Six Cheese & Beer Pairings Not to Miss
I don’t have many regrets in life, but one would be that I didn’t discover beer sooner. I mean the good stuff, of course—the world’s great craft brews, which have so many flavor affinities with artisan cheese. I’m making up for lost time now and, like many converts, I want to share my epiphanies. Looking back through tasting notes, I selected a half-dozen peak experiences that, truly, you don’t want to miss.
Sleeper 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 moreA Beauty from Portugal →
Anybody who sells cheese for a living knows there’s a large contingent of goat cheese avoiders. These folks lump all styles of goat cheese together and banish them all in one emphatic “yuk.” Presumably they’re remembering some overly tangy, chalky fresh chèvre they once sampled that smelled like a goat barn. We’ve all had one of those.
Read moreSo Long, Roquefort? →
Have you heard about all those people getting sick from eating Roquefort, raw-milk Morbier and raw-milk Tomme de Savoie? I haven’t either because it hasn’t happened. And the FDA is going to make sure that it doesn’t.
Read moregot lactose? →
As someone who writes and teaches about cheese, I hear a lot from the lactose intolerant. Whenever I do a book signing or presentation, people tell me—often with a gloomy expression—that they are lactose intolerant and can’t eat cheese. I know that aged cheese doesn’t have much if any lactose, but I’ve never been confident enough of my facts to know how to respond.
Read moreRight Balsamic, Right Place →
Even though balsamic vinegar is a specialty of northern Italy, I could not get away from it on my trip to Sardinia this summer. Everywhere, balsamic.
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 moreRunning the Numbers →
Which cheese will take Best of Show in the American Cheese Society’s annual competition this week? We’ll know soon enough (award ceremony is July 31 in Sacramento), but in the interim, I gathered some stats on prior winners. Could the judges’ past preferences help us predict who might get the gold?
Read moreUps and Downs with Feta →
The same purchase provided the high and low moments on Planet Cheese last week. The high was finding Vermont Creamery goat feta at Oxbow Cheese Merchant in Napa, my neighborhood shop. Vermont Creamery makes some of my favorite bloomy-rinded goat cheeses (Bijou and Bonne Bouche among others), and a sublime cultured butter as well. But I didn’t know the creamery made feta.
Read moreToujours Paris →
America's cheese merchants have never been more knowledgeable or numerous, but for me, Paris still sets the bar. With only three days to spend there in June, I didn’t make the grand rounds, but I did find a few shops that were new to me and thrilling to visit. File these addresses for the next time fortune brings you to France.
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