Abbaye de Belloc

I got this at the recommendation of a lady who was doing tastings for Fromager d'Affinois at the Cheese Store (a soft Brie-like cheese, I think I liked it but wanted to get hard cheeses) but saw me get Midnight Moon and mentioned that it was one her favorites too. Then as I was writing up this post, I realized I'd had it before at the cheese tasting class I went to. Fortunately I'm fairly consistent in my tastes.

 

Cost: $24.99
Official description: Sheep, hard-ripened, Pyrenees, France. (previous post had the additional description: "Hearty, Robust, Caramel. There are 3 capital regions of sheep milk cheese: La Mancha, Spain (Manchego), Tuscany, Italy (Pecorino Toscano), and the French Pyrenees. The milk of this region results in a caramellish finish in the cheese.")
Did I like this: Yes.

Milky and salty though overall fairly mild, relatively soft in texture. Previously I also noted that it had a nutty finish.

Cave-aged Gruyere

Picked this up from the Cheese Store on a bit of whim, I just knew before that I like Gruyere in grilled cheese sandwiches.

Cost: $19.99/lb
Official description: nutty, satisfying, versatile. Raw cow, hard-ripened, Switzerland.
Did I like this: Yes.

Good, solid cheese to have around for snacking on. Not particularly distinctive in one way or another, except perhaps you do get the taste of cow's milk in it, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Fiore Sardo

This was recommended by a guy at the Whole Foods in Union Square after I got half a pound of Midnight Moon and told him that was my favorite cheese.

Cost: $15.99/lb.
Official description: I don't remember the entire description on the Whole Foods placard for this, but it something about being a good salty sheep's milk hard cheese. The cheesemonger said it's good with both snacks and grated over pasta.
Did I like this: Yes.

I think it's pretty similar to Midnight Moon, though without the crystals and of sheep's milk instead of goat's milk. Perhaps the key is just that I like salty hard cheeses. This one tastes pretty creamy, too. Interestingly, the bits of this cheese near the rind have more of that blue cheese taste, but I don't mind it.

Gouda

I did some intense Googling and discovered that gouda is at least one kind of cheese that often comes in a black wax rind. So I tasted a few samples from a very friendly cheesemonger at Garden of Eden and I think this was it, that mysterious cheese from June that I liked so much! And then I went a bit nuts and bought all kinds of gouda from him...

Boerenkass Gouda - 2 yrs. old

Cost: $14.99/lb.
Official description: Raw milk farmhouse gouda made from cow's milk and aged for 2 years. Prized by cheese experts. Try it and see why! Imported from Holland.
Did I like this: Yes! This is the one that looked most similar to the cheese I remembered, with a plain black wax rind.

Old Amsterdam aged gouda

Cost: $17.99/lb.

Official description: Old Amsterdam has a smooth, rich, and robust taste. It is a multi-award winning cheese. Perfect on a cheeseboard and in a variety of recipes. Bring to room temperature before serving. Aged gouda type cheese. Has a nice buttery aftertaste. Imported from Holland.

Did I like this: Yes! The description is right about this being better after it's been brought to room temperature. This is the one that the cheesemonger happened to be packaging up and gave me a sample that first hooked me on the idea that gouda was it.

Farmer's 4 yrs. old aged gouda

Cost: $15.99/lb.
Official description: Aged cow's milk cheese. Very complex flavor. This is a true Boerenkass. This cheese similar in texture to parmigiano reggiano. Very firm and flaky. Imported from Holland.
Did I like this: Yes! This cheese is amazing. Very, very hard and at times I had to gnaw on it a bit to soften it sufficiently, but amazing salty-complex flavor.

I might have to consider getting a hard cheese knife/slicer for this kind of cheese. Seems like generally I prefer the taste of really aged and hard cheeses.

Lucy's Whey: Cabot Clothbound Cheddar

I went to Lucy's Whey a couple days ago to try to find that black wax covered hard cheese that I liked so much from the summer. Sadly, the shopgirl had no idea what I was talking about, so I supposed it was some kind of seasonal cheese. I really hope I can eventually hunt it down.

Anyway, I asked for a recommendation of the most aged and hard cheese they had, and ended up coming away with some Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. Apparently this is one of their most popular cheeses, beloved by both cheese connoisseurs and newbies.

Cost: $20/lb.
Official description: Made from the pasteurized milk of one herd of cows, wrapped in cloth to create complexity, and aged for 10-14 months in the Cellars at Jasper Hill. An approachable and balanced cheddar that is sweet, savory, tangy, and grassy. Do be careful: this cheese is known to be very addictive.
Did I like this: Yes.

