Recently, I was brought an apartment-warming gift from my friend Eleanor that delighted my cheesy self! It was a Topo Cheese Knife by Michael Aram from the “Dream: Flights of Fancy Collection.” When I’m out shopping – which is often – I always have my eyes out for new cheese accessories, but I had never come across any of Aram’s artful pieces. I’ve only tried the mouse knife on a buttery soft cheese thus far, and for a cheese of that density it works quite well. I have yet to try and use it to slice through a firmer piece of cheese. Intrigued by the whimsical mouse-shaped knife I did some research on its creator beyond what was provided on the helpful info card that was folded into the box.

Michael Aram is a designer who has lived and worked in India since the late 80′s. He is  trained in a diverse spectrum of artistic techniques, all of which are expressed in his huge variety of different designs! I checked out his website (www.michaelaram.com) and immediately decided I want everything on it – especially his well-known skeleton chair, olive branch menorah, and his swiss cheese cutting board and knife!

I can’t wait to start decking out my pad in his designs – well… dreaming of decking out my pad.

Check out some of my favourites!

Olive Branch Menorah

Swiss Cheese Cheese Board and Knife

Skeleton Chair

ALSO: Check out the fanciful Miss Muffet Tea Strainer!  Clickety-Click Here to see it!

‘Til next time, Au Revoir!

Welcome to my new cheesy obsession: The 33 Pieces of Cheese Tasting Notebook! I was browsing around on other cheese blogs and I came across someone who had blogged about these notebooks and given my occasional tendency to be a design nerd, I was immediately drawn to them! If you’re the type who loves good cheese and good design, these tasting books are for you!

33 Pieces of Cheese was developed by Dave Selden, who first created a Beer
Tasting notebook and has since expanded into cheese, whiskey, coffee and
more! Now, great design is nice, but a cheese tasting notebook would never get 2 thumbs up from me if it wasn’t useful, practical and highly functional!

Take another second to admire the exterior (printed on recycled heavy-weight kraft paper)… done? Ok, now on to the inside

Flip open the cover and find a well-designed, minimalistic and clear page, perfect for jotting down your notes on all of the cheeses you taste! There are various ways on each small page to record what you think about the cheesy-goodness you’re munching on! You are given spots to record the name, the dairy the cheese is made at, origin, rind type, price and the date you tasted on. There are also checkboxes for what type of milk the cheese is made from as well as stars to colour in based upon your rating, and a texture meter that lets you remember how soft or firm the cheese was. Jot down some quick notes on the few lines provided and then move on to my favourite part – the Flavour Wheel. The flavour wheel is what makes the 33 Pieces so amazing. The flavour wheel is a little circular graph with various flavour profiles encircling the border. To fill out the graph, look at each specific flavour profile and rate it on a scale of 1 through 5 (5 being the outer perimeter of the circle, where the flavour is most intense). Make a dot on where you think your cheese belongs for each flavour and then connect all the dots together – and there you have it, a unique graph for each cheese you taste!! Eventually you will get to recognize certain shapes and how they are associates with certain types of cheeses and flavours.

Now all that there is left to do is try 33 different cheeses to fill up my book – and then maybe buy the 33 Beers book and go for that, too!

If you’re interested in these great booklets, check out 33beers.com or keep your eyes on tasteofcheese.ca because as soon as we receive our shipment of books, they’ll be up for sale! Hoorah!

Good night and happy eating!

Where have you found food that looks like a work of art??

Girolle: Thanks to wikipedia.com for giving reader a perfect example of the delicate rosettes made by spinning the girolle blade round a Tete de Moine!

Behold this amazing work of art from Snakes and Lattes, on Bloor St. A friend ordered a Latte while we were playing board games and we were all surprised that this "cup of art" was delivered to our table! This one definitely scores in the "almost too amazing to eat" category! (She did drink it, of course)

In a world full of fantastical fondant covered cakes, this marble iced cake from Phipps Bakery (that I bought for my cousins wedding) was a delight to my eyes! The soft, buttery peaks were perfectly swirled, except for where I mushed the box into the side a little bit! It was a perfect addition to a rehearsal dinner sweet table! It was worth cutting into as it was a very yummy chocolate and vanilla cake inside! Only crumbs remained.

A lovely treat from the Cake Opera, which I can't help but mention again!!! Their nougat bars are worthy of being framed!!! (and then unframed, so that I can eat them!)

I forgot to take a picture of the cheese before I ate it all!! This is the label!

One of Ontario’s finest cheese makers has developed a new winner! Upper Canada Cheese has released a limited edition cheese called Cottage Gold!! I had the pleasure of tasting this cheese and can’t wait to tell you all about it.

