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!

Today I had the pleasure of trying out more of the cheeses from Taste of Cheese’s December Cheese Box and I have much to report on the Valencay. Not only is it phenomenal (cheese-tastic?) but it also has a great story behind it, and I’m a sucker for a good story.

Valencay is a raw-milk chevre from the Loire Valley in France. It’s lovely pyramid form is blanketed in a soft ash mould. Legend has it that the Valencay was at one time a pyramid with a point – NOT as in a cheese with something to say. When Napoleon returned to France after failing to conquer Eqypt, it is said that the sight of this pyramid of cheese pissed off the little guy to the point of saying “Off with it’s head!” (Wrong Frenchman – I know!!)

Anyways, after it’s evolution Valencay continued on to become a beloved French chevre, sweet with a bit of a tang and a texture which is a mix between crumbly and melty. It is a bit lactic and herbal and everything else that a great chevre should be!!

I wish I hadn’t tried this one first today. If it had been last on my list of 4 I would have definitely gobbled up more.. but it’s ok! I’m probably going to have to keep testing the Valencay. Maybe every day till it’s gone, you know, just to make sure it’s staying ok!!

Can’t wait!! yummmmmm!!

Stay posted for some exciting pics of the cheese label art I’ve been doing using the oodles of “etiquettes” (aka labels, in French) to make some sweet ephemeral design!!

We got in tons of cheese, that are currently smelling up our packing area.. and not in such a good way. It seems the smells of the various cheeses are kind of clashing… makes me want to send it all to you now! Ok, well, not allll of it!

I am so excited to see one of my favourites, Brillat aux Truffes sitting on the skids! I know its sort of a cliche favourite, but it really is great! Who doesn’t like a brie… that has truffles in it?? It’s like someonecut open one of my favourite foods and shoved another one of my favourite foods right on in there! Its such a fantastic mix of creamy and rich and sharp and savoury. mmm! I can’t wait to break one open!

I ought to be going back to work, writing up cheese description for all of our holiday cheese buyers! Keep your eyes (and mouths) out for more of my favourite cheeses!

Cheese ya later!

Artisanal Premium Cheese Center

Good Morning!
Now that I am back to work in chilly Pefferlaw, Ontario, I can tell you all about the crazy cheese crash course that I took a few days ago at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center in Manhattan. Now, I love cheese, and my goal is to know EVERYTHING there is to know about it – but that reality is far, far away. SO I decided to take a business trip to NYC and take an intense crash course in cheese. While T.O. has lots of places to learn about cheese, nothing could educate me as fast and as well as the 3-day long Master Class at the Artisanal Cheese Center.

Last Saturday I hopped on a plane from YYZ to LGA (mercifully, on time!) and flew into the greatest city in the world – after Toronto, of course! – ok, so REALLY I flew into Queens and stayed in Brooklyn, but it still counts. I had the pleasure of being the guest of a good friend of mine, a recent graduate of Parsons, who was nice enough to abandon life for a while to be my host and tour guide. We spent a great weekend walking around and eating sushi, thai, and dessert at chocolate restaurant, Max Brenner, which is the greatest place I have ever smelled! If you’re ever in NYC, go get something, anything, there! I promise it is worth it!

On Monday morning, after miraculously getting myself to 10th and W37th, my cheese education began. I had the pleasure, along with 10 other cheese-lovers, to be taught by some of the most accomplished cheese men out there: Max McCalman, Waldemar Albrecht, Denis Cottin (a fellow Canadian!) and even a couple more. Not since my favourite university lectures have I been so entranced by new knowledge of a subject. We covered everything from cheese history to the raw milk debate to why cheese is the perfect food! Denis was kind enough to lead our group through the caves at Artisanal, using his knowledge of affinage (aging) to explain to us the life span of each smelly cake of curds we encountered. And all of that doesn’t even include any of the cheese we tasted!!

Over the course of 3 days and 24 hours of class, I tasted at least 50 cheeses and paired many of them with some great wine. Never before has my palatte been bombarded with such amazing, cheesy tastes! I couldn’t begin to tell you my favourite, I have too many (look for those in my next post)!! I came away from the class with more cheesy knowledge than I thought I could and 50 new, favourites!

Next up: “The Cheese Awards” and “Stacey meets Murrays”

Check out the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center:
www.artisanalcheese.com