If you like salted caramels—everyone nodding?—you will love Stanislaus Caprine. Dense, sweet and salty, this aged goat cheese reminds me of dulce de leche, the concentrated goat’s-milk caramel. The cheese’s name is slightly unwieldy, but Californians will recognize Stanislaus as a county in the state’s fertile Central Valley. Walter Nicolau, the cheesemaker, is a fourth-generation dairyman there who started his own farm and made his first cheese at the age of 20. Nicolau Farms is less than five miles from where Walter’s great-grandfather had his cow dairy.
Read moreTriple Play
Introduced in March of this year, Tomales Farmstead’s Teleeka is already outselling the four other cheeses made by this California creamery. I’m not surprised. Inspired by La Tur, the wildly popular bloomy-rind cheese from Northern Italy, Teleeka has a luscious factor that’s hard to resist.
Read moreYet Another Feta to Love
How can Greece have an economic crisis given all the Greek feta that I buy? I’m never without some in my fridge, but my usage spikes at this time of year, when the deluge of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and peppers makes feta a must-have. At $11 or $12 a pound, it’s the best value at the cheese counter.
Read moreGroovy Goat Cheese Takes Blue Ribbon
At this time of year, I’m happy to eat Greek salad every day. I’m not tired of those garden tomatoes and cucumbers yet. But last week I shook things up a bit, replacing the feta with PsycheDillic, the little dill-scented goat cheese that just took a blue ribbon at the American Cheese Society competition.
Read moreIt Stinks So Good
One sign of a true cheese enthusiast is a refrigerator full of little wrapped nubbins, pieces too big to throw away but too pitiful-looking to serve to a guest. Recently, my husband and I had an entire cheese course of nubbins—probably 10 different two-ounce remnants making their last stand. The one I kept coming back to was Cabra Raiano, a semisoft Portuguese goat’s milk cheese. I nibbled at some of the others, but this one I polished off. Even as a days-old leftover, it was sublime.
Read moreAsh Gets Trashed
Not again. For the second time in a month, a cheese that I had requested for a class would be a no-show, the distributor informed me last week. The French producer had declined to ship any Couronne de Touraine, concerned that the goat cheese might be detained by the FDA. The issue? The ashed rind.
Read moreSuper Subtle →
I can’t explain why I’m so smitten with this little goat cheese from northern Italy, but I am. I couldn’t leave it alone. Nocetto di Capra, a bloomy-rind cheese from the Lombardia region, doesn’t have the mouth-filling flavor that usually flips my switch. It’s a subtle little guy, but so unlike any goat cheese we make in this country or any other goat cheese I know for that matter.
Read moreThe One and Only Monterey Monterey Jack
For years, I’ve thought of Monterey Jack as the White Zinfandel of cheese. It’s easy to like, reasonably priced, available everywhere and—I would hope—a bridge for cheese consumers to more interesting choices eventually.
Read moreNever Better →
Spring is artichoke, asparagus and fava bean season and prime time for radishes, green garlic and beets. We know that. But which cheeses reach peak flavor in spring? What’s tasting great at the cheese counter now?
Read moreTriangle Love →
Created with chefs in mind, Bermuda Triangle appears on a lot of restaurant menus but not so often at retail. So when a local cheese merchant told me he had some, I leaped on it. I hadn’t tasted Bermuda Triangle in years.
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