Lately Libby and I have been indulging a new culinary interest: cheese! I've always loved cheese, and so has Libby, so it's a great new hobby to explore. Though, I'm not sure eating can be a hobby. Can it? I kind of hope so.
We've always eyed the cheese island at Stater Brothers as we passed by on the way to the produce section every week, but we'd never actually stopped to get something. After some amazing Brie at Timothy's wedding, though, we realized just how spectacular the possibilities could be, so we've finally broken down and started sampling some of the rather limited options.
One of our first experiments was with Camembert. We picked it for its similarity to Brie, and it does have a similar texture and appearance. However, it's quite a bit stronger. Our variety was probably pasteurized, making it less than authentic, and Libby wasn't a big fan, and I also felt it didn't measure up to a quality Brie. This is a cheese we may want to try again, but not too soon.
Last week we were looking for another soft cheese, and browsing through Stater Brother's selections we found a soft cheese called Port Salut that looked interesting. It's a soft cow milk cheese with a bright orange rind. It's paradoxically quite pungent with a really mild flavor profile. We really enjoyed this cheese.
After we finished that, we found we had pretty much exhausted the options for soft cow milk cheese at Stater Brothers, so we decided to go with Gouda. We've gotten Gouda before, but we weren't totally impressed because we were looking for smoked Gouda to match up with Libby's happy memories of eating it for breakfast in England. When we saw that some of it was like 60% off (almost to the sell-by date) at Stater Bros, there wasn't any doubt we'd be trying it again!
It turned out to be a very strong, well aged Dutch Gouda. It's a firm and waxy cheese with a dark rind and small bubbles. It's a pretty intense flavor; it's sort of bitter, sharp with what some describe as a caramel sweetness. We enjoyed it with a Cabernet Sauvignon which was a very complimentary accompaniment.
I think I might add cheese postings to our limited repertoire of posts here on the blog. We'll see how the wind blows and the cheese ripens.
4 comments:
It seems appropriate to give this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0
And cheese tasting, like wine tasting can certainly be a hobby.
The two really go hand in hand, I think.
I was recently introduced to Boursin and thought it was good even though I usually hate cheese. Here's how I like it (or a similar soft herbed cheese would work too): spread thinly on toasted baguette slices and topped with a trio of roasted vegetables - squashes, red peppers, and onions. It is the most delicious thing imaginable. Have fun with your cheese ventures!
Unfortunately, our friends who are our neighbors out here will be gone, probably, when you come. They're cheese nuts too. But, they like really intense crazy cheeses, which you might not like. We had a super intense cheese, like sheep's milk based, I think. It was rolled in hay, really amazing.
Lots of brie too.
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