AIB - Snacks -Cheese

[donk]

It seems that many of us share a fondness for cheese. Please share this passion with others.

I'll go first.

1) One of the few positive things about where I live is that there is an awesome cheese place just 5 miles from my house. They have really really good 6 year aged cheddar and the like. A nice tangy flavour, but not so bitter that it can't be enjoyed.

2) In Toronto, and those on the laefest got to expereince a bit of it at Global Cheese. Cheese from everywhere in the world. The price is determined by how chatty you are with the guy who cuts your cheese and how much you buy. Favs from there include a light flavoured blue cheese, snoked gouda and while not cheese halvah (sesame/pistachio paste that is dried - pure calories).

3) Mandels Kosher Cream Cheese. There is something about kosher cream cheese that is totally undescriable. The way that it is creamy and sticky, but not gummy is incredible.

On the cheese I dislike most, really goaty chevre or other goat cheeses. I can take a light feta, but there is something about the taste of goat that turns my stomach.

 

[Cardinal]

More cheese tales...

My cheese place is the farmer's market in Madison. The tour begins at the State Street corner, with the freshest, squeakiest cheese curds. At the end of the block, after passing some lesser cheeseries and easting a scone, you will find the best parmesan and romano I have tasted. (These are next to the goat cheese.) Half-way down the next block, providing too little time to finish the donut you buy on the corner, you will come across the people with the cheese spreads. Sampling is encouraged before making it just a little further and finding more samples. These are good cheeses - havarti and pesto havarti, farmer, colby, cheddar and sun-dried tomato chedder, and a few more. The next block is light on cheese but is where you can pick up meat - incredible pork, venison, ostrich, bison and chicken. The last block has a truly great cheese, the world champion five-year old cheddar. Mmmmm....

Cheese recipes: http://www.wisdairy.com/recipes/category.asp

 

[yaff]

Cardinal,

You are making me very homesick. A "Cheeshead" in exile (i.e. the east coast).

 

[Cardinal]

Cardinal,

You are making me very homesick. A "Cheeshead" in exile (i.e. the east coast).

I'm feeling a bit sad about leaving. One week from today... :-\

 

[Gedunker]

A good friend of mine is a dairy farmer in the little town of Koshkonong, Mo. He sends his fresh milk to Wisconsin and they send it back as a delicious cheddar. Every year he sends me a wheel. Mmmmmmmm. :-}

I was in Copenhagen when I ate the best gouda and havarti I've ever had.

 

[Maister]

Being the obsessive/compulsive do it yourselfer that I am, last weekend I made some homemade cottage cheese and some yoghurt cheese flavored with chives and garlic. By adding more buttermilk and cream I was able to produce a markedly sweeter cottage cheese than what you buy at the store. The yoghurt cheese was spreadable and delicately balanced (not bad for a first try!) Both cheeses were appallingly simple to make, requiring no more equiment than a couple of gallons of milk, rennet tablets (purchased at supermarket), buttermilk, cream, spices, a thermometer and cheesecloth. Only took a day to make too! Not only was it tasty, but it was fun. Everyone should try it at least once.

 

[Downtown]

I remember it so well - it was a sunny day, I was in New Glarus, WI for a wedding, and wandered aimlessly into a pub. After ordering our Fat Cow beers, we perused the menu, and I distinctly recall how I went through each emotion - at first confused, then unbelieving, and finally elated when I saw the offering of deep fried cheese curds!

There is true genius in Wisconsin!

 

[Richmond Jake]

... elated when I saw the offering of deep fried cheese curds!

With all due respect, this sounds disgusting. :-#

 

[Duke Of Dystopia]

You are going to think I am a little crazy for this one, but you have to try it:

Thin slices of swiss cheese with salt and pepper sprinkled on top.

I thought this was odd at first also, but I had gotten hungry one day while in the beir tent at a fest in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany. I started telling my German friends I was hungry. They come back with a plate of Swiss Cheese covered in salt and peper. Heaven, have been enoying it as a snack ever since.

