C'est Cheese and Chabichou!

This was an extremely cheesy weekend.  It's kind of taking over our lives... not that I mind. We've developed a semi-obsession, where we can't leave a store without checking out the cheese counter (even though we already have SO much in the fridge), and we're planning road trips to visit highly recommended cheese shops rather than historic landmarks. But, why be ordinary? Life is no fun without a little bit of eccentricity. And we like being weird :)

We went to C'est Cheese in Santa Barbara and had some lunch - grown-up grilled cheese and tomato soup, yum! -  and proceeded to buy too much cheese. We tried a couple samples from their cheese counters, and were very impressed by their selection of european imports and american artisan cheeses as well as a varied selection of cured meats.  And points to them for having an appetizing presentation in the dairy case - do you notice that when something looks cute and yummy you want to eat it even more? The C'est Cheesers definitely have it down. And everything was fresh and not too pungent or rancid smelling... thank goodness. After sampling, we went home with some Wensleydale (in honor of the Monty Python skit) imported from England, and some French cheese called Chabichou du Poitou (pronounced shaw-bee-shew doo pwa-too). It sounds so cute! When we got home we couldn't wait any longer, and we dug right in. We'll attack the Wenleydale later this week, so don't miss it!

But for now, let's talk about Chabichou. The brand that we bought is called Le Chevrot, and from that, you might be able to tell that this is a goat cheese (chèvre is french for goat). It is made in a western region of France called Poitou, and so it is called Chabichou du Poitou. And remember I told you about that naming board in France that protects cheese? Well, this particular cheese is protected by that organization, so you know it's authentic. It even has its own website! I find that amusing. You can find it here, but be warned, it is in French.  This particular brand (Le Chevrot) actually comes highly recommended in The Cheese Primer. About it, Steven Jenkins says "I have never tasted better goat cheese." That sounds promising!

Anyway, about our little Chabichou. It IS cute and little, just like it sounds. It comes in a small cylinder, about half the size of a can of soup. The rind is white and wrinkly-looking, like a brain. I'm 100% serious. And that's pretty much why we bought it - it looked nothing like anything else we've seen! So, you cut into it, and the inside is white and creamy, like cream cheese (but not as moist). So far, it seems pretty appetizing. Unfortunately, it is not as easy to eat as it is to look at. I struggle with goat cheese anyway- it makes my throat tense up and I gag - so its no surprise I couldn't eat very much of this.  Alan had no problem with it though, he dove right in. 

Because it's goat cheese, it has a sour, "goaty" punch. Not sour like a lemon, just a flavorless pucker-factor.  I guess the official term is "piquant,"  but just saying that makes me feel snooty. Veto: piquant. I'll stick with "goaty."  

It has zero sweetness, and has a strong earthy/mushroomy flavor. That's unexpected, because it looks just like cream cheese, yet tastes nothing like it.  It also smells like dirty socks... thankfully, it doesn't taste like them.  We found the texture to be silky, even though it looks a little bit chalky. It seems like this cheese is the poster child for "appearances can be deceiving." 

We did pretty well identifying the flavors (finally!); it was supposed to taste intensely like a barnyard and toasted nuts with a goat-like tang, according to Culture Cheese Magazine.  Mmmm... barnyard. That's what we got from it.

That wrinkly brain rind is edible, and it is suggested that eating it will intensify the flavors of the Chabichou, if you dare. Alan dared. And he regretted it, much to my amusement. His exact exclamation was "It's a nightmare!" and that it tasted like mustard punched him in the face. That's what you get for eating mold. He was still whimpering ten minutes later. 

Here's a photo of our cute Chabichou... don't judge it by it's cute exterior though. It's an intense cheese.  I couldn't handle it very well, because that goat gets me every time. And Alan would give his opinion, but he's still traumatized. I guess that's what makes a great goat cheese, though. We wish you better luck with it! Enjoy!

-Ashleigh

What the Challerhocker?!

We came across this interesting sounding cheese, and thought, "why not?" If it sounds funny, maybe it will taste delicious. This is another one that we got from C'est Cheese in Santa Barbara, CA.  It's a fantastic, quaint little cheese shop (which also has a delicious lunch menu) off the beaten in SB.  We love it there!

