The Great Cheese List

So yes. Cheese. I like cheese. You like cheese. So, today we talk about cheese.

This fall we went (as we often do) to Vermont to getaway into billboards-are-illegal, mountains-are-cool land and we decided to make it a tasting tour. Vermont has a fabulous world of small farmers, locally produced goods and excellent craftsmanship. Of course, Vermont is specifically known for its dairy energy.

There are few other states besides perhaps Wisconsin that can give it a run for its money in the world of bovine-centricness. I'm all about it. It means that Vermont, is a great place to eat cheese.

You've read before how I feel about food. Suffice it to say that I like it. A lot...and handily I'm married to a man who is similarly inclined. We love the pleasure that procuring, preparing and consuming food can give us and we love the adventure that can be involved. Sometimes its the crazy lengths we'll go to to get a cluster of oyster mushrooms down out of our neighbors trees but sometimes its the raw novelty of trying something reportedly fabulous that has never crossed our lips. Cheese, for us, is a great place to look for culinary adventure.

Heaven knows how many cheeses there are out there and we haven't tasted even a quarter of them yet! Hooray for unexplored worlds!

So, this fall when we went to Vermont, mid-stride through our food-tour I (iPhone in hand) started looking up cheese...and in particular looking for recommended cheeses that we ought to try...the kind of life-changing edibles that you have to seek out.

What I ended up with is what I now call affectionately, The Great Cheese List. I am keeping notes on what we've had and how we felt about the experience and slowly compiling my own private ultimate, favorites list.  I keep it in my email so that I pull it up quickly at a moments notice, should we find ourselves unexpectedly blinking into the cheese display at a wonderful grocery. Heh. Don't laugh. Its happened.

This weekend we plan to have the first of what we hope will be a series of cheese focused gatherings at our house...we've asked a couple friends to bring their favorite rindy, bloomy, creamy, slice-able cheeses and we're going to go pick some off our list and hopefully, we'll have a new round of excellt favorites to add to the mother list.

In case you're curious...here's the dish:

1. Auricchio Sharp Provolone
2. Baluchon
3. Banon
4. Beecher's Flagship
5. Beemster
6. Bergenost
7. Berkswell (from Neil's Yard)
8. Besace du Berger
9. Boerenkaas
10. Boursin's sweet cheese w/ guava, raisin and nuts
11. Brie de Meaux
12. Brin d'Amour
13. Cacicavallo
14. Cambozola
15. Camembert Chatelain
16. Campo de Montalban
17. Carpicho de Cabra (the goat version)
18. Chaource
19. Chaumes
20. Chevre Noir
21. Chevrot
22. Clisson (Tome d'Arquitaine)
23. Cotswold
24. Crottins de Chevre (let it get warm)
25. Cypress Grove Midnight Moon
26. Epoisses
27. Etorki
28. Ewephoria
29. Explorateur
30. Fontina Val d'Aosta
31. Fourme d'Ambert
32. French Sheeps Milk Feta (double creme)
33. Gratte Paille Double Creme (Lauren Bacall's favorite)
34. Haloumi
35. Hubbarston Blue Goat
36. Idiazabal
37. Jasper Hill Farm Constant Bliss
38. Le Papillon Roquefort (black foil, not green)
39. Livarot
40. Maytag Blue
41. McAdam Triple Cream cheddar
42. Mignergon de Charlevoix
43. Mimoulette
44. Montbriac
45. Mont Enebro
46. Morbier: We weren't terribly impressed with this one. Its quite mild and not unpleasant just not impressive. Admittedly, we tried it with some rather robust partners so we may give it another go in a different setting. We heard that if we liked Gruyere we had to try Morbier, but the tastes seem unrelated to me. Puzzling.
47. Neal's Yard Ardahan
48. Ossau Iraty
49. Parrano
50. Parrano Robusto (maybe the same as above?)
51. Pecorino Foglia Noce
52. Pepato
53. Perlagrigia
54. Petite Basque
55. Pierce Pt. (from Cowgirl Creamery)
56. Pierre Robert
57. Pleasant Ridge Reserve
58. Queso de la Serena
59. Reblochon
60. Red Cloud
61. Red Square
62. Roaring Forties: A blue I like! A wonderful, nutty cheese with lots of pleasant zing and a sweet background flavor. I can't say I roundly dislike blue cheese anymore.
63. Roccolo
64. Romano Aged Gouda (from Holland): Whew! This stuff is so strong! Its good but a little stronger than something we would like to eat all the time. Kind of a novelty to try...totally different from "gouda."
65. Roquefort Carles
66. Sally Jackson Sheep Milk Cheese
67. Selles sur Cher
68. Sir Wilfrid Laurier
69. Sottocenere
70. Spanish Cabrales
71. St. Andre
72. St. Marcellin: Amazing! Totally melty with a tender rind that is almost like a crust over the pourable insides. Full of high flavor...so wonderful! A favorite for sure. Am kicking myself because we missed it when we were in Lyon. Its the signature cheese of the region and ubiquitous there, apparently. It comes in a little earthenware crock because it is too melty to stand alone.
73. St. Nectaire
74. Taleggio
75. Tipo Cabrales
76. Tuma
77. Turma Persa
78. Vacherin du Mont d'Or
79. Valdeon: A liked it. Too strong for me. Kind of an electric, zappy blue, presented wrapped in chestnut leaves.
80. Vermont Coupole

My Current Favorites:
Appenzeller: (We like black label best, which is the strongest!) A firm, emminantly slicable cheese that is excellent with apple wedges. Perfectly sweet, sharp, fragrant, tangy, quite nutty. Like a Gruyere with its grown-up socks on! A flagship Swiss cheese we met when we finally strolled The Alps together, my childhood dream.

La Tur: A mixed milk cheese from sheep, cow and goat milk. A fabulously creamy smooth texture with a lovely complex flavor. Hints of tang, round flavors, wafts of mushroom, positively mind blowing. So good with honey and almonds. My cousin Drake introduced us to this cheese when we had dinner under his tutelage in Santa Barbara. You can read all about it in this post here!

Burrata: A cheese that I think I maybe heard about on NPR or else found in a book. I can't recall. We tracked it down in Zabar's in NYC. You can find anything in Zabar's. Burrata is creamy and smooth with a little smooth elasticity. It comes wrapped in a pouch of green leaves and is hard to obtain because it expires with such speed. It must be perfectly fresh. The live leaves its wrapped in are a marker of its freshness...if the leaves are still perky then the cheese is still good. I have found some versions sold in fake leaves but they are not nearly as good. The cheese itself is very like a soft fresh mozzarella, but has a hollow center that is essentially filled with a mixture of soft bits of the cheese and cream. I slice it in wedges and eat on thin bread, drizzled with honey.

Beltane Farms Chevre: I like to buy this cheese directly from the farmer because I like it young, young, young. Its a tender, moist cheese. Very tangy but with a round sweetness far in the background. I love it eat it spread on ciabatta and topped with basil leaves, olive oil and meaty, fresh tomato slices sprinkled with sea salt

St. Marcellin: So good...creamy, complex, a bit nutty but with a tiny kick, very liquid cheese, great for eating with a spoon. Has a tender rind and comes in a crock to protect it the mooshy little round. 

Bonne Bouche: Pronounced bon-boosh. This is a Vermont cheese which is made by the same company that keeps us Americans in quark. Good, good people. Bonne Bouche is wonderfully brightly flavored and creamy, comes from goat milk, has an ash-coated rind and comes in its own little wooden box, to support the tender disk en-route to your car...which is all the further it got when we bought it. Mmmm...