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Tony & Maura came to visit this weekend and brought some nice sheep cheese from a creamery in northern New Jersey. Although Maura thought we took too much preparation time, they enjoyed it a lot, and the cheese event was very nice. (In Maryland it is illegal to sell raw milk, so we have to depend on out-of-staters to smuggle in raw milk cheese!)

Cowgirl Triple Creme
(left over from the tasting at Melissa’s, still very good)

Baby Shepherd
raw sheep’s milk
type: 1lb wheel, semi-soft
New Jersey, Valley Shepherd Creamery

A small 1lb wheel of sheep’s milk cheese. Very real cave aged farmstead cheese.
at, mt, tt, ms, wt: good

Oldwick Shepherd
raw sheep’s milk
type: hard
New Jersey, Valley Shepherd Creamery

A cave ripened, raw milk cheese that develops a brownish–white mold exterior during its 3-4 month stay in our cave. Great earthy aroma, nutty smooth finish. Just a wonderful Pyrenees style sheep’s milk cheese.
at, mt, tt, ms: good; wt: very good

Shepherd’s Basket
raw sheep’s milk
type: hard
New Jersey, Valley Shepherd Creamery
A mold ripened traditional Basque raw milk cheese aged a minimum 4-5 months in our cave. The basket imprint may remind you of a Manchego but the flavor is deeper.
at, mt, tt, ms, wt: good

Blue d’Auvergne
cow
France, Calvert Woodley

We just needed a blue to round things out.
at, mt, tt, ms, wt: good

With Angela’s kitchen deep in construction, cheese night was held at my place on February 6th. Josh made a special trip to Cowgirl Creamery. Here are the selections:

Red Hawk

(Point Reyes [where the infamous blue cheese is from]): Cowgirl Creamery captures the essence of West Marin with its Red Hawk, a triple-cream, washed-rind, fully-flavored cheese made from organic cow milk from the Straus Family Dairy. Aged four weeks and washed with a brine solution that tints the rind a sunset red-orange, Red Hawk won Best-In-Show at the American Cheese Society’s Annual Conference in 2003 and 2nd Place Ribbon in 2007.

Rating: JR–Way too smelly! AT & MS–Tastes great, just don’t inhale.

St. George

Matos Cheese (Santa Rose, CA): Putting their personal American spin on the original recipe, St. George, named for the island, is a full-flavored cow milk cheese with a cheddary depth and a rich texture.

Ratings: JR, AT & MS–Good hard cheese.

California Crottin

Redwood Hill Dairy (Sebastapol, CA): Redwood Hill’s own version of the French Crottin Chavignol has a sharp and meaty flavor with a thick, pale yellow, corrugated rind. When cut, this cheese manages to be both dense and fluffy with and intense earthy aroma. This is the third time for this one. Ratings: JR–Still a little earthy but good.

AT & MS–As good as the last few times.

Triple Cream: I don’t even have to write about this one as we all loved it, again.

Angela found the cheese labels at a store in Frederick; this is their first use.

Gorgonzola
italian cow

We’ve had this before.

good

Chaumes
french cow

Chaumes has a distinctive golden soft rind that has a bright tangerine-orange color. The interior is smooth, supple; a rich mellow cheese. The nutty, almost meaty taste and aroma are mild. This gourmet cheese is made of pasteurized milk.

a bit strong

Explorateur
Triple-cream
french cow

The original (non-pasteurized, and not available in the US), has a picture of a rocket on the label.

This triple-cream cheese was invented in the 1950’s and named in honor of the first US satellite – Explorer. The French dairy that invented the cheese decided on a topical name and an image of the rocket still appears on the wrapping. Explorateur became one of the first cheeses created after the triple-cream classification was defined as a cheese with butterfat content of 75% or more, and remains one of the most popular triple-creams. It is a soft, fresh, white cheese of cylindrical shape. Enriched with cream, it is one of the most popular triple-cream cheeses found around the world. Exploratur has a rich, buttery taste and a slightly sharp, salty finish with a pleasant tang of mushrooms. The slight sharpness deepens a little with maturity.

very good

with Melissa and Josh in the country

Irish Cheddar
Irish cow

Very good cheddar

Aged Gouda
Dutch cows

Was a bit strong just by itself, is good grated in soup & salads.

Manchego
spanish sheep

good

Fromage d’Affinois
french cows
http://www.fromagerdaffinois.com/fromager-daffinois-GB/index.htm

Very rich double-cream Brie-like cheese.

very good

Taleggio
milk: cow
location: Italy

A very nice cheese, although some likened it to Velveeta, however that may have been just because of the texture. It did have a quite earthy taste (which I liked).
ms, at: ok wt: good

Saint Andre
milk: cow
location: France
A triple-creme cheese, which is why we liked it so much. We’ve had it before. Camembert-like.
ms, at, wt: very good

All from Calvert-Woodley, all on sale, and with some Citterio proscuitto also!

Pt Reyes Blue
milk: cow
loc: California

Yes, we still have some of the Pt. Reyes Blue left(!).

Caerphilly
milk: cow
loc: England (Wales)

Caerphilly cheese is a hard cheese that originates in the area around the town of Caerphilly in Wales, although now also made in England, particularly in the South West, on the border with Wales. It was not originally made in Caerphilly, but was sold at market there, hence taking the town’s name.

It is a light-coloured (almost white) crumbly cheese made from cows’ milk, and generally has a fat content of around 48%.

