6 Great Gifts for Cheese Lovers
6 Cheese Gifts for your Cheese Lover
Finding shopping for your cheese nerd a little difficult, or just want a few fresh ideas? From maker to armchair cheese traveler, here are six gifts that will please any dairy lover in your life
A Gift Bundle from Saxelby Cheese: Saxelby Cheese is a legendary shop in NYC whose founder and owner convinced many cheesemongers that you don’t need to look to Europe to get amazing cheese. Founder Anne Saxelby was an American cheese visionary and advocate and her cheeses still are as special today as her. These bundles will warm any dairy lover’s heart. Here are a couple of my favorites.
Cheese Culture Coalition Donation: This organization could be one of the most important and fabulous cheese groups around. Its focus is to help make the cheese industry more inclusive to its BIPOC members, bring more people into the fold, and celebrate all that they do for cheese world. Donations help them provide fantastic scholarships to cheese conferences, and offer cheese classes to underserved communities. Also did I mention that its members are awesome? A donation in honor of your dairy lover would be a great gift.
Madame Fromage’s Adventures in Cheese Book, by Tenaya Darlington: This book is different because it suggests cheese plates (and trips) aimed especailly for cheese exploration. It mixes mozzarella with labneh, suggests “possible detours” for your favorite wedge alongside traditional pairings, and urges cheese lovers to get out there and travel. Pair this book with a cheese mentioned in the book and you have a delicious gift.
Pennyroyal Farm Cheese & Wine - If you get a chance to visit this creamery, do it. It’s a biodynamic winery-creamery all in one. But if you can’t make it to Mendocino, get this instead for a fantastic taste of California cheese and wine. The combos pair perfectly together and you can talk about the babydoll sheep that help keep the biodynamic vineyards tidy. So California.
18 Reasons Cooking School Gift Cards: Because it’s where I teach the most pairing and cheesemaking classes! But also because it’s a special non-profit whose tickets help fund a crazy amount of free nutrition and cooking education programs around the Bay Area. Plus, I’ve taken so many classes here I can attest that not only does this San Francisco institution have the coolest and most unique classes, the instructors are the best around. 2024 classes are being added to the calendar as I write.
A Cheesemaker Gift Certificate: This is for the cheese lovers in your life who can’t stop talking about the wine fridge they want to buy just to age cheese in. The Cheesemaker carries pretty much all you need for cheesemaking except milk. Which is good, because you don’t want to ship milk. They nearly always have everything in stock (trust me, it’s rare) to make cheese from mozzarella to gouda, including all the forms and do dads that fermentation and dairy nerds obsess about. This is where I send my cheesemaking students.