn't think was possible, but hey, surprises happen every day in my life. CHEESY SURPRISES.

(I WISH.)

-----

Valley Shepherd Creamery Crema de Blue
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Fair Food Farmstand [You guys know I don't give a crap about fair food, right? And that I only bought cheese here because it came in small pieces? Okay, good. Gotta defend my rep.]
$21/lb

(Ohhhh, weird, the stand is totally connected with the place where I went on that date on Tuesday. Ohhhhh.)

This cheese I liked better, though that might just be because it was meltier and I was in a kind of melty mood. A little less sharp of a blue, and like I said, a little meltier, but only a little. Think... I dunno, cross blue cheese with brie, and that's how soft this was. Kind of.

(Of course, I might be biased in favor of the little-guy cheese. Shhhh. I AM NOT A FAIR FOODS KIND OF GIRL I JUST HATE WHOLE FOODS MORE.)

Another triple play: Fontal Fiave Valle Alpina, Rogue River Blue, Lavort

2009-02-01T19:06:00.004-05:00

Fontal Val Alpina [Fontal Fiave Valle Alpina]
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$9.99/lb

[no picture because my phone ran out of memory and then this turned out to be the one cheese I cannot find *anywhere* on the internet, seriously it is like the cheese that does not exist]

This cheese is... okay. A softer, sandwichy cheese; I guess I'd compare it to muenster (regular, American muenster) in hardness and density and moisture. It's just kind of... bland, I guess. I think it'd be good with sharper meats, because it's got a nice chewy bite and I imagine it melts pretty well and so would be good on panini and such. But then, what isn't good on panini and such? Precious little.

Rogue River Blue
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$39.99/lb

An interesting blue cheese, with pear brandy and grape leaves thrown in. Crumbly, moist, palate-sticky in texture, the way a blue cheese should be. The grape leaves were especially interesting; they added an almost peppery but not overpowering flavor to the cheese within. Overall, a solid cheese whose additives (for once) complimented the whole rather than just confused the fuck out of it.

Lavort
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

Also a pretty good cheese. Not quite as dry as parmigiano in texture and bite, but edging close. Not really a sandwich cheese, but the flavor is pretty mild all the same. (Also, still more evidence that I need to rethink my anti-sheep bias, but shhh. Shhhhhh.)

I am so angry at this article it is kind of funny.

2009-01-17T21:21:00.002-05:00

Cheese — it's grosser than you thought
Behind the taste lie bacteria, stomach lining, pesticides and pure fat

"To ripen cheese and add flavor, bacterial strains are freely injected and smeared into the substance."

OH NOS!

Shit, people. WHERE DID YOU THINK CHEESE CAME FROM?

(Also, "Fat is what gives cheese its taste, and 70 to 80 percent of the calories in cheese come from pure fat." ARE YOU SPEAKING DISAPPROVINGLY OF DIETARY FAT? BECAUSE YOU AND I, WE WILL HAVE WORDS.)

Zamorano

2009-01-06T21:34:00.003-05:00

Zamorano
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$16.99/lb

Damn, this was good sheep cheese. I am surprised. In fact, I am beginning to think that maybe I don't hate sheep cheeses after all?

... Yeah, that was how good this cheese was. This cheese was so good I am beginning to rethink my bias towards its species.

Wisconsin Muenster

2009-01-04T21:50:00.001-05:00

Wisconsin Muenster
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$6.99/lb

So tonight I ate muenster cheese.

And, no, honestly, you don't need a review of muenster cheese.

Pecorino Pepato

2008-12-22T20:09:00.004-05:00

Pecorino Pepato
Comes from: sheep (and rennet!)
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb

This is a pretty solid pecorino, this one is. A little on the salty side, even for pecorino, which is always salty as hell (and that is why I love it). Standard-issue pecorino-hard (Y'all know where pecorino falls on the hardness scale, right? It's pretty hard and flaky, if you haven't been paying attention, so a dry kind of hard.). The peppercorns (big ol' crunchy peppercorns) are a nice touch. It's not too much pepper, this cheese, but it is the *right* amount of pepper.

By the way, pecorino is like parmesan made from sheep instead of cow. So imagine that taste if you need more help.

Fromage D'Affinois, Robiola Due Latte Guffanti, Keen's Cheddar

2008-12-20T17:15:00.005-05:00

It's a triple play to return from away!

(Yeah, I've been terribly neglectful of this blog, sorry. Rachel and I had a Trader Joe's cheese fiesta... sometime in November, accompanied by Commando, but I didn't document it in any way, and now I don't remember what I liked and what I didn't or even what I ate. (Actually, I am pretty sure we hit up some Ossau Iraty.) Point is, I've been out of town a lot, and so I haven't really been stocking the fridge, because whatever I bought would just bloom into a colorful collection of mycelia (WOTD!) by the time I returned.)

Fromage D'Affinois
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

Leading off the triple play we have the best of the three (sorry), Fromage D'Affinois. I was a little nervous about this player, since it sported just the same shade/kind of rind as the oft-maligned French feet-cheddar of doom. But lo! I was mistaken, because this was a mild, very runny cheese of the more-or-less brie variety. It was *delicious*.

(HA HA HA. Yeah, I'm boring. This cheese is basically brie with more fat. WHO LIKES MORE FAT? OH THAT'S RIGHT I DO.)

Robiola Due Latte Guffanti
Comes from: cows *and* sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$?

(Yes, Whole Foods spelled "latte" wrong. HA HA HA SNOBS.)

This cheese, on the other hand, while still good and runny -- oh, god, so wonderfully runny -- had a bit of the feet-funk to it. Just a bit, mind you, and I could certainly eat and enjoy this cheese *and* get off on the fact that hey! I must be cultured because this cheese is funky! It's good, I just... preferred the other one.