The Upper Canada Cheese Company is located in Jordan Station, Ontario and they are best known for providing us with the esteemed cheese, Niagara Gold. Upper Canada Cheese prides itself on creating cheeses from the milk of the herd of Guernsey cows that they maintain on their farm. Their herd is one of very few Guernsey herds in Canada. The Comfort family does all that they can to create cheese of the highest quality for all of us to enjoy.They create cheese using traditional methods and no mechanical intervention. All of their cheeses are hand-made, hand wrapped and hand salted.

If you are a Canadian cheese lover, you have likely tasted Upper Canada’s most well-known cheese, Niagara Gold. Niagara Gold is an Oka style cheese, semi-soft with an orange tinted washed rind. The new release, Cottage Gold, is an updated version of its predecessor. Cottage Gold is also a hand-made, washed rind cheese, however, it is aged for a longer period of time (5 months). Cottage Gold is more like a cheddar, with a lower moisture content and more salt. From the outside, the Cottage Gold still looks very similar to the Niagara Gold – with an orange washed rind. Once the cheese is cut into, the visual differences are clear. This cheese has a darker coloured paste with a few more eyes (or holes!) spattered throughout. The aroma is a bit warmer and smells toastier and nuttier. There does not seem to be as much of the pungent aroma that I am used to finding on the Niagara Gold. With my first bite, it is clear Cottage and Niagara Gold are quite different from one another. The paste of Cottage Gold has more firmness to it, slightly like a cheddar as the official tasting notes suggest. The flavours are deeper and ring clear with notes of toast, nuts, salt and even a bit of butterscotch! The cheese smoothly melts, though it does so with a bit of resistance, which I expect to find in a firm cheese. Overall, I was VERY impressed with this new Upper Canada cheese. It did occur to me that the cheese reminded me of an aged gouda-style cheese, such as the Glengarry Lankaaster, as well as traditional cheddar. This was a delightful conclusion as gouda-style cheeses are amongst my favourite in the vast world of cheeses!

How to eat it:
Aside from eating a whole block on its own – which is what I did with my piece of Cottage Gold, there are lots of fitting places for Cottage Gold. Upper Canada Cheese suggests putting it on your burgers, crumbling it over a salad and using it to make Mac and Cheese. The last suggestion is one I intend to try – how did they know that Mac ‘n’ Cheese is my favourite food? I do want to emphasize that how I chose to taste Cottage Gold is not to be overlooked! This cheese will be a great addition to a cheese board, paired with jams, spreads, fresh baguette and local charcuterie. It will be even more perfect if you take that cheese board down to the dock at your cottage (or a friends!) and enjoy by the sparkling lake on a warm summer day!!

I hope they have Cottage Gold featured at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival this weekend in Picton, ON!

Here is Upper Canada Cheese’s website: www.uppercanadacheesecompany.com

Thanks for coming back to read the second part of my blog post about my trip to La Moutonniere. Lets continue with day #3!!

Lucille, Straining fresh Ricotta!

Day 3:
I awoke again, super-early to head over to the Fromagerie to make cheese with Lucille. Today we were going to be finishing off the Ricotta started the night before and making the Fromagerie staple, Bleu de la Moutonniere! When I arrived at the plant, Lucille was busy preparing the milk for cheese making and the vat of ricotta was being rapidly heated. Once the vat reached the desired temperature and bubbled about for a little while, it was time to scoop it out and strain it. It was amazing to see the snow-white curd floating atop the vat of excess whey and it came out smelling warm and salty. We scooped away until the whole vat was emptied and the large cloth bags Lucille held open were full as could be!

Cutting Curd for Bleu de la Moutonniere!

Next up was making Bleu de la Moutonniere. This process started similarly to the day before. We waited for the milk to coagulate and once it was done so, the curd was cut. Then came the first change in cheese making. Today, the curd was cut into small cubes as opposed to tiny, uneven spheres. Making blue cheese requires a few changes from the firm cheese we had produced the day before. The curd is cut into larger cubes, then aerated on a large tray and finally packed loosely into moulds, in order to provide spaces where mould growth would be promoted. Once the whole vat had been dissected, I was privy to a new experiment. A new machine  was being test driven to pipe out the curd cubes, air them out along a conveyor belt and the plop them into waiting moulds. The experiment was mostly successful, however, a few required tweaks made us revert back to the hand-scooped method.

Scooping Curd into Moulds

We hauled out the huge amount of curd onto a cloth-covered table and then scooped the curd into moulds. Once we were done and cleaned I was given the task of turning and salting cheese that was residing in the aging cave. I took a tablespoon of salt and rubbed it all over each of the cheeses ready for a flip over! Once that was complete, all that was left was cleaning up!