So, we got some Challerhocker, and looked it up without much initial success. But we kept at it, because I'm a research addict. Turns out, this is a lesser known relative of Appenzeller, and it hails from Switzerland - and what is with the swiss names for cheeses? They're so silly!

Time for a not-so-ancient-history-lesson: A man named Walter Rass, who is renowned for being an Appenzeller maker, tweaked his recipe for Appenzeller and created a brand new breed of cheese: Challerhocker. We haven't had Appenzeller yet but it sounds like Challerhocker isn't much like its granddad cheese.  It is cooked a little bit differently, and aged for 10 months in a cellar (and it's name translates to "sitting in the celler") and washed with wine and rubbed with a super top secret mix of herbs and spices before we ever get the chance to try it. And it sounds like this process makes it vastly different from the old fogey Appenzeller.
** If anyone knows, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like Challerhocker is a recently invented cheese (since Walter Rass is still alive and handcrafting his original Challerhocker) and that it is only made by this one guy for one company in one town in Switzerland. To me, that sounds like a pretty spectacular cheese.  And, it has made such a name for itself that it's carried regularly at a small specialty cheese shop in SB... so it must be pretty good!

Enough with the disclaimers. Let's get munching!

Challerhocker is a firm, whitish cheese with a brown waxy rind. It has small holes in it like popular Swiss cheese, but its nothing like it. It's creamy, not at all plastic-y. And it's got those tiny little lactic acid crystals in it like we found in the Gouda. It melts on your tongue, if you have enough self-control to keep it there for a minute! As you can probably guess, we're not very good at that part. And now for the flavor. Very interesting, not like anything else we've tried. It's earthy, and nutty and has a very weird spice component. It reminded me of a spicy walnut rolled in dirt.  In a good way.  Alan and I argued (nicely) about how spicy it is... he says barely, with a slight acidity, and I say it's in-your-face spicy. Apparently, its only in my face. It literally burns my tongue, like black pepper. And don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy it. Probably because I love pepper.  I'm personally amazed that this cheese has such a crazy depth of flavor, which is actually what it is gaining so much notoriety for. It also has very little dairy flavor, which is refreshing - not like the rancid bleu cheese Alan made me eat last week. Yuck. The Challerhocker doesn't taste like sour milk at all. Hooray!

According to Cowgirl Creamery, which is a cheesemaker a few hours north of us, Challerhocker is supposed to taste a little bit like caramel, sweet cream, brown butter, and melted leeks. Leeks!? I've never had a leek... but it's related to onion, so that makes sense. Onions have a certain spiciness - In-your-face eye-burning spiciness. Tone it down a few notches, and you've got Challerhocker. We picked up on a little bit of the sweetness, too, so it looks like we're getting a little bit better at this.

So, I think this might be one of my favorites so far. Go Switzerland! I really like thats is so unique and un-cheesey. Alan likes that it is a light creamy cheese, without the pungent flavor that swiss cheeses can have. "It's good!" he says.  Highly recommended :) If you come across it, shell out the cash and get a small wedge... it goes for about $32/lb. But, for authentic, imported, one of a kind, original recipe cheesy goodness, it's worth it.  And tell us about your cheese adventures!

-Ashleigh

Monty Python's Cheese Shop

Haha, this is a great skit from the famed Monty Python troupe. I was inspired by this to purchase some actual Wendsleydale. Enjoy!

- Alan.

Valdeon - The Scariest Cheese Alive! Literally!!

Howdy everyone, and happy Cheese Friday! In this post we'll finally be sampling some of the funky stuff Ashleigh's been dreading (and I've been dreaming of). Our cheese of the moment: Queso De Valdeon! Here's what it looks like:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - I can almost smell this one.

A buddy of ours picked some up from C'est Cheese in Santa Barbara, one of the finest cheese shops around!

First, a brief history lesson.

This cheese hails from the mysterious and often overlooked cheese-riddled country of Spain, specifically the northwestern region of Leon. People there seem to have a fondness for mighty cheeses, as evidenced by the intensely flavored Valdeon and its relatives Cabrales and Picon (I've never heard of these cheeses either - we'll keep our eyes open for them). 