Keen's Cheddar
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99/lb

And this cheese suffered, also, only in comparison to the other two. See, it's a *great* cheddar. Or at least a very good one, if not quite seaside cheddar... but then, this cheddar was more cheddar than seaside cheddar, so... whatever you're looking for, I guess. Still not terribly cheddary, but... like the memory of cheddar, carried on a chewier, flakier wind. Or something. It's just, I kind of was in a runny-cheese mood? And consequently I was like, meh, cheddar. You know?

Keswick Creamery Wallaby

2008-10-12T13:46:00.004-04:00

Keswick Creamery Farmstead Cheese: Wallaby
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Frecon Farms
$3.45/3.5 oz = $15.77/lb

So this cheese is good. It's very mild, sort-of cheddary but softer than, I dunno, your standard grocery store brick. Probably would be good in your kids' sandwiches. You know, your imaginary kids? Yeah, those.

Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog Coupe

2008-10-11T09:29:00.003-04:00

Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog Coupe
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

So this cheese? Kind of fell apart? When I took it out of its wrapper? It is supposed to look like this?

Anyway. I really, really like this cheese. Rachel and I consumed copious amounts of this cheese at one of our cheese-fiestas, and lo, it was good. The outside portion of the cheese is runny and sharp in flavor, and the inside of the cheese is more mild, with an almost feta-ish, drier texture, and together they are kind of the best thing ever.

This cheese! Is so great! You should eat it! All the time! And that is the song of humboldt fog.

Mitcana De Oveja

2008-10-04T21:27:00.001-04:00

Mitcana De Oveja
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99/lb

This is a pretty good cheese in the runny-on-the-outside, flaky-on-the-inside family. Not too sheepy.

Sottoccenere With Truffles

2008-09-26T18:50:00.004-04:00

Sottoccenere With Truffles
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$24.99

This cheese is... interesting. Innnnnnnteresting.

Amadeus

2008-09-24T22:12:00.001-04:00

Amadeus
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb

I don't remember this cheese, actually. I think it was bland? But... okay?

Old Nancy Chatham Camembert

2008-09-22T23:10:00.001-04:00

Old Nancy Chatham Camembert
Comes from: sheep, cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

Is there actually a difference between camembert and brie?

Anyway. This cheese was pretty good. But then I am kind of a camembert/brie fan.

Fulvi Pecorino Romano

2008-09-21T21:07:00.001-04:00

Fulvi Pecorino Romano
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$9.99/lb

I have no idea why this pecorino is so cheap, because it is the best pecorino I have ever had. Not too salty, just-right flaky... flavorlicious.

Jarlsberg

2008-09-21T21:02:00.001-04:00

Jarlsberg
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$7.99/lb

So Jarlsberg. Turns out, it is *not* a fancy cheese, but one of those sandwich cheeses my mom never bought. Which is unsurprising, because my mom bought exactly two sandwich cheeses: cheddar (for my brother) and muenster (for me). Leading to two of the sandwiches that carried me through elementary school, middle school, and high school: cheddar cheese with butter on challah bread, and muenster cheese with butter on challah bread.

So that's this cheese. I guess it is kind of like Swiss? It's a good cheese, just... common. I LOOK DOWN ON THIS CHEESE BECAUSE IT IS COMMON.

Ossau Iraty

2008-09-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

Ossau Iraty
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$? (might be $15.99/lb)

Also this cheese. This cheese is *amazing.* I mean, I liked the rindy bits better than I liked the non-rindy bits -- just a little crunchier and saltier -- but that's more or less how I feel about all cheeses ever, so, eh. Anyway. Delicious, sheepy cheese that is not too sheepy, because god knows I have said enough times that I hate sheepy cheeses. (Did you hear me? I HATE SHEEPY CHEESES.) (But not this one!)

Incidentally, when I purchased this cheese I was all excited because the name seemed... I dunno, Slavic to me? But now I find out it is just French. BOO BORING ETHNICITY. BOO.

Calkins Creamery Daisy

2008-09-10T20:54:00.000-04:00

Calkins Creamery Daisy
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99/lb

Oh this cheese is so good you should go out and buy some now, okay?

(I am somewhat ashamed that the cheeses I tend to like are a bit milder in flavor than, um, others. This cheese isn't, like, *bland* or anything; it's just not tongue-overpoweringly-awful. You know? Because it is good.)

Red Cloud Haystack Mountain

2008-09-10T00:54:00.003-04:00

Red Cloud Haystack Mountain
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$?

This cheese smells like feet. No, worse; it smells like gangrene. No, really; it smells like something rotting in the sun. It is *awful.*

On the other hand, it does not taste terrible when you don't inhale. And the rind has a pleasant grittiness-

Oh! Oh when I smell it again it just smells *awful*. French-muenster awful. God.

Ugh.

Could be paired with: a heavy dose of anything else overpowering. Maybe apple butter. Like, a jar.

Ribafria

2008-09-07T21:17:00.004-04:00

Ribafria
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$?

Alright, so I did like this cheese, but I have a quibble (... can "quibble" be a noun?) with cheese-makers everywhere: Why must you coat your perfectly-good milk byproduct with an *obscene* amount of pepper? Why? I mean, I did just eat a ton of pineapple so my mouth is a little... sensitive (as in, bleeding), but this is a shit-ton of pepper on top of perfectly good mild, dry-firm goat cheese. A *shit ton* of pepper. A *my nose is running* of pepper. A *run to the fridge for a bottle of water* of pepper. A *the back of my throat is burning so hard I need to pee* of pepper.

(That happens to y'all, right?)

