TDC Rising

Huzzah!

Back last ZenCon, Xylaria and Chinacat graciously gave me the Gift of Cheese–a subscription to the Cheese of the Month Club.  I was speechless–I mean, it’s CHEESE!  How cool is that?

So here goes–the first shipment has arrived and the tasting complete, he’s what we got.

All of these were aged Euro-cheese, each with a long history.  The Club sens a little paper describing the history and production of each cheese type, and it’s pretty interesting stuff by itself.  Suffice it to say that it’s been a while since any of this stuff saw a cow.

None of them tasted the same or much like what you’d commonly find in the States.  Velveeta smooth these were not–these were sour, crunchy, tangy, sweet, dry as a desert and with an aftertaste to remind you of your meal for hours and hours.

And I loved it

Parmigiano

This is the crunchy stuff from Italy.  The guys at the Club were so impressed they spent two pages extolling it’s virtues.  I guess that makes sense since they also do a wine of the month club, and this cheese tasted nothing less than a shot glass of red wine solidified into a bite-sized crunchy slice.

It’s SWEET, surprisingly so, but the experience is all taste and no smell, or so it seems.  The taste just fills your mouth and moves in for a while, and neither water nor Diet Pepsi can loosen it’s hold.

Gruyere

Cheese from the Swiss, this stuff was carved from wagon wheels.  No, seriously, it’s tough enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see folks using these on the Autobahn.  But one you manage to get some cut up it’s good stuff, kinda salty-sour and a nice consistancy.   Being a slave to the Microwave, my solution to what to do with this was simply Gruyere, meet cracker.

Gouda

Ah, the name says it all.  This was favorite–a nice, neither too sharp nor too shy home brew from the land of windmills.  The Dutch have been making this stuff for centuries, and you can tell why they keep at it.  It’s also the only one of the three that’ll make a good dip, according to the Club writers.  Gonna inflict this on the Friday Pizza Night gang soon–you have warned

And that’s it for this month’s Adventures in Cheese!  Thanks again, Xy and China!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 1:23 am and is filed under MUHAHAHAHA!, The Gift of Cheese. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.