Tag Archive | Artisan
Il Nocciolo is delicate and delectable – SFGate
“It’s only 300 and something days until Valentine’s Day, but you won’t want to wait that long to try Il Nocciolo, a perfect little cheese for two – or for one, if you’re greedy. Produced by the same northern Italian creamery that makes many of the robiolas at Bay Area cheese counters – best-sellers like […]
Which Swiss? A Three Cheese Taste-off
It was not all that long ago that Switzerland was the land of the One Cheese. Indeed the government all but made sure of it, proclaiming and promoting Emmental above almost all others as The Swiss Cheese. They supported over-production through subsidy and more to ensure exports of not only an iconic Swiss food, but […]
Tomme des Pyrénées
Like modern French performance art, here is a cheese that makes you work very hard to appreciate it. First impression is that it’s a bit awkward, maybe ugly… it stinks… it sticks to everything. Yet, like Marlene Dietrich warbling her way through La Vie en rose, somehow you suffer through then all comes clear: Tomme […]
Chabichou du Poitou
Been on a French kick of late… today’s feature is a tiny little stub of a “brainy rind” goat cheese in production in the Poitou-Charentes since at least the 8th century and a protected origin cheese since 1990. “Brainy rind” is the result of using Geotrichum Candidum on the surface of the cheese. Geotrichum is […]
Chabrin
I respect Onetik for a number of reasons. They’re an owner co-operative, and after five years serving the board of a co-op myself I deeply appreciate what that can mean for the care and quality given the products and the animals and land from which they originate. As cheesemakers and distributors go, they’re rather large, […]
Flocked Ewe
Recently I visited Great Ciao, one of the Twin Cities importer/distributor of fine cheese to talk the biz with Katie, their rep. Spent a great afternoon cutting wheels and trying their wares. While there I met the owner Scott Pikovsky, who also happens to make cheese with his wife Deborah at Star Thrower Farm in […]
Sunny Road Raw Cheddar
I’m always excited to find new cheeses from here in Minnesota so I was eager to try Daniel Lemke’s raw cheddar from Morning Star Farm in Cokato. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly interesting cheese. Distributed in bricks much like commodity cheese, the flavor profile of Sunny Road has none of the characteristics of the best […]
Castelinhos
Never sure if starting a review by saying “this is a nice cheese for cooking” is damning with faint praise but, this is a nice cheese for cooking. Castelinhos, from the Azores, is a very, very mild cheese. Slightly nutty and very slightly bitter but very creamy, it’s not exactly boring plain, but it’s shy […]
Five-Year Gouda
CHEESE CANDY! What you see above, left to right, are whipped honey, crumbling and dessicated shards of five year old Gouda and soft, sweet butterscotch toffees. What do they have in common? Darn near everything it seems. The cheese has the spiciness and sweetness of the honey, the sweetness but also the cooked milked/butter of […]