The cheese is typically made of cow's milk, but I keep reading that it may also be a blend of various milks. A blend of various milks - that's a strange concept. Think about it. Milks. From different animals.  Mixed together. Weird.

Once the typical cheese-making process is underway, the cheese wheel is injected with mold spores. Yup, fungus. Specifically, a member of the Penicillium genus. Yup, Penicillium. As in penicillin. As in antibiotics. 

After a date with some fungus spores, the cheese is wrapped in sycamore leaves for some reason. My sources say this is for flavor. Does anyone know what sycamore tastes like? Trees? Banana bread? I have no idea. 

Inoculated and draped in sycamore, the young Valdeon is left to age in caves. Again with the caves? I gotta find some caves - there'll probably be some cheese waiting for me inside. 

Ok, enough about fungus and caves and milk mixtures - let's eat some cheese!!

The verdict:

I freaking love this cheese. It's everything I hoped it would be, from the pungent smell that fills the house once you cut it to the punch-you-in-the-face flavor. And, oh, the flavor. It's like spicy, mushroomy, peppery dirt. It melts in your mouth into a puddle of ridiculousness. There are few cheeses that could possibly taste like this. I'm sure everyone has had blue cheese before, well maybe not real artisanal blue cheese - anyway, that is the closest thing I can compare Valdeon to. Only turned up to 11.  

Ashleigh wanted nothing to do with my poor Valdeon. She had a hard time entering the room when I was cutting it, and fled squeaking with horror as I offered her a taste. After a few days she finally mustered up the courage to try a piece - and regretted every second of it. I think she cried a little.

Bottom line: this is it folks - the strongest flavored cheese you are most likely to encounter on your cheese journey. Be forewarned, it is not for the squeamish or the faint of taste buds. Don't be afraid of the grayish-blue fuzz visibly growing inside the cheese. That's the magic growing inside. And you won't need any shots from the doctor for a few months!

**Disclaimer: Alan is not a doctor. By eating Valdeon or ANY blue-veined cheese you are in no way, shape, or form exempt from your regularly scheduled vaccinations.

4 Year Aged Gouda Pittig

I know, I know - we just did a post on gouda. I didn't even want to eat this cheese after tasting the last one, Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda. A friend bought it for us, and really I was just being polite tasting it in my kitchen one evening. Let me tell you, friends, this was a whole different gouda animal.

For starters, it looks different:

Gouda Pittig, aged 4 years

Look at that color! Look at the delicious fissures, inclusions, and little crystals of flavor! It reminds me of caramel - it smells like caramel, and has hints of caramel hidden deep within its complex flavor. The cheese is rock-hard, and cleaves like stone into neat little crumbles. 

More about the flavor - it is intense. This is not the same cheese we tried a few weeks ago. The flavor is sharp, reminiscent of whiskey, with subdued sweetness and salt. 

Those little crunchy bits in the cheese? Those are crystalized shards of lactic acid, formed naturally during the aging process. They're like little pop rocks, bursting with flavor. 

The cheese making process starts with regular gouda, which is is a cooked, pressed cheese made of cow's milk. The gouda is then left to age for years, turned every so often by the loving hands of master dutch cheese makers. The result is a marvel of the cheese world, a wheel of dark amber colored, toffee-smelling aged gouda. 

The bottom line: if you want gouda, stick to the AGED gouda - it's amazing, a true cheese experience. Look for gouda that has been aged for 2 or more years. I really disliked regular young gouda, but this stuff is magic.

- Alan

What's that smell?!

We had an interesting experience over the weekend.

On the quest for cheese, we stumbled upon a new source relatively near our home in rural California. Vinhus, a funky little European specialty food shop in the Danish-themed town of Solvang, is right on the main drag of town, with a big windmill flapping outside, danish flags flying proudly, and men in lederhosen (or whatever you call danish clothing) wandering randomly hither and thither. 

The sign outside the store said "cheese," so naturally we had to investigate.