Just a solid cheddar, as they said, good for both newbies and connoisseurs.

Midnight Moon

I tried this cheese after coming across a few favorable reviews of it online.

Cost: $26.99/lb.
Official description: Sharp, Crumbly, Clean. Hard-ripened goat cheese from Holland.
Did I like this: Yes!!

This is a new favorite cheese. Slightly tart like goat cheese tends to be, but more of the texture you'd usually expect from a cheddar. The rind has white wax around it that flakes off and I accidentally ate a bit of it thinking it was cheese but other than that I love this cheese.

I bought some more of the 3yr aged Comte (Trois Comtois) and still love its complexity and crystals from aging, but it's definitely more of a slightly weird cheese (slight bitterness in the taste?) than this one. This one probably has wider appeal.

[update] Found out yesterday (3/4) that Whole Foods sells Midnight Moon too! For slightly cheaper price too, $24.99/lb. Not enough to go out of my way to get it at Whole Foods instead, but good to keep in mind I figure.

White wine: Moscato

I went to a few wine tastings in Napa a few months ago for the first time with some friends from work. I can see why people get really into it, wine country is beautiful with the sunshine and the rolling fields of green.

In case what "going to Napa" really means isn't obvious to people, the basic way of doing it is to drive around to a few different wineries and do a tasting there of the different kinds of wine they produce, usually somewhere around 3-4 wines. There are some that just do free tasting and others that apparently you have to pay for but if you have someone who's a member of the wine club there, they can take some guests with them for free tastings with some snacks as well if you're lucky. Being a member of a wine club is kind of like being part of a CSA, you commit to ordering a certain amount of wine from them on a monthly basis for a certain length of time. So this was both an educational and an enjoyable outing.

The one wine I ended up buying a bottle of to bring back with me was a 2010 Moscato from St. Supery:

Cost: $16, I think I had some kind of a discount to get the club member prices without actually being a club member through work.
Official description: from the bottle, "Our Moscato is harvested entirely from our family owned, sustainably farmed, Napa Green certified estate vineyard. Floral and delicate, this Mostcasto has intenses aromas of ripe peaches and apricots enhanced by cantaloupe and lychees. This light, sweet, and balanced wine is wonderful chilled as an aperitif or can be enjoyed as a desert wine."

From website: "Brilliant hues pale yellow and green hues present this Moscato. Aromas abound with rich apricots, peach blossom and exotic guava. Vibrant ripe sweet flavors of nectarine, peach and citrus complete a full rich profile finishing with bright acidity. This wine is lightly sweet with a crisp acidity that keeps it light on the palate and hence a great companion to a wide variety of foods. Enjoy as an aperitif with salty snacks, with spicy Asian and Latin cuisine and also with fruit-based desserts and cheese courses."

Did I like this: Yes!

I just opened another bottle Moscato yesterday that my sister-in-law brought over last weekend and quite enjoyed it as well, so I think Moscatos are something that I could return to reliably. Basically these wines were just really sweet and fruity and light, so I think probably if you tend to lean towards fun girly fruity sweet cocktails, as I do, you would like this.

The Cheese Store's French cheeses

The Cheese Store holds these monthly tastings/classes for $35 on the last Sunday in each month. I went to the October one and the theme was French cheeses. There were about 12 other people there in the store, so it was a bit of a tight fit, but everyone was very friendly and brought various types of wine with them. There was at least one other guy there on his own, which was nice. The store owner provided various types of crackers and dried fruits to go along with the cheeses which was quite nice and gave us takeout containers to bring the leftovers home with us.

Going around clockwise, starting at the 12 position, we have:

Delice de Bourgogne: Lincet, Burgundy, cream-enriched cow's milk, bloomy rind. Sweet, Luxurious, Savory. In the 20th century, the French developed a technique of adding fresh cream to soft-ripened cheese to increase their richness. Delice has enough cream in it that raises its fast content to 73% to classify it as "triple creme" (normal butterfat percentage is 50, a double creme you'd find in the supermarket is 60%)
Cost: $14.99/lb

Did I like this: Yes. I mean, this was basically the closest to butter that I've had in a cheese. It's very pleasant with a slight sour finish. Apparently this is one of their most popular cheeses.

Selles sur Cher: P. Jacquin, Loire Valley, goat's milk, bloomy rind. Tart, Smooth, Regal. This cheese and a local wine from the same region like Sancerre would echo each other.
Did I like this: Eh. This didn't have particularly strong goat cheese flavor, it just tasted like goat cheese and blue cheese together.

