How to Serve a Cheese Board

Around the holidays, there’s always a flurry of emails from friends and readers about what cheeses to serve and how to arrange them. Here’s the hot scoop on selecting and serving.

Pick a theme.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the cheese counter this time of year. That’s why I like to arrive with a theme in mind. This year, I went for a mushroom cheese board, just for something different. Last year, I divined a Monastic Cheese Plate. You could also go by country (French, Italian, or Spain) or pick American all-stars. When in doubt, choose a variety of milks – cow, sheep, goat, and if you can find it: water buffalo.

Let your cheese relax.

Make like the picture above and set out your cheeses before guests arrive. Cheese is always best served at room temperature. Cover your cheeses with some damp cheese cloth or a damp kitchen towel so that they don’t dry out.

Baguettes, baguettes, baguettes.

If you spend a pretty penny on gorgeous cheese, for heaven’s sake don’t put out sad crackers. A slice of plain baguette is the best raft for a gorgeous mouthful.

Don’t stress about accoutrements.

Put out some honey, dried fruit, a few nuts, and some cured meat, if you like. Don’t worry about perfect pairings. Guests will have fun mixing and matching.

Store leftovers in waxed paper.

When the party’s over, wrap your firm cheeses in waxed paper or parchment – they keep better that way than in Saran. Store your gooey creamies in a plastic tub or jar. Bag your blues and keep them separate from other cheeses so that those beautiful blue spores don’t spread.

Enjoy! And remember to talk to your cheesemonger. This is high season for cheese counters and there are gorgeous delights in stock. If you need a primer on how to talk to a cheesemonger, please read the post and let me know how it goes. 

A Wisconsin Thanksgiving Cheese Board

Here’s a little secret about fall spices like nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon: they pair beautifully with cheese. It makes sense when you think about topping pumpkin pie with whipped cream, or grating nutmeg over a snifter of eggnog.

Last month, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board invited me to put together a Thanksgiving cheese board using cheeses from my home state. How could I resist? Wisconsin produces some of my favorite Cheddars, Alpines, and Blues, so I ordered a dozen samples I wanted to try, then set about to creating.

I also came up with 2 recipes for pairings -- Maple Balsamic Pecans and slow-cooked "Drunk" Figs. You'll find the recipes at the bottom of the post. 

Cheese Selections:

Carr Valley Port Salue

I like the first cheese on a cheese plate to be creamy and mellow. Port Salue has a soft texture, and its orange rind offers a festive burst of color. You could also lead off with Les Frères or Petit Frère. 

Marieke Clove Gouda

Maybe you noticed my earlier post about this curious aged Gouda, studded with cloves and a hint of cumin. It tastes like the holidays, and it pairs nicely with slow-cooked figs and a snifter of brandy.

Virgin Pine Native Blue

I've wanted to try this blue-less blue since I saw it win a medal at the American Cheese Society this summer. It tastes like strong Cheddar with blues playing in the background.   

Tilston Point
In winter, I love to end a cheese plate with a gutsy Stilton-esque number. This strong blue from Hook's  pairs well with nuts and figs.

Serve this cheese plate before dinner with a round of Old Fashioned cocktails or dark beer; after dinner, break out the sherry or port. Baguette rounds, oat crackers and amaretti cookies make lovely accompaniments, too.

~

Maple Balsamic Pecans with Sea Salt

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons maple syrup, or brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 cup shelled pecan halves

Sea salt

Cooking directions:

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 325˚ F.  Combine maple syrup and balsamic vinegar in a small mixing bowl, then add pecans and stir until well coated. Spread mixture onto parchment-lined tray and bake for 15 minutes, until pecans are bubbling and browned.

Sprinkle sea salt over warm pecans. Once the nuts are cool, store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Drunk Figs

Servings: 8-10

Ingredients:

1/2 cup boiling water

1/2 cup honey

2 8-ounce bags of dried Black Mission figs, halved

2 tablespoons orange zest, julienned

1/2 cup fresh orange juice

1/2 cup brandy

2 cinnamon sticks

2 cloves

Cooking directions:

These are easiest to prepare in a slow cooker – they take 4 hours on high and make the house smell amazing. If you prepare them on the stove top, use a lidded saucepan and cook them for 3-4 hours at a low simmer.

In a slow cooker or sauce pan, combine boiling water and honey, stirring until blended.  Then add halved figs, orange zest, orange juice, brandy and spices. The figs will plump up as they cook and are best stored overnight in their juices before serving. Refrigerated, these keep almost indefinitely.  

Époisses

The star cheese of our Thanksgiving plate was a little French wheel washed in brandy. I’d read about it in The Cheese Primer, in Murray’s Cheese Handbook, and in a book on pairings by Janet Fletcher, Cheese and Wine. Here was an old monastery cheese that was rumored to taste like meat and garlic, an Old World stinker perfected by monks. Époisses is also rumored to be banned from French trains due to its smell.

So, I expected a real whiff-burger, but my wheel of Epoisses did not stink up the fridge. And it did not offend our brazen band of dinner guests, who spent a whole afternoon eating and drinking around the cheese board while Monseiur Fromage prepared his time-consuming “Turkey in a Shroud.” The real key, though, was pairing this cheese with a great wine. Wow, the white Burgundy that several Internetters recommended brought flavors out of this cheese that were absolutely novel to witness. Rarely have I enjoyed such an optimal pairing.

We drove to New Jersey to find a bottle of 2008 Joseph Drouhin Saint-Véran (about $15). Cooled it on the back stoop, brought the cheese to room temperature, and let our couch-clan of tasters descend. The response was YouTube-able; a sip of wine after a nibble of Epoisses had everyone’s eyebrows on the ceiling. “Oh my god,” exclaimed our Blue Cheese Brit, who had just arrived with a bag of delicious patés and cheeses under his arm.

With all the hype, Époisses may sound scary. I found it surprisingly tame but perfectly balanced. It’s a bit whiffy, but only when you take it out of its round package – the fragrance calls to mind onions, mushrooms, a damp carpet of leaves. The taste, however, is wicked; think of a brandy-spiked venison pate, then add a velvetine mouthfeel, and give it a tangy orange rind.

Wine-and-cheese guru Janet Fletcher recommends serving Époisses with a Riesling or a Dry Pinot Gris, while others suggest a Cab. Frankly, I would never serve it without the Saint Véran white burgundy we enjoyed over Thanksgiving. It was truly…it sounds canned, I know…but I mean it: astonishing.

Other highlights from our Thanksgiving cheeseboard:

Keen’s Cheddar: a flawless raw-milk farmhouse cheddar that our friend, the Blue Cheese Brit, calls his old steady. He says it’s “a must” in any gentleman’s crisper.

Forsterkase: A bacony-flavored, washed-rind, raw-milk cheese from Switzerland that is cured in spruce bark. Yes, bacony! This is a fantastically heady and bizarre cheese that calls to mind hunting lodges and men wearing wineskins into the woods. The rind looks like a dirty hiking boot but is whack-delicious in a herdsman kind of way.

Yes, yes, that is the famed "Turkey in a Shroud." There's our bird after two days of marinating in a mustard rub. The cheesecloth shroud was draped over her at half past twelve, and she was basted every quarter hour, which meant that she wasn't ready until almost 7:30 p.m. Was she a fine bird, our little Nefertiti? Oh, she was.