Hendricks Farms of Telford Bavarian Swiss

2008-09-01T18:10:00.001-04:00

Hendricks Farms of Telford Bavarian Swiss
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

I really liked this cheese. It tastes like swiss cheese, but *better* than swiss cheese. I mean, not that I am some kind of expert on swiss cheese of the non-supermarket variety, but anyways. Think swiss cheese, but without the giant holes, and denser and less wet, like swiss crossed with parmigian in texture. It's just got a really great flavor, this cheese. (Also: Made local! In case you care about such things! Which, not really, but: Field trip?)

Herve Mons Gabietou

2008-09-01T17:04:00.002-04:00

Herve Mons Gabietou
Comes from: cows *and* sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$29.99/lb

So this cheese is... meh? I guess. It has a little bit of that foot-taste going, but so mild you don't have to notice it if you don't want to. Soft, on the verge of melty; it's not utterly formless, like brie, but with very little effort (and a spoon) you could mash it down onto your panino without damaging the bread. Anyway. Eh, I guess? And also, I have no class?

Whatever, you knew that already.

(No, thought: I think it'd compliment other things really well, this cheese, like maybe something like salami and, I dunno, roasted pepper on a sandwich. It's just not meant to live alone. Like, I dunno, certain people who take the opportunity to live alone to mean "hell, no, you don't have to shower." Cough, cough.)

Parrano

2008-08-31T20:55:00.002-04:00

Parrano
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$8.99/lb

This cheese is pretty okay. It's got a nice sticky chewy-ness to it; go figure, it ranks with your traditional sandwich cheeses (... muenster?) on the hardness/wetness scale. (Um, that was surprisingly sexual. HARD. WET. AMERICAN. CHEESE.) I'm searching the archives, though, because I swear I've had a very similar cheese before, and recently... but maybe I just mean I *sampled* this cheese somewhere, so there's not an entry for it. Anyways. This cheese: Okay, not great, I'd probably want to do something with it if I had to serve it to the queen.

Cambozola

2008-08-28T15:43:00.003-04:00

Cambozola
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Trader Joe's
$11.49/lb
So mostly I want to talk about this cheese because its label alerted me to the existence of "microbial rennet," which is what vegetarians (and kosher-types?) can use to make cheese when they don't want their cheeses to contain delicious, delicious baby cow stomach. Hooray for science! (Except that some vegetarians apparently don't even think fake rennet is good enough, because... um, "Somehow, cutting a calf's stomach into pieces to create cheese, or inserting a calf gene into bacteria and yeast to produce bioengineered cheese is not very appealing." Wait, how are those *at all* the same thing?) (Oh, and now I totally want a campaign banner that says "LITVAK PALATE: ENFORCING MICROBIAL SLAVERY SINCE 2008.")

Anyway. Like that other time I ate an obscene amount of Trader Joe's cheese, I find myself at a loss here. Mostly because my blood is slowwwly flooding my digestivey bits and probably taking on a white undertone while doing so. Ew/yum.

This is a perfectly servicable stinky cheese, is what I'm saying, and it's not even *that* stinky, and certainly not offensively stinky. Not as strong as blue cheese of the type you'd find on your salads, but a milder verson of the same will put you in the right ballpark. I'm just not sure how I'd serve this one at my future hypothetical dinner party. It's not crumbly, so not on salads... Maybe you could use it to top your fancy burgers, though. It'd probably be awfully good at that. Or! Or an appetizer, on crackers, with honey. I think that'd be good.

Pecorino Grand Cru

2008-08-20T20:38:00.002-04:00

Pecorino Grand Cru
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99
... Damn. Damn, this is a good cheese. You know, I love me some pecorino -- like I said, parmigian's saltier sheep-cousin -- but damn, maybe I have been buying the wrong type all along. Because damn, this one is salty but not too salty and just a hint of sheepy but not actually sheepy, like the memory of sheep or a lamb in the daisies. (And are there two poems that reference lambs in the daisies? because I feel like only one is about death.) Vote "yes" on proposition "this cheese," kids. And if you don't like it you are wrong.

Patacabra Goat (Zaragosa Spain)

2008-08-18T22:43:00.004-04:00

Patacabra Goat (Zaragosa Spain)
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$22.99/lb

Now this? This is a good cheese. A solid "medium" on the hardness scale, somewhere around muenster but of course tasting nothing like it, and maybe it'd be softer, even somewhat spreadable, if you didn't eat it straight out of the fridge like (cough, cough) some. Anyway. Good solid goaty flavor but not too goaty, and the rind (chew-licious) has a good sour tang that's not foot-ish. HOORAY GOOD CHEESE. Also would pair well, I'm guessing, with apple butter.

Roncal

2008-08-18T20:26:00.003-04:00

Roncal
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$22.99/lb

A firmer cheese with air pockets, dry-ish rather than sandwich-cheese-wet. This cheese is also mild, but it's a *better* mild than yesterday's. I dunno; I guess there's just a hint of sheep-ish that means that the cheese has some flavor, but not, like, overwhelming sockfoot. Once again I have the urge to combine it with rosemary and olive oil.

Aged Mimolette

2008-08-17T14:00:00.004-04:00

Aged Mimolette
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

I'll be honest. I bought this cheese entirely because it is unnaturally orange. I mean, look at it! Only extra-sharp Wisconsin cheddar is that color, and that's because the kindly Wisconsinites add orange dye to it to warn us fellow Americans that THIS PRODUCT HERE MIGHT HAVE TASTE. CONSUME WITH CARE.

(Okay, actually the internets tells me that annatto, which this cheese contains, is the source of sharp cheddar's coloring, too. The more you know!)

(This cheese also contains RENNET, everyone's favorite cow stomach lining. HOORAY.)