 

[DecaturHawk]

Ah, Wisconsin cheese. Nothing like it.

And beer, too (I know DoD will diss me for this, but I like a cold Leinenkugel's).

 

[Duke Of Dystopia]

Ah, Wisconsin cheese. Nothing like it.

And beer, too (I know DoD will diss me for this, but I like a cold Leinenkugel's).

Nah, one must cultivate a tolerance for Macro's at some level

Given a choice between the majors and a linnies, I will take the linnies any day. In fact, when stuck with the taste impared and drinking pitures of beer, I always buy linnies honey wiess or red if it is on tap when its my turn to buy. :-D

One of my all time favs like this is "Point Special" out of lacross. Not great by any standard, but it is more than tolerable AND if a bar has it, you can get it for about a buck a bottle! Efficient if nothing else! :-D

 

[boiker]

nothing but Kraft American and Velveta for me... ;-)
Velveta melts better. :-D ;-)

 

[BKM]

The Bay Area has some pretty good artisan cheesemakers. My favorites include Mount Tam and Redhawk.

I also really like some .....French......cheeses like Pierre Robert, Explorateur, and Brillat Savarin.

 

[Repo Man]

With all due respect, this sounds disgusting. :-#

Hey don't knock it til ya try it, they are delicious. Think mozzerella stick but smaller.

There is a gourmet grocery store in the 'burbs of Milwaukee that has this incredible walk-in cheese cooler. Oh my. You can easily walk out of the store having spent more than 40 bucks on cheese alone.

Some of my favorite cheeses are baby swiss, brie, Emmentaler, Gouda, Havarti....awww who I am kidding I like 'em all with the exception of Limburger and that nasty Lorraine Swiss.

 

[Habanero]

I just made an awesome brie with rasberries and brie with jalepeno chutney in puff pastry. It was so good. I'm also quite fond of Gouda, but I don't think much of smoked Gouda (maybe I had a bad kind?).

 

[biscuit]

I will eat almost any kind of cheese. I love the stuff. Right now I'm on a kick where I'm eating a lot of Israeli Feta (a moist and mild variant), which is strange because plain old goat cheese is my absolutely least favorite cheese :-#

Y'all might think my taste a little pedestrian, but one of my favorite snacks is sharp chedder on a cracker chased by a swig of cold appple juice. Mmmmmm.... Brings out the kindergartener in you.

 

[Maister]

Y'all might think my taste a little pedestrian, but one of my favorite snacks is sharp chedder on a cracker chased by a swig of cold appple juice. Mmmmmm.... Brings out the kindergartener in you.

Pedestrian tastes have merit too, sometimes. There is, after all, a reason why things get popular to begin with (it's cuz they's GOOD!). Personally, I like most smoked (garden variety) cheeses like cheddar, swiss, etc.

 

[Floridays]

nothing but Kraft American and Velveta for me... ;-)
Velveta melts better. :-D ;-)

Most definitely for the best grilled cheese sandwich! I really like an extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar the best, to snack on. Since moving down here, I have found lots of wonderful Italian delis and am experimenting with different kinds of "wop cheese." (I say this in jest; I'm actually dating an Italian New-Yorker 8-! )

 

[BKM]

I was raised on cheese made at a local dairy north of Fort Wayne, Indiana (County Line Cheese-since conglomerated and gone), so the processed cheese foods always tasted awful to me. Velveeta always triggers my gag reflex.

 

[Michele Zone]

When I lived in Germany, I bought plain yogurt that was not sour and put it over frozen blueberries and I regularly bought Ricotta cheese that was just milk curds, no cr*p added. Ricotta and plain yogurt in the U.S. are inedible and sour. They are not in Europe. I used to have fantasies of starting a factory in the U.S. or an import store to provide good ricotta and plain yogurt.

Either that or make my own ricotta, something I never got around to trying.