Meet Garrotxa

I have a tendency to look past small, hard cheeses in favor of washed rinds, blues, and anything wrapped in lace or bark. On a recent cheese plate, however, Garrotxa – a vibrant Spanish goat cheese – caught my eye. It’s my new little velvetine rabbit.

Garrotxa (guh-ROACH-uh) is distinguished by a fine layer of gray-brown surface mold that looks like woven cloth. It smells -- dare I say this? -- like a stuffed animal that was propped under the cheek of a sleeping child. Imagine acorns, soft bedding, sweet milk. To continue reading, click here. 

Full disclosure: This is part of a paid series I write for Di Bruno Bros. Twice a month, I select a cheese and develop a post for their blog. This is how I cover the cost of my dairy habit.

Beer and Cheese Pairings

In the last year, I've popped a lot of bottle tops at cheese tastings. One thing I've noticed: beer is forgiving. It's hard to find one that doesn't like at least one style of cheese, and many brews go with multiple cheese styles. Take stouts, for example. They're such good matches for salty blues, and they're willing to double-bunk with triple cremes. That's great for someone like me who loves blues but hangs out with a lot of Brie heads.

Interestingly, most cheese books don't offer pairings for beer, only wine. Bummer. I like Sauv Blanc with soft goat cheeses, too, but sometimes that age-old classic feels like a rewind. Ever had Humboldt Fog with a wheat beer? Mesmerizing.

Lots of tastings that I follow around the country -- remotely, mostly, I'm not like a Phish Fan who follows cheeses across country, although I do like the thought -- are highlighting craft beer and artisanal cheese. Maybe it's the economy. Popping a cap rather than pulling a cork tends to be easier on the debit card.

On Sunday, I'm co-hosting an autumn cheese class with beer and preserves, so I've spent a lot of time nosing around the internet for interesting suggestions. If you, like me, like monkeying around with dairy and hops, here are a few highlights and little ol' rules of thumb.

Beer Pairing Tips & E-Sources

-Heavy beer draws out meaty flavors in cheese, while lighter beers highlight creamy textures. Many thanks to Slashfood's Belgian Ale 101 for that one.

-Alpine cheeses with bocks and Oktoberfest? That makes sense -- why wouldn't Germans reach for native cheeses to pair with their malty creations? Beer Advocate called that one.

-I lean on my home cheese counter, Di Bruno Bros., for most of my beer pairings. I've never forgotten Hunter Fike's recommendation for Marcel Petit Comte and Dogfish Head Punkin Ale.

-At the Artisanal website, there's a list of cheeses that pair well with a variety of beers, from saisons to lambics. I'm curious to put a meaty Epoisses against an IPA.

-Ever tried Rodenbach Red Ale? It's wildly complex -- sour, oaky, with a big fruity pop to the eye. I've been mulling over an appropriate cheese. Thanks to Brewtopia, I'm off to try some French Munster.

-For pairing basics and a beer glossary, check out The Nibble. They offer a useful chart with some interesting combos, like Provolone and pale ale.

-Back in spring, I pulled a local beer blogger into my kitchen and asked him to advise on beers for a plate of fabulous cheese. His research notes at In Search of Beer are pretty great.

-If you want a fun tasting prop, print out the beer-and-cheese pairing placemat from Cypress Grove. These guys make gorgeous goat cheese, and they've got the marketing down.

Other useful pairing tips? Shout me.

Goes Well With Berries

It’s berry picking season, and that means one thing: cheese and fresh fruit for dinner. I love nothing more than loading up on cherries, strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries and setting out a cheese board to match. Add a plate of smoked fish, a light salad, some white wine, and you’ve got a glorious feast. No fuss. No hot oven.

Haystack’s Queso de Mano is one of my favorite summer cheeses for berries. It’s a raw milk goat cheese – very gentle but nutty and herbaceous – from Longmont, Colorado. To continue reading, please click here.

Full disclosure: This piece is part of a series I write for Di Bruno Bros. The deal is, I choose the cheese, and they pay me to develop a post. This is how I cover the cost of my habit

Pepito and the Last of the Radishes

 

Sometimes the earth makes my head spin, like when I cut open this giant Beauty Heart Radish from our community garden and the cleaved halves looked like a pair of pink lungs.

This radish was spicy. Almost too spicy to eat, but I couldn’t stand the thought of it lobbing so much beauty into the compost bucket. So I found it a mate, a hot-headed companion: Pepito.

Pepito is made by Yellow Springs, a goat dairy in Chester County, PA. The recipe is based on a traditional Italian cheese, called Pepato (meaning “with pepper”), a Pecorino speckled with whole peppercorns. It’s not a fancy dancer, but it has some can-can. When you need a kick, Pepato – or Pepito --  can be a frisky addition to the cheese plate. It's also great with a crisp, summery beer.