Carephilly has a mild taste, but perhaps its most noticeable feature is its saltiness. It is rumoured that the cheese was developed over time to provide the miners with a convenient way of replenishing the salt lost through hard work underground and so was a staple of the diet of the coal-miners.

Caerphilly was one of the many cheeses mentioned in the “Cheese Shop” sketch from Monty Python in the 1970s.

at, na: good; wt, ms: very good

Gruyere (AoC)
milk: unpasteurized cow
loc: Switzerland

Gruyère is a hard yellow cheese made from cow’s milk, named after the town of Gruyères in Switzerland, and made in the cantons of Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura, and Berne. Before 2001, when Gruyère gained Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status as a Swiss cheese, some controversy existed whether French and Transylvanian cheeses of a similar nature could also be labeled Gruyère. (French Gruyère-style cheeses include Comté and Beaufort.) Gruyère is sweet but slightly salty, with a flavor that varies widely with age. It is often described as creamy and nutty when young, becoming with age more assertive, earthy, and complex. When fully aged (five months to a year) it tends to have small holes and cracks which impart a slightly grainy mouthfeel.

at, ms, na, wt: good

Pt. Reyes Blue
Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.
milk: morning Holstein cow
type: blue

Melissa found a good deal on this 3lb wheel of Original Blue at woot.  We decided that with the  holidays coming up that we should get it, so here it is.

The secret to Original Blue lies in the unique combination of three ingredients:

• Grade A raw milk from a closed herd of Holstein cows that graze on the certified organic, green pastured hills overlooking Tomales Bay
• The coastal fog
• And the salty Pacific breezes

Time influences the recipe, too. Original Blue is made within hours of milking, and then ages for a minimum of six months. The result? A creamier style, full-flavored blue cheese.

at, ms, wt: very good, mild

The cheese tasting was held while Illinois University (Angela, Melissa, Josh, Drew, Maggie, George) beat #1-ranked Ohio State University (Karen, Julie, Johnny) at Ohio on Saturday. The cheeses are from Eastern Market.

Manchego DO
milk: sheep:
country: Spain
type: hard

Manchego is named for the Spanish region of La Mancha, also home of Don Quixote. This historic cheese is produced in the La Mancha region from pasteurized sheep’s milk. It has a black gray or buff colored rind with a crosshatch pattern, the interior ranges from stark white to yellowish, depending on age. The aroma should suggest lanolin and roast lamb. The final cheese is usually smeared with olive oil and surface mould is removed. It has a number of holes and a mild, slightly briny, nutty flavor. It is sold at various stages of maturity: at the age of 13 weeks it is described as curado (cured) and, when over three months old it is referred to as viejo (aged). There is a peppery bite to cheeses that have reached a great age. It is best known of a series of sheep’s cheeses and is similar to Zamorano, Cadiz, Calahora or Castelleno.

at, ms, jr, wt: very good

Ossau-Iraty AOC
milk: sheep
country: France
type: semi-hard

Ossau-Iraty is a traditional, unpasteurized, semi-soft cheese made from sheep’s milk. It usually has a shape of a wheel, with natural rind. This cheese is made with the milk of Manech ewes. There are three main sizes: small (Petit-Ossau-Iraty-Brebis Pyrenes), intermediate (non-fermier), large (fermier). Affinage takes at least 90 days, 60 days for the small version. The temperature of the cellar must be below 12 C. This cheese unites two regions of France in the Western Pyrénées: Ossau in the valley of the Bearn and Iraty in the beech forests of the Pays Basque. The cheese is full of a delicious, nutty, robust taste if it is produced during the period from June to September when the herds move up to the high mountain meadows.

at, ms, jr: good, wt: very good

Josh got the first three from Cowgirl Creamery in DC, Julie brought us the Cougar Gold. Melissa, Angela, and I enjoyed these with the last known bottle of real (i.e., Romanian) Vampire wine known to exist in the DC area.

California Crottin
Redwood Hill Dairy
Sebastopol, CA
milk: goat

Redwood Hill’s own version of the French Crottin Chavignol has a sharp and meaty flavor with a thick, pale yellow, corrugated rind. This cheese manages to be both dense and fluffy with an intense earthy aroma.

ms, at, wt: very good, but note to self: put goat cheese after cow and sheep, and before blue

Pierce Pt
Cowgirl Creamery
Point Reyes Station, CA
milk: organic whole milk

Pierce Pt is rolled in dried herbs from the Tomales Bay coastal region. The result is a delicious cheese, semi-firm, yet creamy, complex yet never overpowering, that you’ll recall longingly when it’s out-of-season. Pierce Pt received a 1st Place award at the 2006 American Cheese Society Conference.

ms, at, wt: very good

Bayley Hazen Blue
Jasper Hill Farm
Greensboro, VT
milk: Ayrshire cow (morning milk)
type: blue

Bayley Hazen Blue is a buttery, natural-rind cow milk blue cheese that is made with whole raw milk. The milk used is primarily from morning milk, which tends to be lower in fat. The milk is taken from their own herd of Ayrshire cows who graze from late spring to early fall. Bayley Hazen Blue is drier than most blues, and the penicillium roqueforti takes a back seat to an array of flavors that hint at nuts and grasses and sometimes licorice.

ms, at, wt: very good, buttery

Cougar Gold
Washington State Creamery
milk: pasteurized milk
type: cheddar

Very nice cheddar that has been already reviewed.

ms, at, wt: one of our favorite cheeses