As we excitedly walked through the entrance, our noses were punched in their little notril-filled faces by the disturbing odor of decay and fish buckets. I figured it was the tourists - a lot of tired, smelly travelers walking in off the hot street from their day spent wandering the town. Oh, but it wasn't the tourists...it wasn't the tourists at all. 

Shining like a beacon in the fog of cheese-less afternoons was an amazing assortment of pre-cut cheeses in the refrigerated case by the wall. We had a great time looking through all the weird cheeses we'd never heard of before. They had a fine collection of imported European cheeses, accompanied lovingly by that horrific, ammonia-fish-death smell.

This happy discovery was quickly dissolving into a sad, sad regret.

I found a small box of Camembert that was recommended in the Cheese Primer - instinctively I put the cheese to my nose to smell the deliciousness. Instead of creamy, mushroomy goodness I got a nose-full of putrid, dead things. GROSS! It was awful. 

We moved on.

Other alluring cheeses sat there with oily labels, dried out, and forgotten - they looked "dead," that is, the live organisms that make cheese so wonderful had long ago shuffled off their mortal coils. 

I think the problem here is the folks at Vinhus need to cut back on their inventory. Rather than stocking and maintaining fourteen brands of Stilton, seven separate types of Brie, hundreds of pounds of parmesan and a myriad others, they should stick to the favorites and biggest sellers until they can properly care for more. The smell alone is probably driving customers away. 

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, though - they had some fantastic stuff in the cheese case, and a great variety of unique stuff for the home, plus lots of interesting candy, a great wine collection, and all kinds of other crazy things. We'll give them a month or two to shape up before we visit again.

The bottom line is this: when you're out shopping, don't be afraid to smell the cheeses before you buy them. All cheeses have a distinct aroma, but if a cheese smells like ammonia or rotting fish chances are it is past its prime.

What we thought was Brie...

Today, Alan and I decided to explore the world of Brie... or what we thought was Brie.  We were in Solvang, CA, and since we still had money left over in our cheese budget after we bought a great cheese board, we were on the hunt for cheese! While Vinhus (where we found the board) had a pretty impressive cheese counter, most of them were too strong for me (bleus and camembert) or were American made cheeses (and we're trying to focus on European imports since we're so new to it. I'm sure there are a lot of great American cheese artisans, but we're just not there yet.), so our journey continued.

We went to the local natural food market, El Rancho Marketplace, and discovered that they had a great, well-cared for cheese counter! What stood out to us was their selection of Brie: there were at least 8 of them, all imports except for one. Both of us have had Brie before; it's fairly popular in restaurants and at cheese counters, so we thought it would be fun to buy a couple of different brands and compare them. The ones we picked were St. Andre and Fromager d'Affinois.

And it's a good thing we approached it that way.  Bear with me through this short educational introduction. In the chapter of The Cheese Primer that discusses Brie, it explains that the term "brie" is not legally protected. There is a french board that protects the rights to the names of cheeses, similar to patents and licensing in the US. Only 2 types of Brie have been protected under this board, Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun, neither of which you can really find in the US, with the exception of a few good brands. That may not seem very important, but what it means is any old cheese can call itself Brie, regardless of how and where it's made and what it tastes like, but only cheeses that are made in a specific area of France and by a specific process can call themselves Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun.

That means, we Americans may be eating a lot of phony Bries without ever knowing it, especially since Brie is a pretty hip cheese right now - you KNOW you've been in a restaurant and heard those hipsters in the booth next to you talking about how they're so sophisticated because Brie is their favorite cheese!

So, why were there so many Bries laying around this cheese counter in El Rancho? Let me tell you. They weren't Brie. And neither were the two that we bought today. The store-printed deli label may say Brie, and the actual cheese label from the manufacturer may say Brie, but what it REALLY is (unless it says Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun) is a Double-Creme or Triple-Creme Soft-ripened cheese. This was really confusing for Alan and me, but I did a lot of research and it sounds to me like the overarching category is Soft-ripened cheese (which includes Double- and Triple-cremes, and Paglia cheeses... more on those when we come to them), and that the two Bries are types of Double-creme Soft-ripened cheese.  That doesn't mean they're the ONLY double-cremes.  Got all that?