Anyway. Despite the EYE-BURNING COLOR, this cheese is surprisingly mild in flavor. I mean, it *kinda* reminds me of Parmesan, but that could be -- in fact, I'm 90% sure it is -- because the cheese is as firm as Parmesan, if not more so. Not especially sour, a little salty... Yeah, mild. I don't know what else to call it but mild.

On the other hand, the color is impressive as hell, so if you want to bust up some mimolette for your next party and serve it on toothpicks, I'm sure you'll impress. I mean, unless your guests know anything about cheese, right? NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT CHEESE.

Double Cream Brie

2008-08-13T23:22:00.000-04:00

Double Cream Brie
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Trader Joe's
$5.49/lb

This is brie. Brie, everyone. Everyone, brie.

This is not quite half a pound of brie.

This is not quite half a pound of brie that I ate while I was studying the night before my step 2 CK.

Which did not go so well.

But there was brie, at least.

Brie from Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's is kind of like the Ikea of cheese-sellers. You will not buy what you want; you will buy what the store *has.* In bulk.

It will be pretty good anyway.

Grass Stains: Soft Ripened Cheese with Peppercorns and Proprietary Herbs

2008-08-08T15:48:00.006-04:00

Grass Stains: Soft Ripened Cheese with Peppercorns and Proprietary Herbs
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

Yes, really, "proprietary." As in... owned by... somebody else? What the hell does "proprietary" mean?

In other quibblings, this cheese isn't really soft, which I interpret to mean "spreadable." It's more of a medium-firm cheese (think... swiss?), but it's much drier than your sandwich cheeses (and I made up that term just now to mean cheddar/muenster/provolone/swiss/etc), so it flakes. Mmm, flakey cheeses.

Anyway. So this cheese. I liked this cheese. Covered in (and incorporating) a mix of spices I can't really identify (thyme? was that thyme?) and pepper. Also surprisingly spicy, but I dunno, I liked it better than that other spicy one. Maybe because the primary taste was not "hot" but also "other herbs" and a little bit of cow cheese. Num.

Asiago Vecchio

2008-08-07T20:22:00.002-04:00

Asiago Vecchio
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99/lb

So I was really hungry when I ate this cheese and I didn't write a real review at the time -- I just took a photo and fell to -- and, um, now I don't have much to say about it. It is a hard cheese? You can eat the rind? I did not like it as much as I thought I would, though it was not bad?

Yep.

Parmigiano Reggiano

2008-08-04T21:00:00.002-04:00

Parmigiano Reggiano
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$17.99/lb

Okay, so I eat at my desk. Pretty much always.

And my review of Parmigiano Reggiano was kind of predetermined, because you know what I have to say about this cheese? You know what I always have to say about this cheese?

NOM NOM NOM.

That is all.

BATTLE OF THE STRING CHEESES!!!

2008-07-27T20:10:00.005-04:00

Dun-d-duh-dun-duh-d-dun-dun-dun-dun, d-d-dun, d-d-dun, d-d-dun, d-d-dun, Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, Dun-nuh-nuh-dun-nuh-nuh-nuh... aw, fuck it.

The contestants! And, um, extras. (Have I been eating these cheeses for the past two weeks? WHY DO YOU ASK?)

CONTESTANTS:

WaWa String Cheese
365 Brand (Whole Foods) String Cheese
Trader Joe's Light String Cheese
Kraft String-Ums
Penn-Maid String Cheese
Maggio String Cheese

Kraft likes to advertise its cheeses with an insane cow.

Which totally looks ripped from Chicken Run, no?

Maggio, meanwhile, is the *fun* snack.

Whose bag looks like it was designed by me, circa 1995. On a Mac.

Okay, enough blathering. LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

CHEESE FIGHT!

(I'd like to thank Chung May Grocery, right here, for the toothpicks. TAKE THAT WHOLE FOODS AND RENEWABLE RESOURCES.)

So I have to say that the outcome of this match surprised me. But I have never eaten six string cheeses back to back to back -- in fact, I feel kind of ill right now -- and there you go.

(Midway through the carnage.)

The loser, I think, is Penn-Maid. And not only because I hate Penn-Maid cottage cheese -- it is sour and *wrong* -- though that may have handicapped the cheese a little. But this string cheese also tasted... sour. I can't describe it beyond "sour." Oooh, or "like you licked the back of the refrigerator."

The next-loser turned out to be 365 Brands. Also slightly handicapped, maybe, by my feelings about Whole Foods, but also just... bland. Bland and kind of without any chewy bite to it. Which, I guess if you want your string cheese to be all melty right off the bat that's fine with me, but that's not how I roll.

So that leaves WaWa, Trader Joe's, Maggio, and Kraft. Trader Joe's, I think, suffered for being a diet cheese; it's good for a diet cheese, and also had a nice bite to it that the others lacked, but in the end it just didn't taste as good. (However, I will probably keep buying it, because for 60 calories it's not bad.)

So. Maggio, Kraft, WaWa. I was surprised Maggio made it this far, honestly. Both Maggio and Kraft had a little bit of this... aftertaste thing going. *Like* Penn-Maid's aftertaste, but not... really. See, they also had *flavor,* which made them not as bad as Penn-Maid. As for WaWa, WaWa lacked the icky aftertaste, but did this weird thing where in its final moments before the swallow it got a little gritty.

Soooo to conclude: WaWa in first place by a hair, Maggio and Kraft tied for second, trailed by TJ's Light in fourth (a decent finish for a diet cheese, right?), 365 Brand in fifth, and Penn-Maid rolling into last place.

ALL HAIL WAWA.

I still feel vaguely ill.

Fulvi Crotenese

2008-07-27T19:27:00.003-04:00

Fulvi Crotenese
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$14.99/lb

So a warning on this one, too: Try not to eat the rind. You can gnaw at the rind, the way you should with all hard cheeses, but I am pretty sure that the rind itself is made of something that is not cheese. Something like... well, wax. Or rennet, as the label says. YAY RENNET.

