On 4/18/2024 at 1:47 PM, voyager said: Cheese is difficult. It is alive and constantly morphing. Like they say you never dip your foot in the same river, you never eat the same cheese. We've had cheese that was very disappointing that we somehow neglected to toss, only to find it buried in the cheese bin later, now ethereal, if a little stinky.
Beaufort Alpages: a really nice Alpine raw-milk cheese, firm but not in the crumbly state. $47.99/lb, though. Bleu d'Auvergne: a cheese made for port, this is a brawny, powerhouse blue, possibly a bit too intense. Another raw-milk cheese. We'll probably have the rest with one of our new muscadine jellies.
A cheese event at a vast warehouse in Queens. Multiple bars, cheese-related events on stage and a massive, endless all-you-can eat cheese buffet curated by Tia Keenan. I ate as much as I could. Didn’t make myself ill, but I did feel weird afterwards. Some kind of cheese drunkenness. Sad bit, I remember running into Anne Saxelby there. 😢
A bowl of cherries! Which life is not. Fluke carpaccio, refreshing and light. Smoky, oily pita. One of the stars of the evening: rakakat (cheese-stuffed phyllo with muhammara). Dandelion, which was just okay, too much going on here. Grilled squid, a little overcooked and too salty. Plus, the hummus was very loose. Another standout - charred ...
Celeste is a lactic set cheese, which uses long, natural fermentation. Gossamer is a pasteurized milk cheese. They were both introduced by Cato in 2022 and I have had them side by side many times. Celeste is less complex (as an early Cato announcement said "patience is the highest priority", but patience here may be the highest virtue).
I get a simple cheese burger while Michael gets a double no cheese and requests raw onions. Countless visits since it opened in 2004 (!) with never a complaint. A new location is about to open (they’re doing training) in Freehold, a 5-minute drive from our house. There’s a very nice outdoor seating area with umbrellas!
The Cheese Parlor in Livermore provided the two hard cheeses (one kind of like a young Gouda and one like a very aged Cheddar), and Wegman's provided the crackers, Point Reyes Blue, and Delices de Bourgogne, as well as a spiced cranberry jam to go with the blue. (My cousins provided the other accompaniments.)
@small h Moving this responsibly from the cheese thread, the La Curiosa spider crab pate: also included mussels, hake, mayo, eggs. Not the most appetizing color. A slightly grainy texture that reminded me of roe. I could certainly taste mussels. It was nice in a soft, fishy sort of way. 🤷