Author: wendell

AKT’s inlaws/(my outlaws) were here for a few days.  We forced them to have a cheese tasting.  No blue, not much brie, but some good semi-hard aged cheeses.

Trader Joe’s Brie:  we needed to have a soft cheese, and we were at Trader Joe’s the other day, so this was it.  It was ok, but we’ve had better brie.  JV, who doesn’t normally like brie, liked this one.  I told here that there are better bries out there.

Invierneo, from Vermont Shepherd, is a nice mixed milk (cow & sheep) cheese.

Prairie Breeze, from Milton Creamery, Iowa, was their interpretation of a white cheddar.  GV liked it.

Bomboloni was a sheep cheese, which of course I liked (not sure where it was from, possibly Chester County, PA).

We usually don’t go for cheeses “with stuff in them”, but we did in this case, and we liked it.  It was a Trader Joe’s Asiago that was rubbed with rosemary and olive oil.  It was pretty good.

AKT got a camembert from her local farmer’s market today at Crystal City.  It was an aged camembert, and was fairly firm, and somewhat salty.

Coulter Farms Camembert:  milk from Pennsylvania cows. $7, but no box for the collection. Certified Organic 100% Grassfed Jersey Milk.

To go with it: fresh Maryland crab. From Shells Yes!

Apparently there is a word for it:  Tyrosemiophile.  That is someone who collects cheese labels, or maybe just labels.  There is a french page about it, the Antiques Diva has a page about it, as does Pavel and Tomas.  We decorated our Christmas tree with Camembert boxes.

While I was in Mountain View & Milpitas earlier this week I went to a wine & cheese shop and found a Marin French Brie which was from Marin county in California.  It was a triple cream, which we always like.

Camembert, poetry,
Bouquet of our meals,
What would become life,
If you did not exist?

We got another Camembert when we were at Cheesetique the other day.  As it says “Fabrique en Normandie”, it was made there, but since it does not say “Camembert de Normandie”, it may not be AOC.  La Petite Reine may be made from “lightly pasteurized milk”, which must be why it is not AOC, but it was good anyway.

Uh oh.  I can’t read French, but I think I’ve stumbled upon a cool site that has Camembert posters.  This could be dangerous, as I’m running out of wall space for all of my airline posters.

Abondance is an AOC cheese from French Abondance cows, and aged.  The recipe has been unchanged since the 12th century.  It was a little bitter (tart?), which was fine, as the other cheese we tried later tasted sweet by comparison.  Don’t eat the rind.

We had a North Carolina IPA with it (Brevard Brewing Company) — don’t know enough to know if a wine would have been better.

You get 10% off your store order if you buy at the restaurant, but I forgot to ask. I wanted to get a French and a German cheese for a friend. They had a ton of French cheeses, and only one German one —  Cambozola, a blue cheese.

 Halloumi is a fine grilling cheese.  It is a Greek cheese made from sheep’s milk and goat’s milk.  It doesn’t melt, but browns and turns a bit crispy.  Next time we should brush the cheese with olive oil.