Now we can move onto the cheeses we had today. Yum!  Here we go: St. Andre and Fromager d'Affinois.

Both of these cheese are considered double-cremes, because they have between 60-75% butterfat. To achieve this, extra cream is added to the cheese before it becomes curd, resulting in a creamy and silky finish once it is formed and aged. A triple-creme must have over 75% butterfat (oh vey!), making it even silkier. According to Steven Jenkins, true triple-cremes are very rare. St. Andre had 70% butterfat, and Fromager d'Affinois had 60%.

Both of these cheeses are off-white, and look like regular old Philadelphia cream cheese, if it had a rind. They are soft and spreadable, and don't give off any kind of pungent odor. They are both cows milk cheeses.  Overall, we had a pleasant first impression. The similarities end there, though.

St. Andre had a consistency very similar to cream cheese, and tasted like it too. It was slightly more mild than cream cheese, though, and was a little heavier and more buttery. Alan and I both loved it.  We didn't taste anything crazy in this one like we have been, no nuts or fruits or armpits.  Just clean, fresh cream cheese.

Fromager d'Affinois was also delightful, but very much its own animal. It was surprisingly silky, like almost-melted butter.  This was impressive, because it has the characteristics of a triple-creme, even though it only has the minimal amount of butterfat to be considered a double!

Naturally, I did some research. I found another fantastic source, the PFI Cheese Library. According to their website, its qualities mimic that of a triple-creme because the milk is "ultra-filtered" before it is made into curd, making it very smooth.  It also had an intense butter flavor, like the artificial butter spray. Or, if you've ever stuck your fingers in a stick of butter and ate it (yes, I have) then you know that flavor. It was a little too strong to eat by itself, but on a cracker it was fantastic. We loved this one too.

The verdict:
Alan: They were both delicious, and are the best ones we've had so far. It's strange that they are so closely related, but are vastly different.
Ashleigh: They are nice and safe, great for beginning cheese hounds.  I love that they are creamy and not scary. But, we still have to find some real Brie.

Here's a photo of our happy cheese board, complete with the two cheeses of the night and our accompaniments, pears and salami!  

Left: Fromager d'Affinios, Right: St. Andre. Accompaniments: Pear and Salami

Have a great day, and happy cheese hunting!

-Ashleigh

Cheese Board Quest: Complete!

Ashleigh and I took a big step today towards becoming cheese aficionados - we bought a cheese board! 

Up until now I had been quite satisfied serving cheese on a good old fashioned dinner plate, or any other flat surfaced item found laying around. I also thought it was pretty frivolous spending our hard earned cashola on an unnecessary piece of kitchenware. Then I cleaned out my car and found $41 dollars in change strewn about. To the cheese board store we go!

As it turns out there is no cheese board store, per se. Instead, we visited a few kitchenware stores to feel out the market for a proper cheese-serving surface.

First, we looked on Amazon.com, which is well known to carry and sell anything you can possibly think of, and in several color choices! This is when we learned that cheese boards are expensive! The stone boards (typically made of slate or marble) can be $75 or more. Yeesh!

We also learned that cheese boards are often bundled with cheese serving tools so we decided to look for one of these, as opposed to just a slab of wood or something equally as mundane. 

Bed Bath and Beyond also carries a wide array of cheese boards, but the prices are a bit higher than on Amazon. The good thing about BB+B is that you can handle your cheese board before you buy it: is it too big, too small? Does it function appropriately? Will it be easy to clean? And so forth...

Finally, after a fine day spent hiking and visiting farm stands we decided to stop by the town of Solvang, CA, a wonderful little tourist-trap Danish town on the central coast. I remembered seeing several funky home-ware stores and thought we should poke around a bit.

After only a half-hour browsing the stores we found what we were looking for at Solvang Vinhus, a cool little shop in the heart of town specializing in European foods, wine, and CHEESE!!! (more on the cheese in a later post)

They had a great selection of cheese boards and tools, at very reasonable prices.

And, this is what we got:

Picnic Time Brie cutting board

It was $17 bucks, which left us plenty of car-change for...CHEESE! Hooray!!

