As many of you cheese lovers probably know, the announcement of the winners of the 2010 ACS took place earlier this week and i wanted to mention a certain cheese that took a big prize!!!

The Soeur Angele from QC by the Fromagerie Fritz Kaiser came in FIRST PLACE in the Open Category for cheeses made from sheep’s or mixed milks.

I am secretly super excited because the Soeur Angele is one of the cheeses that I chose a few months back to be featured in the Taste of Cheese September Taster Box… I must have known it was destined to be an award winner!! I can’t wait for you all to try it!!!!

Congrats to Fromagerie Fritz Kaiser!

Here is a link to the full list of winners!

WINNERS OF THE 2010 AMERICAN CHEESE SOCIETY COMPETITION

How was your weekend? Mine was great, and yummy! While doing some looking around to help create our gift baskets for Rosh Hashanah, I found an awesome looking recipe for Grilled Apples with honey and cheddar. What a great twist on a typical holiday classic! I can’t wait to try it out! Here is the recipe, found at www.eatingwell.com

GRILLED APPLES WITH CHEDDAR & HONEY

Apples & Honey meets cheese in this yummy combo of three fantastic ingredients! Grilled apples dressed up in drizzled honey, sharp cheese and toasted pecans makes for a quick and quirky way to spice up traditional Rosh Hashanah apples and honey.

6 servings

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
•    3 large or 6 small tart apples, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
•    6 teaspoons almond or canola oil
•    3 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
•    85-100 grams of Cheddar
•    6 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
•    8-10 teaspoons honey

Preparation
Preheat grill or grill pan to medium heat. Allow your cheese to come to room temperature. Toss apple slices with oil and sugar in a large bowl. Grill the apple slices until just tender and lightly marked, turning once, about 6 minutes total. Shave cheese into thin strips with a cheese plane. Top the apple slices with cheese and nuts and drizzle with honey. Serve and enjoy!!!!

Reviews to come once I’ve tried it out!

I hope that most of you read this later on today, because that means maybe you are outside right now enjoying this incredible day!!

I am writing to report that we chose our September cheese for the Taster and they are yummy yummy yummy!

Here are the September Taster Box Cheeses:
Bleu des Basques
Capricho Romarin
Chevrot Cendre
Louis d’Or
Soeur Angele

There are 2 that I’m SUPER excited about.. The Capricho Romarin and the Louis d’Or!

You might remember that I wrote about the Capricho Romarin in the past. I served it to a bunch of my friends and it was one of my favourite cheeses ever!! I am so excited that it is making a reappearance in September. The Capricho Romain is a Spanish Goat cheese that is not easy to come by. I can’t wait to dig into the yummy, creamy chevre flavoured by the delicate herbs that coat its rind. The second cheese that is making me extra excited is the Louis d’Or. Louis d’Or is new on my cheese-radar. It is a raw cow’s milk cheese that comes from the Fromagerie Presbytere in Quebec, similar in style to a comte. It has a warm, nutty flavour and a smooth texture. It is simply delightful!! I hope to get some more next week to get some pictures and real tasting notes on them!

www.canadiancheeserolling.ca

Ola! Happy August 16! (Did you know that it apparently National Rum Day?? What do we even need such a day for?? – if you happen to be celebrating it, then have a good one!)

I am home from Europe and am going to talk about some of my fun soon, but today I wanted to look at 4 out of the 5 cheese labels that can be found in the Taste of Cheese August Taster, because I feel like it! The labels in the pictures above are from Garrotxa De Cal Bardines, Allegretto, Beemster Vlaskaas, and Laguiole AOC, respectively. I thought it was so interesting to look at the way that dairies brand their cheeses, and how you can analyze whether the label in some way relates to what kind of cheese it is!

Lets take a look at these 4 labels before I give you the deeeeets on the cheese!
#1: Garrotxa de cal Bardines – This is such a beautiful design for a label! It is individual and different, even when compared to the three beside it. It is like a water colour painting with someone’s writing and doodles drawn over it. Amazing! It’s as though the designer thought, what is the most simple and natural, visual way to express this cheese? And I really think that they found it! The colour is bold and simple and the “graphic” definitely has a rustic, old-school appeal and is very individualistic and even a bit whimsical!

#2: Allegretto – This label is much more neutral but because of the cute, dopey little sheep drawing it has a whimsical sense of humour to it! The texture on the label matches that of the rind of the cheese and makes it very approachable. This label definitely belongs on a humble, down-to-earth, local type of cheese.

#3: Beemster Vlaskaas – Now this is a different story all together. The label for Vlaskaas is corporate. It’s clean, its the big cheese (but for serious.. Beemster Vlaskaas is a biggggg wheel of cheese!) But as often happens with some cheese label designs, there’s alot going on here. Maybe a bit too much. The colour is exciting and the brand name, Beemster, is big. Unfortunately, I think the rest sorta gets lost in the mix, but because I know that Beemster is a reputable brand, it certainly doesnt deter me from eating it!

#4: Laguiole AOC: This is a fantastic example of “less-is-more.” The Laguiole AOC label is simple and no BS… It’s got the name, with AOC included so you know its good stuff, a cow so you know what animal pumped out the milk for this cheese, and “Lait Cru” to tell you that the milk is unpasteurized. And that’s that. no froof, frills or fancy-pants pictures, just what you need to know in as few words as possible. It does just that while still being attractive, so I say SUCCESS!

——

So, do these labels match the cheeses?? I say absolutely! The Garrotxa is a rustic, Spanish goat cheese that has big flavour and personality, just like it’s free-wheeling label. The Allegretto is a sweet, fun, easygoing cheese that matches its funny, whimsical label perfectly. Beemster Vlaskaas is a big cheese with unbelievable flavour and execution that should be expected from a brand like Beemster, and the “Corporate” style design of the label fits pretty well. Laguiole AOC’s label fits like a glove. This no-nonsense label goes perfectly with the farmhouse-style big flavoured cheese.