Day 4:
On day 4 I worked on the farm with Al. There isn’t too much new information to report about the day other than that I got a bit more proficient at milking sheep! During my stay on the farm, I was waiting to see lambs birthed by any of the very pregnant sheep in the barn. Each morning and night we would check out the pen of ready-to-pop sheep and each time I was disappointed to find that no lambs had arrived. On day 4, I took to observing one sheep that seemed to be showing the signs of labour which Al told me to look out for, such as getting up to turn around, finding an isolated spot and not chewing on hay like the other sheep. Unfortunately the sheep didn’t appease me by popping out a lamb, and so I went to sleep knowing that I would be leaving the next morning and it would be my last chance to see a lamb being birthed.

Mama Sheep and Baby Lamb!

Day 5:
I awoke to the sun, bright and early and went down to the barn. To my excitement, Al let me know that the sheep I had been watching the day earlier really was about to give birth. He went over to the sheep to assist it along and before I knew it, a little lamb (which was admittedly kinda gross looking) had fallen out of the sheep – literally it fell out! Al took a look at the sheep and informed me another lamb was on the way. As Al went back to work, I stayed to watch and saw the sheep give birth to the second lamb all on its own!!! And so I felt my trip was complete.I had made 3 types of cheese, milked sheep, seen a sheep give birth.. what else could I ask for! And so, after saying Au Revoir I headed out on the road to drive the 7 hours home, ready to tell the story of my life on a farm to anyone who would listen!

Thanks to Al and Lucille for graciously hosting me and for really letting me get my hands dirty!

Here is the story, in a few installments, of my adventure!!!

A BIT ABOUT LA MOUTONNIERE:
La Moutonniere is a fantastic Quebec Fromagerie that produces a number of sheep’s milk cheeses, all in their recently-built, state-of-the-art cheese-making plant! Owned and operated by Lucille Giroux and Alastair MacKenzie, this fromagerie is an intimate operation with lots of heart and great cheese. MacKenzie runs the farming operation while Giroux, oversees the cheesemaking. MacKenzie takes great care of their flock of sheep, ensuring production of milk of the highest quality. This rich, creamy white milk is then turned into award-winning cheese by Giroux and her cheese-making team! Check out their website: www.lamoutonniere.com

DAY 1:
I got in my car at about 10am on last Monday morning, drove to a near-by drugstore and stocked up on on-sale Easter chocolate, which would provide sustenance on my 7 hour drive to Victoriaville, QC. By dusk I had reached the town where Alastair Mackenzie, a co-owner of La Moutonniere, lives. Al had invited me to come spend time at the farm and fromagerie and would prove to be a fantastic host! We departed for the farm in Ste-Helene-de-Chester, and I followed behind Al’s car, the worry of losing him growing stronger as my cell phone signal grew weaker. Al, who hails from New Zealand, showed me into the cottage that sits on the farm property. I dropped my stuff and went to be introduced to the other residents of the farm: the sheep!

DAY 2:
My alarm went off at the unseemly time of 5:50am. I dragged myself out of my sleeping bag as fast as I could and dressed myself in my “farm clothes” and went out to meet Al in the barn. I started to size up my new sheepy acquaintances, and fed them some hay. Next up was feeding little baby lambs milk out of baby bottles. Though animals aren’t always my favourite, the small lambs were pretty cute!! Once the animals were fed, it was milking time. I was introduced to Al’s farm assistant, Joannie, and they showed me the ropes. This morning would be different than the rest. We were going to be testing the milk and grading their bodies and udders for quality. The sheep started to line up on the sides of the milking station and I touched my FIRST udders ever! It was very cool to watch the milking process and I started to help out in no time! The only uncool part? When one of my new friends peed on my hand – I was both grossed out and proud that I didn’t scream out loud! When all the sheep had been tested and milked, I went to take a shower. After lunch, we drove over to the cheese-making plant where I met Lucille, the jovial head cheesemaker at Moutonniere.

