Some of you have asked me talk about my experiences writing a book. Of course you still want to hear about what fabulous cheesemakers I've visited and see photos of the cheese, and photos of me getting drunk off the cheese, and hear about what they do to the cheese that makes one drunk (is it the B.linens, is it the raw milk, is it Everclear?), but you also want to know about the book in action.
Read MoreThe Cheese Blog
Below I share with you photos from my tour at the Chalet Cheese Co-op- the only remaining Limburger producer in the country. If you see Limburger in the U.S. that is made in the country, it's Chalet. It may have a proprietary label, but it is always Chalet pumping the sweetly funky flavor out. Pick it up and note the dates on the label- they will guide you to finding a cheese age you love. And you will love one of them. More about Limburger in my forthcoming book.
Read MoreThe rising popularity of the cheese plate as a proper dessert has, in parallel fashion, also given rise to a recurring dilemma for myself. That dilemma being the age-old question: What do I want for dessert?
Read MoreRoccolo is a dream cheese. It is a holy trinity cheese. It is soft and firm and crumbly all in one. It tastes crazily varied from rind to center. It smells a little different in spots.
Read MoreOmbra is a firm, Spanish cheese that helps to explain why people fall in love with sheep's milk. Grassy, nutty, slightly spicy, and peppery, it never fails to blow me away with its lingering complexity.
Read MoreThe Callahans of Bellwether Farms started the first licensed sheep's milk dairy in California in the late 1980's. There are now five. Considering that I still occasionally get a raised, suspicious, eyebrow when telling people that the cheese before them is made with sheep's milk, and no, it's not Manchego, this is no small feat. Beyond representing high-butterfat, nutty milk in the earthquake state and inspiring others to realize their sheep potential, Bellwether dairy makes the top pecorino-style cheese in the country and the most seductive whey-based sheep's milk ricotta I've had outside Italy.
Read MoreThe cheese trips that I've been going on lately have made be thankful for many things. 1. The cheesemakers. Whether they devote their lives to tending animals and making cheese, or focus primarily on making cheese and leave animal husbandry to others, they make our delicious, daily lives possible. Plus, if they weren't making cheese, I'd have to write about... beans... or .... radicchio.
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