-Alan

Abbaye De Belloc

First, hi friends! We are having so much fun with this, and we hope you are too!


Last night we stepped out of our American comfort zone a little, and opened our home and our mouths to a lesser known sheep's milk cheese from France! So far we've done cow and goat milk cheeses, but haven't really been able to find any from sheep. 


So, how did we stumble upon this gem of Abbaye De Belloc? Alan and I decided that the next step in our cheese journey is to find a good cheesemonger. Yes, that's the official term :-)  We need to find a good cheese counter, with authentic imports, and someone who is familiar and enthusiastic about what they're selling. So, we began our hunt for one. We headed to the famous Thursday night Farmers Market in San Luis Obispo (and bought some crazy produce) and visited their local cheese and wine shop, Vintage 1255. 


Their cheese counter was impressive, with imports from all over Europe, as well as a good selection of local California cheeses. The man behind the counter was excited to talk to us and let us sample everything we asked about! They had a lot of scary bleu-style cheeses that Alan was very excited about... but the first thing I noticed was that they had sheep cheese from the Pyrenees! They had 2 types from France and some from Spain as well. We tried them and decided to buy the Abbaye De Belloc - and again, we didn't read up on this particular type first, so we didn't learn about how awesome it is until we got home!


Let's talk about this cheese! The Pyrenees region of France is in the southern part of the country along the border of Spain. That's why there are spanish versions of this cheese, I guess. It is from the sheep that graze in the Pyrenees Mountains (how cute!) and is specifically made at the Notre-Dame de Belloc abbey by Benedictine monks!  That's awesome! The recipe they use for Abbaye De Belloc is apparently a fairly recent development, from the 1960's, but that doesn't mean it's any less authentic. Those monks know what they're doing! They based the recipe for Abbaye De Belloc on the ancient, 4,000 year old recipe of it more well-known cheesy cousin, Ossau-Iraty. 4,000 years old!! If we can get our hands on that, we will. 


The Cheese: Abbaye De Belloc


Without getting too technical (which I tend to do when I get excited) let me describe Abbaye De Belloc. It's firm and ivory colored- to me it looks like swiss cheese without holes. It is a little pricey... but it's authentic, so I guess that's why. The rind was a little interesting: it is coated with paprika and then the white and grey mold grows over that, and it's covered in cloth while it ages, which leaves a cross-hatched pattern on the rind. I had read about that technique in The Cheese Primer, so I was excited to actually see it.  


And then we ate it.  It tasted very mild, creamy, and melted in your mouth. It wasn't salty at all. Alan loved it! He said it tasted nutty to him, in a good way. Probably because they add the paprika to it. The Cheese Primer does say it should have a smooth, nutty, fruity and olivey flavor. I didn't taste all of that... it tasted like swiss cheese to me. Terrible, I know! I'm not good at this yet.


Then, a few seconds later, I exhaled, and was in for a surprise. When the cheese was in my mouth, it was fine. The aftertaste was ALL FEET! Nasty, stinky, dirty feet. Not that I go around licking people's feet, but you know what I mean. I'm sure the flavor is more complex than that, I just don't know what it is. But the flavor of the cheese definitely changed as you ate it. Which is pretty impressive. Shows how complex it really is. Oh, and it doesn't stop there. The feet smell stays in your mouth... oh man, Alan reeked. Bad. No kissing. And he said I reeked too... which is unfortunate. No one's safe!  And yet, we kept eating it. It was almost addictive. We kept going, in the name of cheese and science! We just sat on opposite sides of the couch. We do this for you, ya know. 


And then, we brushed our teeth and everything was fine. 


The verdict:
Alan: yumm!!
Ashleigh: yay sheep!!


So, if you feel like paying $30/lb for awful breath, go for it. It has enjoyable qualities too.


In addition to The Cheese Primer, we used Culture Cheese Magazine for our research on this cheese.


We'll be scoping out more cheese counters, looking for the our favorite cheesemonger. I wish we had a Wegman's... they have great cheese counters.  We'll keep Vintage 1255 in mind, though!  Tell us about your favorite cheeses, and try some of these with us!


-Ashleigh