Serving Selles-sur-Cher

Few things are as lovely as a young goat cheese from the Loire Valley.  It is versatile and light, like a new spring coat, and when paired with preserves or a glass of Sancerre, it becomes ethereal, musical – think “Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”

You could say that Selles-sur-Cher is the Catherine Deneuve of goat cheeses, achingly fresh and flawless. It’s the sort of cheese you can’t possibly tire of, and it’s as sparkly for supper, crumbled over salad, as it is for breakfast, slathered on toast with jam. To continue reading, please visit the Di Bruno Blog.

Full disclosure: I freelance for Di Bruno Bros. twice a month. They pay me to write about cheese for their blog, and I run a nugget of the post here.

The Beauty of Valencay

*This is part of a paid series I write for Di Bruno Bros. 

I have a little thing for goat cheeses rolled in ash. I find them arresting, like Alfred Stieglitz photos. Black against white, grainy against creamy – I revel in the contrasts.

Valencay is one of those leave-me-breathless cheeses that Stieglitz probably would have photographed if he and Georgia O’Keefe hadn’t been so obsessed with driftwood. As an object, it’s architecturally pleasing – like a smoldering pyramid; as a cheese, it’s downright ethereal.   

Pick up any cheese book, and you’ll find the author fawning: Janet Fletcher calls Valencay a “classic.” Steven Jenkins writes, “Napoleon loved it, so will you.” And Patricia Michelson waxes on about baking Valencay brownies in her delightful book, The Cheese Room.

To read on, please visit the Di Bruno Blog