My personal fave is the Garrotxa label. It’s bold, unique style is different and matches to the cheese it covers perfectly!!

What do you think?

Want to try them?? Check’em out at tasteofcheese.ca!

Till Next Time…. Adios!

]]> http://blogtasteofcheese.com/2010/08/16/the-look-of-love-pretty-labels/feed/ 0 tasteofcheese August Cheese Labels http://blogtasteofcheese.com/2010/04/06/wine-and-cheese-kosher-style/ http://blogtasteofcheese.com/2010/04/06/wine-and-cheese-kosher-style/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 02:53:31 +0000 tasteofcheese http://blogtasteofcheese.com/?p=144 ]]> Good Evening Everyone!

Long time no write! I hope that this not-too-bad Winter has passed you all by as pleasantly as it did me! Not only is Winter a fading memory, but so is March and even a bit of April. In fact, one of the holidays that always signals the beginning of spring has also “Passed Over” already! (Get the pun?) To everyone who celebrated Easter, I hope you found a way to incorporate your favourite cheese into your holiday weekend – cheese eggs perhaps? And to everyone who celebrated Passover, I certainly hope that a lack of crackers didn’t keep you from eating cheese!

I am writing to discuss the success of my first Passover Wine and Cheese party – complete with matzah! On Sunday night, about 9 of my closest friends gathered in my living room to enjoy some great cheese, onion confit, passover brownies and chips, grapes and wine. With 6 yummy cheeses to choose from, no one went hungry (even though there wasn’t any crusty baguette!). I brought us home 2 goat cheeses (Bouygette from France and Capricho Romarin from Spain), 1 soft cow’s milk cheese (Chaource from France), 2 firm cheeses (Manchego from Spain, and Comte Juraflore from France) and 1 Blue (Fourme d’Ambert from France). It was a great way to expose everyone to some great French and Spanish cheeses!

Every piece got devoured, except the blue of course, as thats always the cheeses that gets the bad rap. It was like no one noticed that they were pairing their cheese with sawdust, instead it was just cheese, wine and fun all around! My favourite – the rosemary encrusted Capricho Romarin was lauded as a  easy crowd favourite. With its light and refreshing tang and fragrant herbal aroma there is no going wrong with this cheese!

Expect a picture of it posted soon, and for Passover wine and cheeses to become an annual tradition!

- Stacey

“Hmm. That cheese is dated, and it’s going to go to waste – I should definitely eat that” OR “Hmm. How am I going to provide honest opinions on this cheese if I’ve never tasted it before? I could just try a LITTLE slice, right?” OR EVEN “Hmm. Who would notice if a little bit of this one went missing while being cut into smaller pieces.. It was going to be a bit too large anyways”

It is certainly a dietary dilemma that on some days feels impossible to overcome. I suppose my insight is limited, and my ability to not eat all the cheese in my way is motivated by my financial commitment to the gym. I think its time to do some more research on the general healthiness of my yummy addiction. How do you balance cheese and healthy living?

You might be wondering: What has Stacey been doing if she hasn’t been writing on her cheese blog?

Well, here’s the answer to your question! I’ve been doing art projects with cheese labels! (OK, I also went to Florida, but that’s not the point)

As a cheese AND design lover, one of my favourite non-eating parts of cheese is the way it is packaged and the often quirky, unique and beautiful labels! There are few products that provide a canvas for such an amazingly broad spectrum of ephemeral design!! At Taste of Cheese, we get in so many cheeses that all come with extra labels, which usually don’t all get used up. So what does that mean? It means I get to start a collection!

When I was in 2nd year university, I had a design professor who had an endless collection of vintage ephemera (def: Things that exist or are expected to be used only for a short period of time). He would bring in his books full of vintage food labels and at the time I thought: “What a weird, generally useless thing to collect!” I will now openly acknowledge that I have become my middle-aged, white haired, bearded, professor.

My name is Stacey, and I am fascinated by cheese labels.

Anyways, with some of the labels that I really quite liked, I made some art! Now it’s on the wall in my office, and it makes me very happy to see my abstract cheese-label art up there! Take a look!

- Stacey

I can’t even believe it is December 21st! 3 days ’til Christmas, 2 days till the last day of my Cheese box deliveries! The reason I haven’t written in ages is that I’ve been up to my elbows in Brillat, Valencay, Cru de clocher, Trappe Echourgnac and Cabra Pimenton… oh my! The past two weeks mark the busiest and most festive time of the year at Taste of Cheese. Between Taster boxes and Chanukah and Gourmet baskets and Christmas, not much time is left over for blog writing! Nevertheless, I have happily returned to my post as fledging cheese-queen and now I have lots of stories and reviews of new cheeses.

This weekend, in my first couple days of down-time, 2 of my best friends and I had a little wine and cheese party, just because! At our little soiree-pour-trois, I produced some Brillat Aux Truffes, Cendrillon and my personal favourite cheese, maybe of all time, Picobello. Picobello is crumbly, crunchy and crystalline like Parm and rich like Gouda. It takes a moment to register on your buds but the caramel taste of the cheese becomes overwhelmingly AMAZING! If you haven’t tried it, stop reading this blog, and go out and get some! I swear it will be worth your while. I went on to sneak chunks of it over the weekend and even gave it a try on a fresh multi grain bagel, and in no situation did Picobello disappoint. I’m only sad that my chunk is in my fridge at home and not here at work, where I am.

Well, now that I’ve raved about my fave I’m ready to head back out into the wild (or warehouse, if we’re being truthful) and pack up cheese boxes for some unexpecting recipients!

The Big Cheese, Signing off!