Abbaye de Belloc: Pyrenees, sheep's milk, hard ripened. Hearty, Robust, Caramel. There are 3 capital regions of sheep milk cheese: La Mancha, Spain (Manchego), Tuscany, Italy (Pecorino Toscano), and the French Pyrenees. The milk of this region results in a caramellish finish in the cheese.
Did I like this: Yes. It has a nice texture as we started to get into the harder cheese. Nutty finish.

Comte: Trois Comtois, Jura, unpasteurized cow's milk, hard ripened. Comte is a pressed cheese that is made in huge 90lb. wheels. It is always aged for a minimum of 9 months. This cheese was aged 3 years and is pretty rare in the U.S., with probably only 20 wheels of it around in the U.S. at this moment.
Did I like this: Yes!!! This was definitely the best one of the night, with a multi-dimensional salty-earthy taste and these bits of crystallized texture in some of the bites. I want some more of this now.

St. Nectaire: L'Or des Domes, Auvergne, cow's milk, washed rind. Mushroomy, Briny, Intense. St. Nectaire has been made since at least the 17th century. It comes from a rather hilly region lush with grassland whose economy is very dependent on cheesemaking. "Washing" the rind is a technique of gently rubbing a brine solution on the cheese as it ages. It promotes the growth of the stinky bacteria on the rind. At The Cheese Store, it comes to the store with a soft rind and they do the washing there.
Did I like this: It was ok, a milky and creamy texture. Probably suffered a bit from being after the Comte.

Morbier: Jean Perrin, Franche Comte, unpasteurized cow's milk, washed rind. Fruity, Savory, Satisfying. During the early stages of Morbier's history, half of the cheese was made in the morning. That half was coast with ash to keep flies away. Then during the evening, the second half of the cheese was pressed on top. The decorative look has remained and so has the buttery, funky, bitter taste. Most of the common brands of this type of cheese tend to be more bland.
Did I like this: I thought it tasted like durian fruit, with a little bit of smokiness, so, I don't know. A lot of people at the tasting didn't like this one. It was really good with the dates provided.

Blue D'Auvergne: L'Or de Domes, Auvergne, unpasteurized cow's milk, blue. Crumbly, Moist, Versatile. It has a meaty, buttery taste that is rather seductive.
Did I like this: I think this was ok. Bitter to start and a sort of a woody finish?

Roquefort: Papillon, Causses, sheep's milk, blue. Sharp, Crisp, Regal. Along with gorgonzola and stilton, roquefort is one of the triple crowns of blue cheese. It's aged int he legendary caves in the Causses region. There are only 7 producers of Roquefort but of these 7, only Papillon which cultivates mold on huge loaves of rye bread to inoculate the cheese with. There is nothing quite as creamy and potent as Roquefort.

Did I like this: Yes! My second favorite of the night after the Comte, it was really good with the dried fruits like the dried figs and amazing with a dessert wine like port that someone had brought and was generous to share a bit of with everyone else.

Red wine: Malbec

Last week I went out for dinner a few times and a dinner companion picked out Malbec for our wine.

San Telmo Esencia Malbec 2009

Finca Decero Malbec 2009

Cost: can't remember for the first one, but the second one was $12/glass and $36/bottle at The Green Table in Chelsea marketplace.

Official description: for the second one, "Mendoza, Argentina - Sustainable. Intense aromas, fresh & lively fruit, spices on the finish." I think the first one was also a South American Malbec. From Wikipedia on Malbecs: "In Argentina, Malbec becomes softer with a plusher texture and riper tannins. The wines tend to have juicy fruit notes with violet aromas."
Did I like this: Yes!

I tend not to like most red wines because of the bitter taste from tannins, but there have been a few I've tried with less of that bitterness that I really enjoy and can start to see why a lot of people prefer red wines. They're very...interesting in the depth of the flavors and such. These Malbecs were great because they had the interesting part of red wine flavor but not the bitterness and were very easy to drink. I did notice afterwards that my stomach may not have agreed with it entirely, but I don't know whether that's the red wine or the other food I ate at those dinners. Still, I'd try this type of red wine again.

Trader Joe's Unexpected Cheddar Cheese

I bought this cheese to make roasted tomato soup with broiled cheddar and picked it because I was intrigued by its claim that the taste had "hints of parmesan."

I came up with the concept for this blog after I'd already used it for the soup.

Cost: I think this was something like $3.99/lb?
Official description: tastes like an aged premium cheddar with hints of parmesan
Did I like this: Yes!

I didn't taste an obvious parmesan flavor in it, but it was certainly deliciously sharp for a cheddar cheese and had a bit of...complexity to it? A little difficult to grate but worth it.