Blue Cheese: NOT the final frontier!

My Dad LOVES blue cheese. I never really cared for the flavour and once it really turned my stomach. But this summer, at M&E's baby shower, there were appetizer-sized bits of bread with mushrooms and melted blue cheese, of which I ate several and they were DELICIOUS. But, still, I put off buying any "bleu" for myself.

Until last week. Last week, I was at my favourite within-walking-distance-of-work organic grocery store and, as usual, they had free food samples by the cash (why do you think it's my favourite?). This time it was blue cheese. "From Quebec." The cashier couldn't tell me anything else (though there was a hand-written sign taped to the fridge in the back with some more info written on it but I forgot to take note of it). The small amount I tried while paying for organic apples left a lovely taste in my mouth and kept me thinking about it for the rest of the afternoon. So after work I went back and bought more. And I made an omelette for dinner. What flavour! I've since bought more, which is the block in the photo above. We had a mini in-office party when B brought in two cheeses (see below) and walnut bread, and I went out and picked up fruit and some more of the blue (which B doesn't like but C LOVED).

The other two cheeses we had were:


















Both were yummy but I preferred the Mamirolle (cow's milk, from Quebec if I remember correctly) because it had the stronger taste but the Corsu Vecchiu (sheep's milk, from Corsica) was also very nice.

The more cheeses I try in this project, the more I seem to crave more pronounced flavours... Any suggestions for what I should try next? Post 'em in the comments.

Cheese Recommendations

"3 types of pecorino and honey" (courtesy Flickr)

Apologies to anyone who thought I would be trying a new type of cheese every day. At the moment, I'm having a hard time just remembering to buy cheese on a biweekly basis. After a year of not eating the stuff, you sort of fall out of the habit of including it on your grocery list and when I have tried to buy cheese recently, I am baffled by all the choices. However, I have been soliciting recommendations from friends and family. Here are some of the suggestions for what I should try, in the hope that by making them public I will eventually get around to trying them all...

• "I recommend tracking down some Saint-Andre, a super-intense brie, and Epoisses, a stinky cheese par excellence. And if you're back on the West coast, check out Saltspring Island Cheese Company's Blue Joliette, which—though it looks disgusting—is surprisingly palatable."
• "One of my favourite cheese treats is to get a few types of pecorino (Pienza, Tuscany makes the best), one old and hard, one medium, and one young and soft. then you get a couple of types of runny honey, slice the pecorino and drizzle honey over them. I like to mix and match the honey and cheese. YUM."
• Applewood Smoked Cheddar
• Gruyere
• "As for cheese: you could always try the stuff we called "pikkeltjes kaas" as kids (roughly translated: "cheese with spots"). It’s also referred to a Leydse kaas (sp?) and is, I think, basically a Gouda with caraway seeds or fennel or some such thing in it. Very yummy. Then there’s always the stalwart Gouda. I remember living with an aunt in Amsterdam and being sent to the "kaas boer" (cheese farmer) at the street market for "jonge belegen" -- a young Gouda. (I’m not too sure what the "belegen" referred to...) Then there’s the old, old cheese with the black wax around the wheel. That one is trés yummy, but also trés expensive (at least, here in Canada)..."
• "Lately... I've been buying goat brie, which has opened up all sorts of possibilities for me. I also bought some fig preserve, which goes really well with the brie - highly recommended!"

Please feel free to post your recommendations in the comments section...