That afternoon, I would get my first taste of cheese-making! I slipped into a white cotton uniform, big rubber boots, a hairnet and a plastic apron and joined Lucille and her assistant Martina in the cheese room. The room is clean and sterile, full of huge stainless steel vats, tables and contraptions. Lucille started to empty the pasteurized milk from the huge pasteurizing machine into the large, open vat in the middle of the room. I watched intently at she mixed up the rennet that would be added to the vat to help the milk to coagulate. I was shocked as to how little rennet was added to the large vat, which held dozens and dozens of litres of milk! We set a stopwatch and within an hour the liquid milk had become a gelatinous mass. The large vat of curd was cut into tiny pieces using mechanical and hand-held wires and then came the fun part. That afternoon we were making one of their famous cheeses, Fleur des Monts, and the curd needed to be transferred into the many waiting cylindrical moulds. The whey was strained out into other large vats, where it would later be turned into Ricotta, and we cut up the curds into big blocks and packed it into the moulds. It was hard work!! The moulds were then covered with a lid, tied up and put into a compression machine. I was fascinated by the squeaky little curds, and I couldn’t wait until they became whole cheeses! Next on the agenda was beginning the ricotta-making process. Lucille added salt and vinegar to the whey and left it to settle overnight. I was told that by the next morning, after the mixture was heated that ricotta would emerge out of the cloudy liquid. I couldn’t wait!

After all of the curds were used up, it was time to clean. The most important lesson that I learned that day was that cheesemaking seems to be about 35 percent making cheese, and 65 percent cleaning up!!! We cleaned, and scrubbed and sprayed stuff down for what seemed like hours. Finally, when all was spotless, we closed up shop for the night.

Phew!!! what a day! I headed back to the cottage on the farm and relaxed for the rest of the night so I would be ready to make Ricotta and Bleu de la Moutonniere the next day!

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT!

Some of the Cheesy Finalists

WHEW, What a night!!! Last night was the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix Gala at the Palais Royale where the winners of best cheeses of 2011 were announced. I was lucky enough to have been invited and it was a very swanky affair put on by the Dairy Farmers of Canada! Hosted by TV personalities Ben Mulroney and Anne-Marie Withenshaw, the event was like the Oscars for cheese. I was seated at a table for Media Invitees that was full of bloggers, tweeters, etc, where we could sit with our phones/cameras out and not be considered rude.

The Gala began with a cocktail hour where drinks and hors d’oeuvres created by students at George Brown were served. The awards followed, with tastings of the winning cheeses coming out to the table in groups after about 4-6 awards. In total, we tasted 17 cheeses – which is a lot.. even for me! The categories (there were 17 of them) ranged from Fresh Cheese to Farmhouse to Blue to Cheddar (lots of cheddar!) and it was amazing to be able to taste so many all at once! Each cheese course was served with pairings, such as veggies, nuts and eggs as well as red or white wine to wash the cheese down. CLICK HERE to see the list of all the winners!

One of our 3 cheese courses

And what about the cheese? I was very happy to munch on some of my favourites, which certainly got the recognition that they deserved!! Amongst all of the cheeses were a few that have always stood out to me as fantastic Canadian cheeses, such as the Grand Champion, Louis d’Or, as well as Avonlea Cheddar, Blue Elizabeth, 4-Year Perron Cheddar and Lankaaster! A new surprise was the flavourful and complex Mont Jacob and the rich, velvety Tre Stelle Mascarpone! The big winner of the night was Louis d’Or, which won in 3 different categories, as well as winning the overall prize! Keep your eyes peeled for a blog post all about Louis d’Or, coming soon!!

Overall, it was a great event with lots of cheese to eat, and lots of people to meet! I can’t wait to start putting up some of the winners on tasteofcheese.ca and getting them to people all over Canada. Thanks again to Beatrice for the invitation, I had a great time!

Cheers to Cheese!

I have exciting news! Tonight is the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Gala where the winners of the Best Cheeses of 2011 will be announced… and I’m lucky enough to have an invitation to attend! To a cheese-fiend like myself, that’s like finding one of Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets inside a chocolate bar!

Tonight, 250 people of the Canadian cheese world will gather at the Palais Royale to find out which cheeses have emerged from the pack to be honoured and admired. As someone who works with cheese every day, in a warehouse/office, its very exciting to get to go to a cheesy event! It should be a great opportunity to shmooze with cheesemakers, store owners and suppliers and meet some of the people who sell me cheese, and who I sell cheese to!

Want to know which cheeses are in the running? CLICK HERE to read the list of cheese finalists for 2011 developed by the Dairy Farmers of Canada. Which cheese am I cheering for? One of my all-time Canadian favourites, Louis d’Or is a finalist in 3 different categories. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it wins at least once!

I’ll be equipped with my iPhone to tweet in real time what’s going on! Tomorrow I’ll come back and let you all know how it went.

I think that I have a way to brighten up this gloomy, chilly Monday morning for you! Have you ever heard of the Great Canadian Cheese Festival? Perhaps you haven’t, as this June marks the first occurrence of the celebration of Canadian Cheese. The Festival is taking place on June 4-5, 2011 in Picton, Ontario in Prince Edward County and the initiative has been sparked by cheese-lover, Georgs Kolesnikovs.