So I started eating this cheese on Friday, and after I'd consumed most of it I put a touch back in the fridge because, eh. And I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say about it, because, eh. It is a sheep's milk cheese, which is a negative, but it is a hard cheese that flakes right, which is a positive. It doesn't taste too sheepy, which is a positive, but then it doesn't taste strongly of anything, which is a negative.

(We might have... *issues* with mild or gentle flavors over here at Litvak Palate. Y'all can analyze as you see fit.)

So I put this tiny bit of cheese back in the fridge for two days, and then tonight I pulled it out because, eh, hungry, and lo! The cheese tastes much better now. Less... boring. Still unsheepy (hooray!) but with a nice... aged-ness to it. Or something.

In conclusion, then, this is a cheese you might want to sit uncovered in your refrigerator for two days so it can soak up your fridge-scent and replace it with its own vague sheepiness.

Yeah.

Rustico Red Pepper & Bel Paese Traditional

2008-07-24T20:44:00.004-04:00

Rustico Red Pepper
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$12.99/lb

Bel Paese Traditional
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$9.99/lb

So the Rustico. Smells vaguely sheepy but not overly so. Softer than muenster, though it holds its shape better than mozzarella. The peppery bits are large (relatively) and crunchy and surprisingly spicy, and the cheese itself is not too sheep-heavy. Overall, I think the pepper kinda overpowers the cheese flavor a bit too much -- and the cheese flavor, as I mentioned, is good and not sheep-y -- but it'd be a good cheese to cube and set out at a dinner party with a bunch of toothpicks. (Unless your guests are vegetarians, because this cheese? Also contains rennet!)

And the Bel Paese. Okay, first? The rind really is made of wax. DO NOT TRY TO EAT THE RIND. (On the other hand, this one is rennet-free, for all your cow-enslaving-but-not-killing buddies.) Smells... like... cardboard? First bite: Oooer-um. So... Okay, second bite... See, this cheese is... It doesn't taste like feet, as I feared at first, and in fact it tastes better the longer you push it up against your palate, though that could just be my tongue-cells dying... Also a softer cheese, this one; like the other, it holds its shape but you can crush it against your palate with minimal effort. It reminds me... a little of Robin Eggs, for no reason I can describe, and a little of regular muenster. This cheese is *confusing.* And, um, kinda bland overall. Not a party cheese, this cheese; I'd save it more for, um, baking. If I ever baked with cheese, I mean.

As a mini-review, Whole Foods had set out what I believe to be Unikaas something or other tonight, and for the second or third time I had a chunk and thought, Oh, this is *good.* But then there were no small sad single-person pieces, and so you got these reviews instead. Voila!

Arina Goat Gouda

2008-07-20T18:30:00.007-04:00

Arina Goat Gouda
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$13.99/lb

So this cheese. You -- and here you are me, or, um, I; ugh -- anyway, you grab this cheese out of the sad-single-people-portions basket at Whole Foods, thinking, "Hey! I like gouda! I like goats! What could go wrong?"

But this cheese is the most un-gouda-like gouda I can imagine. It's a pale yellow color (see above) and, according to the packaging, it contains eggs. Does real gouda contain eggs? I have no idea.

(No, says Wiki. No, it does not.)

(Okay, from that Wiki entry: "Some say that the best Gouda cheese is in Iceland. But the location of the 'cold island' is still in debate." Dear anonymous editor: Of all the entries on Wikipedia, you picked the *gouda* entry to vandalize? With an obscure joke about Iceland? I am so confused.)

(Also from that Wiki entry: I would totally be banned from this place. TOTALLY.)

(This cheese also contains everybody's favorite, rennet! "Animal rennet," in fact, not mere cow rennet. Yum.)

Also surprising, there is a... hidden crunch to this cheese. The cheese itself is rates with American muenster on the hardness scale -- not soft, not hard -- but evvvvvvery so often there's some... grit to it. Which, not unpleasant, just surprising. And again, I was expecting gouda, which... is hard, right?

So, point is, this cheese is calling itself a "gouda," and I'm not sure why, 'cause it's not. At least to me. On the other hand, the Dutch would know, I guess. (Dear ~~Holland~~ The Netherlands, okay, I get it, stop having two names already: Why?)

BUT THE POINT IS. This cheese is pretty good. There's a nice acid kick at the sides of your tongue when you start chewing it, and a good sour taste (no, *good* sour) at the back of your throat when you swallow. Also, a strong goat-ness throughout; if goat's cheese ain't your thing, stay away.

As for pairings (lookit me, gettin' all fancified with my cheese-speak!), I'd say... um... dunno. I'm sure it'd be good with apple butter, but I want to pair *everything* with apple butter, so that's no help. I'm sure it'd be good with nice crispy bits of baguette, but again, I want to put *everything* on a baguette. I'm wondering if this cheese would be fun to do something really (comparatively) scary with, like... olive oil and rosemary. I have no idea why I'm saying that, because I am not that fancy, but...

(Hang on, I have a bite of cheese left.)

Okay, yes, olive oil and rosemary. You're welcome.

Seaside Cheddar

2008-07-17T20:06:00.002-04:00

Seaside Cheddar
Comes from: cows
Could have been purchased at: Whole Foods
Instead sampled for: Free

You know, the last fancy cheddar I tasted almost put me off fancy cheddars for life, because why spend bazillions (okay, not bazillions) on something that is not quite as sharp as that nice, pre-sliced, bright-orange stuff I can buy over in the cheap aisle? Yeah, why?

