Meadow Creek Mountaineer & Herve Mons Le Chartreux

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.

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

(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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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

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.)

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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

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.

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

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

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.