Here’s what their website has to say about the Festival:

The Great Canadian Cheese Festival will be an annual event, based in Prince Edward County, attracting cheese enthusiasts and culinary adventurers from mainly Ontario at the outset, with future growth coming from other regions of Canada and nearby United States.

Check out the Festival website: http://www.cheesefestival.ca

I am so excited to announce that Georgs and his team have offered me a pair of tickets to give away to the Saturday All-Day Tasting Seminar Program (june 4) at the Festival! This is going to be a great day full of cheese education, perfect for any cheese lover!! CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE INFO ABOUT THIS EVENT!

Here’s How to Win:

Tell me what your favourite Canadian cheese is! Enter by leaving the name of the cheese, and why you love it, as a comment on this post!

Want two shots at winning? Tweet your fave Canadian cheese and mention me: @tasteofcheese and #TGCCF. Make sure to mention your tweet in a your comment on this post!!

The contest will run for 2 weeks and will close on Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 12:00am! The winner will be picked by a random third-party source and once the winner is announced, they must contact me at either @tasteofcheese or stacey@tasteofcheese.ca within 1 week or they will lose out on their prize!

This contest is open to any Canadian resident who can make their way to Picton on June 4, 2011!!

Good luck, and see you at the festival!

It’s a true Canadian spring out there (aka a mushy rainy/snowy day), so what better time to start a season of endlessly tasting cheese! Early this afternoon I pulled out a piece of a Canadian cheese that I had never tasted before, though I know I most certainly should have!

Today I tasted a Canadian Classic, Le Migneron de Charlevoix. Here are my tasting notes!

Le Migneron de Charlevoix is a pasteurized cow’s milk made from a herd of Holstein cows. It is produced by Laiterie Charlevoix and Maison d’Affinage Maurice Dufour in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec. This semi-firm, washed rind cheese has been in production since being created by Maurice Dufour 1995 when it became one of the first artisanal Quebec cheeses to gain notoriety in Canada. Over the years it was refined and by 2002 it was deemed worthy of winning the overall grand prize at the Canadian Grand Prix Competition. What helps to make this cheese fantastic is the care that the House of Maurice Dufour puts into the aging of every wheel of its cheese! 9 years after Le Migneron de Charlevoix won the title of Canada’s best cheese it still holds up to the award!! Here are tasting notes for this scrumptious cheese:

The Look:
Le Migneron de Charlevoix is a washed-rind cheese with pale straw-coloured paste and a rind that varies in hue, from golden brown to peachy pink to tangerine orange. The cheese looks dense and solid – like a frozen solid ice cream cake topped by a thin protective skin. The rind has a bit of texture created by the mold that the cheese is aged within.

The Smell:
The cheese has contrasting smells, pungent from the rind and mild and fruity from the paste. The rind smells strong and barnyardy, and as though the cheese was aged right near the cows that provided its milk. Though barny, the rind is not overpowering – just perfectly pungent and farm-like. The paste is milder, with a bit of lingering barnyard but also ripening fruits and hay. The floral smells of the animal’s feed wafts from the cheese. I find that I become more accustomed to the aroma as I continue to stick the piece inches from my nose, over and over!

The Feel:
Le Migneron de Charlevoix has just the kind of texture I like in washed rind cheeses. I don’t actually die for goopy, runny stinkers – I like a little bit of firmness (unless I have amazing bread to spread goopy paste on!). This cheese has a dense paste which bends and folds before breaking. I put a slice over my tongue and let it start to melt away, which it does slowly while drooping at the sides. It is creamy and smooth (even silky) and cool on my palate and has no granular feeling at all! yummy!

The Taste:
So how does Le Migneron de Charlevoix Taste? Splendid – if you ask me! The complex mix of fruity, nutty, barny flavours are expressed in a well balanced way that makes me think of each flavour profile as the cheese wilts over various parts of my tongue. The slightly piquant aftertaste of each bite clears the way for the sweeter flavours to come through in the next bite! I feel like I can taste the land that the herd lives on and I keep taking more bites to try and distinguish more flavours. The most addictive part of the cheese is the salty smack that makes me eat piece after piece, just like how I eat a whole can of pringles once I’ve popped the top!

How to eat:
How would I eat this cheese? As a table (or desk) cheese that I can lob hunks off of! Either I would eat it alone or with fresh baguette or salty but plain crackers. The Migneron website suggests cooking with it!

Pair with:
A Pinot Noir

Check out the Migneron Family Website CLICKITY CLICK HERE!