But this cheddar is different. This cheddar is *good.* It's pale yellow and very soft for a cheddar -- at least at room temperature -- a sort of sticky-softness that clings to your teeth. But what's weirder is the crunch; despite being soft, this cheese crunches like parmesan. I can't explain it. Oh, and it tastes strongly cheddar-y, nice and salty and, you know, cheddary. Is good.

Kraft Fat-Free Singles

2008-07-14T21:57:00.003-04:00

Kraft Fat-Free Singles: Cheddar
Comes from: cows (I think)
Purchased at: ... Acme?
$... your soul?

Did you ever notice how disgusting food appears in photographs? I think I read somewhere that the animators of Ratatouille actually had to work to make the food look *less* lifelike, and therefore more edible.

We are not cheese snobs here at litvak palate. We do not shy away from adjectives like "socks" or neologisms like "melty." And we are not ashamed of artificial coloring!

[Thought: If one says, "We are not snobs," but in that same sentence is referring to the "royal we," is one automatically disqualified from the sentiment?]

Anyway. Moreover, we here at litvak palate recognize that there are times in a girl's life when she maybe finds it necessary to cut back on some calories. Maybe she has a wedding coming up, or a television appearance, or a fabulous beach vacation, or maybe it is all part of a complex plot to catch herself a millionaire. Or maybe she has just bought into the industrial self-hate complex that is American femininity today.

(Or maybe she has just started a cheese-blog.)

Whichever. We at litvak palate are here for you.

Now, *some* of you may be sniffing in my general direction, falling all over yourselves to instruct me on that French method of weight loss, that theory that if you eat real food with *flavor,* food you can enjoy with each bite, you'll fill up faster and you won't blow up like a balloon even though le chef has incorporated an entire bâton de beurre into your chicken. And sure, food with flavor *does* satisfy you in a way that diet food does not. However, if you, like me, were born with a bottomless pit of a stomach that defies your actual physical size, you know that all the flavor in the world can't make a mountain out of a molehill. (Hi! Mix metaphors much? I do!) You need to pack some *volume* in that bitch. And that's where diet food comes in. (Also, salads. Lots and lots of salads.)

This cheese ("pasteurized cheese product"), then. 30 calories a slice. (A slice is 21 grams or three-quarters of an ounce; most cheese is about 110 calories per 28 grams or one ounce, though your string cheeses and diet cheeses will have less and your delicious, buttery cheeses will have more.) The slices themselves are bright orange and, even taken straight from the refrigerator, have a soft, tofu-y quality to them; they're so soft that they roll rather than fracture when you fold them, so soft that they have to be individually wrapped. I'd rank these slices at about mozzarella level on the hardness scale, though of course they're nothing *like* mozzarella. They're also remarkably nothing like cheddar, which they purport to be. In fact, I've had both the American and cheddar varieties of Kraft's fat-free singles, and they taste... exactly the same. *Exactly.* Except the American cheese is lighter in color, and so it kinda-sorta-maybe triggers something in my brain, like "Oh, this cheese is not that cheese." But it's a placebo effect.

But then, for a placebo effect, this cheese isn't *terrible.* I mean, it's edible. It doesn't have much flavor, but as a corollary, the plastic after-effect taste that accompanies so many diet cheeses (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, FAT-FREE PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE.) is mostly absent. And this cheese melts very well, as you might be able to see had I taken a picture just before I consumed that bowl of... stuff, up there.

(Diet dinner! Spray pan with Pam. Fry up a quarter of a large onion with garlic; add ten or so baby tomatoes, sliced, some crushed olives, and a handful of frozen sugar snap peas. Add oregano, basil, and Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt. Rinse off a package of tofu shirataki pasta, cut it into manageable chunklets, drain well, and add to pan. When there's only a little liquid left in the pan, turn off the stove but leave the pan over the heat. Crack two eggs into the mix; stir well. Allow the heat of the ingredients to cook the eggs to just-past-runny done-ness. Dump contents of pan into bowl; add two slices fake cheese. Wait for cheese to melt. Mix. Total calories: 40 from pasta, 140 from eggs, 60 from fake cheese, plus however you count your vegetables.)

See, the thing is this. I have a certain... theory of diet food. And my theory is that so long as you don't expect the diet versions to taste like the real thing, you'll be okay. Diet pasta does not taste like real pasta; I'm not really sure it has any taste at all, though it does have a certain seaweed-like musk. Diet ice cream does not taste like the full-fat, actual-sugar kind. Diet cheese does not taste like real cheese.

Overall, though, this cheese product isn't terrible. If you let it melt onto your fake pasta for long enough and then take a bite, for a minute it clings to your palate in just the right way, and you can pretend you're eating something you're happy with. Truthiness is to truth as fake cheese is to real cheese.

God bless America.

Idiazabal

2008-07-13T18:00:00.005-04:00

Idiazabal
Comes from: sheep
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

When I unwrapped this cheese I was immediately confronted by a certain... odor. An odory odor. A singe-ing of the hairs up in the front of my noise odor. A smell that reminded me of the way the back of your thighs stick to a car's plastic seats on a hot day.

Not a good odor.

And so I steeled my stomach and taste buds, and slowly cut off a thin slice of the Idiazabal, wondering why I hadn't picked something else out of the Whole Foods sample bin. Something nice and boring, like cheddar or gouda. Something not made from sheep.

And then, the surprise: This cheese tastes far better than it smells.

Is that even *possible*, I ask you? No, really: Aren't smell and taste one and the same? How can this cheese smell awful, or at least significantly unpleasant, and then undergo a metamorphosis of taste when it hits your tongue? Perhaps this is the x-men (x-man?) of cheeses, a shape-shifter indulging its talent only somewhere past one's lips.

