If you’re a guest on Thanksgiving and haven’t yet settled on a gift for your host, put cheese on your short list. An American Cheddar might be the obvious choice, but I’m going to nominate Alpha Tolman, an aged Vermont cheese that any host should be happy to get. It has several features that fit the occasion: an approachable flavor that even children will like; durability (for those all-weekend houseguests); and a nutty character that will enhance the turkey sandwiches.
Read moreCheese for All Seasons →
Your eyes tell you something about these Comté samples, but what exactly? I thought I could distinguish winter cheeses from summer ones on paste color alone (the paste is the inside), but I learned otherwise on a trip to the Jura last June.
Read moreHungarian Rhapsody →
My husband, Doug, the crazed baker, assigned himself a new challenge this summer: Danish rye bread. His model was the fabulous house-made loaf at Tørst, the hip beer bar in Brooklyn. It’s a dense, dark, moist brick studded with flax and sunflower seeds, and it’s meant to be sliced thin, toasted and topped with butter and radishes or smoked fish.
Read moreCheddar for the Ages →
The crunchy heirloom apples at the farmers’ market last week put me in the mood for a piece of Cheddar, and I found a superb one. From Canada, of all places. We receive so few cheeses from our northern neighbor that I’m always drawn to the ones I do find. The other feature that lured me was the age. When was the last time you had a 7-year-old cheese?
Read moreSleeper Cheese →
A friend in the wine business asked me a cheese question recently that stumped me. “What is the one thing that all the great cheesemakers have in common?” he wanted to know.
Read moreWe Have a Winner →
Vermont’s Tarentaise Reserve took top honors at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition last week, surpassing 1,684 other cheeses to earn the prestigious “Best of Show.” I served as a judge and concur that this awesome two-year-old wheel deserved the recognition. It was my first choice. (Judges taste blind, but the distinctive concave rim of this 20-pound wheel gives it away.) Honestly, though, I tasted at least a half-dozen other cheeses that I would have been happy to see at the top. That’s a testament to the growing prowess of America’s cheesemakers.
Read moreFlory’s Story →
With raw milk from their 30 Jersey cows, the Flory family of Jamesport, Missouri, is making one of the country’s finest Cheddars. I first tasted Flory’s Truckle at the American Cheese Society conference last year, and finally a few of these handsome wheels have arrived on the West Coast.
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