(But not *the* shape-shifter, because I have seen that costume at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I can safely report that there is No Way in Hell that she eats dairy. Or anything.) (Hee, all those poor Midwestern tourists taking their four-year-olds to the superhero costume exhibit, expecting wholesome and being confronted by supermodel nipples.)

Anyway. This cheese. Hard to classify on many levels, besides "smell is assy but taste is delicious!" It's a hard cheese in that it holds its own shape, though I wouldn't even call it as hard as muenster. It's got these air pockets, see, this cheese:

And so when I cut it of course the cheese yields easily. Of course. The cheese is even kind of naturally flaky, like parmesan. Weird.

The taste is a pleasant salty-sour, if you can imagine that; it's a sheep cheese, but not the sheepiest of sheep cheeses, like it's pushed all its sheep-ness into its odor leaving room for another taste.

So that's this cheese, then! I would buy it again, which is saying a lot, because -- JUST IN CASE I DIDN'T MENTION IT BEFORE -- sheep's cheeses are not my favorite thing ever.

(A pause, now, for Gene Wilder and the sheep. I have no idea how it's relevant.)

The internet suggests you eat this cheese with jam. I say, sure, why not?

Moliterno

2008-07-12T12:34:00.005-04:00

Moliterno
Comes from: sheep (huh)
Purchased at: DiBruno Brothers
$14.99/lb

(No, that didn't take long.)

Did you know pecorino comes from sheep? I had no idea. I just always thought of pecorino as parmesan's saltier, grittier cousin, excellent on a rosetta or pasta aglio e olio. But parmesan comes from cows, and pecorino comes from sheep, and suddenly I don't know how I feel about pecorino anymore.

Anyway.

So this cheese is pretty good, though not quite as good as I'd hoped when I sampled it yesterday or when I finally freed it from its shrink-wrapped tomb a little while ago. Oddly, in texture and taste and odor it reminded me more of parmesan than pecorino, and more of your American, cheap-o parmesans than the good stuff. You know how, if you've bought the right kind of parmesan, the cheese fragments along its own fault lines as you cut it? And if you've bought the wrong (geometrically perfect) kind, the cheese totally *doesn't* fragment, but just yields moistly to the knife like a slightly-harder sharp cheddar? This cheese doesn't fragment.

Which doesn't automatically make it wrong, of course, because it's *not* parmesan, and it's only a cousin of pecorino, but I thought it worth mentioning. Mostly because now you know that parmesan should fragment, according to me.

Anyway. So this cheese is softer and wetter than your traditional pecorino, is what I'm saying. Less salty, too, which -- because I am a salt fiend -- to me also means less tasty. I'm accustomed to some kind of bite from my pecorino, and this cheese is more mild than that.

DiBruno's packaging reads:

A pecorino cheese aged incanestri (in baskets) to drain whey and give a distinctive marked rind, rubbed with olive oil and suet, moliterno retains moisture as it ages and takes on a pleasant meaty and substantial flavor without overwhelming sharpness or salt. Excellent tossed in olive oil or grated over fresh pasta and greens.

[Okay, so I corrected some comma errors.]

Which is more or less what I said, only I recommend you *not* fall down the internet rabbit-hole of googling "suet," then wondering, "hey, so is rennet different from suet?" and *then* thinking, "hey, so can kosher Jews not eat good cheese?" and following *that* with a search that sadly, does not reveal which cheeses do and do not contain suet/rennet/other animal bits.

In other news, the olive oil surprised me when I first opened the packaging; most cheeses don't leak, so I was a little bit concerned.

Anyway. So that's this cheese. It's not my favorite item in the firm cheese family, but it's good, and would probably be delicious on really crusty bread. (But then, almost anything is delicious on really crusty bread.) Or! Or actually it would probably be a good cheese to pair with your saltier meats, because it's not so salty itself. Sadly, I don't have any deli meat in the house, and also, I have eaten all the cheese.

Fontina Val D'Aosta

2008-07-11T20:07:00.000-04:00

Fontina Val D'Aosta
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$18.99/lb

So I get home tonight, and I'm hot and sweaty and hungry and I just want to *eat.* And so I pull this cheese out of the fridge.

Meh.

Sadly, I don't have much to say about this cheese. It's not a *bad* cheese, exactly, but it's not an *astounding* cheese, either. It's not unusual-looking, and it's not unusually-textured; it sort of ranks with swiss on the hardness scale. It does have an unusually... pungent odor, kind of like sweat or that muenster-cheese sandwich you left in your locker overnight as a kid. It vaguely tastes of muenster, too, but again, more pungent and simultaneously blander. Hard to explain unless you've ever had French muenster, you know, the melty bad kind (RayRay?). This cheese is both less melty and less bad than that, but not enough.

-----

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I tried three other cheese today at DiBruno brothers, Abbaye de Belloc, Piave, and Moliterno. I *bought* the Moliterno, which should give you some idea of how I felt about it (and also should give you the idea that it was the only cheese of the three sold in reasonable single-person chunklets), and of course a full review is to come. But as for the other two, here are the recaplets:

Abbaye: I am not sure how I feel about sheep's milk cheeses, which should make it interesting when I review the sheep's milk cheese I already purchased at Whole Foods. About equal to the Murcia Curado D.O. Raw Goat in hardness. Did I mention it was sheep-y?

Piave: Num?

(Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I've had some string cheese this week too, but if you need a review of 2% skim mozzarella string cheese you're an idiot.) (Translation: I am saving the Battle of the String Cheeses for a rainy day. Sorry.)

Murcia Curado D.O. Raw Goat

2008-07-10T13:13:00.007-04:00

Murcia Curado D.O. Raw Goat
Comes from: goats
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$19.99/lb

So if you're looking at these photos and thinking, "Hey, that looks like one of the cubbies at Healthyman Library," you're right. If you're looking at these photos and thinking, "Hey, there's no eating allowed in the Healthyman Library!" well, you're a jerk, and also, you have never been to the Healthman Library, have you? Because there is food *everywhere.* I had to clean the remains of someone's breakfast out of this cubby before I sat down. This cubby is *mine* and I will eat here if I want to.

This cheese is a paler shade of yellow/white than it's looking in the photos, I think. It's about the same color as pecorino, but much softer and not at all grainy. I'm eating it at room temperature, so it might be a little softer than fridge-cheese, but on the hardness scale I think it'd still fall well below muenster but well above your liquid cheeses like brie. Soft enough to explode with your tongue against the roof of your mouth, if that makes any sense. About a 3 on the cheese hardness scale I just made up right now:

1-----------2------------3----------------4------------5-------------6
brie-------feta------mozzarella------muenster------cheddar-----parmesan

(The cheese hardness scale clearly needs some work. Gouda, for example, and Armenian string cheese: both 5.5? Is Gouda a 6, like parmesan? And Armenian string cheese is *chewier* than chedder, but does that make it *harder* than cheddar?)

First bite: Mmm, goatiness. I don't know how to describe goat cheese to those who've never had it, and it's not like goat cheese is exotic, really, so maybe I don't need to, but on the other hand I feel like everything in life should be able to be described with words, and possibly I have modeled myself after Nan in Witch Week just a little bit. You know, Nan in Witch Week?

Anyway.

For some reason goat cheese makes me think of a quiet, wood-paneled room that's not used much. Not musty, just... quiet. And wooden.

Okay, so maybe not everything can be described with words. I will just call this cheese "goaty, in a good way." Definitely a non-cow cheese, but not overpoweringly so. There's a nice tang, too, when I do that thing I just mentioned and tongue-burst the cheese up against my palate. A pleasant deeper-goaty after-effect.

In other news, the rind is edible (I always eat the rind, because IT IS MADE OF CHEESE (and wax) AND I DO NOT WASTE THINGS MADE OF CHEESE.), if you care about such things.

Overall, then, I'd call this a very good basic goat cheese. Would probably be delicious with fig or apple butter, but again, I wouldn't know because I -- wait for it -- have already eaten it all.

Long Clawson Huntsman

2008-07-09T23:17:00.002-04:00

Long Clawson Huntsman
Comes from: cows
Purchased at: Whole Foods
$15.99/lb

[first photo on the new blog, and it's astoundingly out of focus, hooray!]

So this cheese is sort of exactly what I do with cheese when no one is looking, and I'm amused that someone else had the idea. See, cheese is great, right? But sometimes, cheese is also *boring.* Because you've had a particular type of cheese a million times before, or maybe you've just eaten a brick of it tonight. Anyway. If you're a normal person, you're probably mixing bread with your cheese, which I heartily recommend but I only do sometimes, because my other addiction (besides to cheese, grapes, pumpkin seeds, beef jerky, pineapple, and nova) is to bread, and if there is bread in the house -- even in the freezer! even *still frozen*! -- I will eat it all in, like, two days. And now that y'all have a clearer picture of my lack of self-control, I will continue on about this cheese.

So there are times, anyway, when you've got a ton of cheese in front of you, and maybe no bread, and you're kinda bored with *individual* cheeses, and so somewhere in your cheese-drowned mind the thought forms that maybe you should *mix* the cheeses, you know? Maybe *combining cheeses* would allow you to finish the cheese you can't finish right now.

(And that second person is actually *you*, because I can always finish the cheese.)

That's what this cheese is, this "huntsman." Someone in England decided, hey! Why don't I combine a cheddar-like cheese (that's the Gloucester part) with a blue cheese (the Stilton part) and see what happens?

And actually what happens is quite good. The Gloucester is nice and sharp and chewy, the Stilton is salty and stinky and a little crumbly, and voila! You have yourself a Frankenstein cheese that actually works, that doesn't go around killing people in order to make them love it. (Or is that the guy from Of Mice and Men? I can't remember.)

I think this cheese would probably taste really good on an apple -- something more sweet than tart, red delicious over granny smith over pink lady -- but I only just thought of that and I've already eaten all of it so I wouldn't really know.

Another blog?

2008-07-09T22:51:00.003-04:00

So here's the thing. I like cheese. I like cheese a lot. I like all cheeses, with the possible exception of French muenster and I guess some equally-rotting-gym-socks-like cheeses I haven't tried yet.

Anyway.

Problem is, I like cheese so much that I'll eat whatever kind is in front of me, and more importantly, I won't remember its name later. I can't remember whether it's mahon or manchego I'm more fond of, whether I do or don't like gruyère, whether there's really any difference between camembert and brie. And that's unacceptable to me, because obviously I feel the need to catalogue everything (see: my other blog). So in this here blog, I'm going to try and diary my cheeses. I don't know big fancy words like... I don't know, what words do you use to try to describe cheese? "Airy"? "Sun-kissed"? "Malodorous"?

Anyway.

I can't find "Litvak palate" explained or even mentioned anywhere on the internet, but a doctor I once worked with told me that the Litvaks were known for their great affection for dairy products. (And then he blamed me for his mother's heart attack, and we laughed merrily at the joke.)

Annnnd since I am somewhat Litvak, and as a child my parents had to establish a "three licks" rule because I used to lick the butter off my melba toast in diners and then reapply and repeat, annnnnnnd since my great-aunt is approximately two divisions more Litvak than I am, and once, at supper with us at a fancy-pants restaurant, proceeded to decimate a stick of butter with only her knife and without any bread involvement at all (slice -- move knife to mouth -- slice again), well, I am declaring it true.

Welcome to Litvak Palate, kids. We'll see how long this lasts.