This particular Pepito landed in our fridge via the goat cheese CSA I signed up for this summer. Look at that rind – it almost looks like the surface of a root vegetable. You know I like a little surface mold. It’s the sign of a healthy cheese. A living cheese.

The taste of this cheese is sublime – it’s fudgy and clean-tasting, not at all tangy. The only zest comes from the spicy peppercorns, which add a springy, almost floral note.

This is the key to cheeses with “flavorings” or spices. They shoudn’t overpower the milk. Next time you nibble a flavored or smoked cheese, see if you can still detect the milky taste of the cheese itself. If you can’t, that’s a flaw.

For an example of this balance, try Marco Polo, a sharp cheddar from Seattle, dotted with green and black peppercorns. The company, Beecher’s, just opened a cheese omniplex in New York. It's worth making a trip for a wedge.

Or, grab a hunk of original Pepato.

My Goat Cheese CSA

It's true. Yellow Springs delivers. Well, actually it's not quite that easy, but this is my first installment of a summer CSA program run by one of my fave cheese-making outfits in Chester County, PA.

I don't know of any other cheesemakers using the CSA model, but it does seem pretty savvy and -- on the receiving end -- quite deluxe. Every other week an organic grocery service (Panache Foods) drops off a cooler full of goat cheese, along with any meat and produce I've ordered. It's better than getting take-out.

This is the second year that Yellow Springs has offered CSA shares, a program that puts 20-24 different cheeses into the hands of their customers over a period from May to November. I paid about $250 up front for 13 deliveries; each installment includes 3 varieties of raw and pasteurized goat cheese.

Here's the first installment, unveiled:

My favorite cheese in this batch was Fieldstone (center), an earthy, firm cheese with a delectable rind. The paste was dense like a Gouda, and the flavor called to mind wild grass, prairie weather. On rustic bread, it was delicious with a touch of jam. Bliss, the bloomy cheese on the right, tasted a little soapy -- it wasn't as ripe as the last time I tried it, back in December during a farm visit. The pepper-garlic chevre disappeared from our fridge right away, tucked into lunches, alongside sliced veggies.

I'm ready for the next batch of goat-cheese stocking stuffers. It arrives Thursday. I'm excited to try a new cheese from the Renzi's, called Iron Spring -- it's rubbed with paprika and named after the natural spring that bubbles up on their land. The "rusty" rind is a nod to the high concentration of iron that colors the water.

One thing that sets the Renzi's apart: they run a native plant nursery in addition to milking Nubians. All of the "flavors" they add to their cheeses are grown on their farm, including saffron, black walnuts, fresh herbs, and honey.

Curious to try Yellow Springs cheese? The Renzi's will be part of the Stoudt's Wonderful Good Cheese Festival in Adamstown, PA from 2-5 p.m. on June 11.

Lemony, Lovely Pantaleo

Back in April, a friend gave me a bag of lemons from her family tree in Florida, and their bright floral bite sent me on a citrus binge. That’s how I came to Pantaleo, a firm Sardinian goat cheese that smells like lemon yogurt and tastes – in its youth – as delicate as the Madaleines that sent Proust into literary reverie. Pantaleo even dissolves into crumbly bits on the tongue, like a cookie.

Italian cheeses, I have learned, are transformative. To keep reading, please click here to jump to the Di Bruno Bros. blog.

Full disclosure: I freelance for Di Bruno Bros. twice a month. They pay me to write about any cheese I like, 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

Chabrin: Today's Lunch

Yes, this really was my lunch. I had the day to work at home and I was photographing cheeses – pudgy, stinky things – when I remembered that I had a hunk of this gorgeously nutty French goat cheese in the fridge, left over from a department party.

I also had a pile of fruit and veg on the counter, so I decided to forage for a perfect combination. A little crusty bread, some grapes, a mellow breakfast radish. When I ate this little plate, I thought, “Why do I ever eat anything else?”

There is no better lunch than a hunk of bread, a wedge of cheese, and something sweet and crispy on the side.

Chabrin is a perfect lunch cheese – it is mild without being inert. (So many “mellow cheeses” get lost on me; I want to like them, but they are like so many of the people I knew in high school – no personality.) I love a cheese that can wear bangles. Chabrin can wear bangles; she can wear big fake eyelashes. This is a goat cheese with razzmatazz.

The texture is exquisite – smooth and not at all gummy (or gamey) the way aged goat cheeses can be. The flavor is all hazelnut and toffee. Chabrin calls to mind salt caramel. Smooth, pleasantly salty, creamy.

Chabrin comes from the French Pyrenees, the same region that produces Ossau Iraty. I bought this wedge at Downtown Cheese in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, where, sadly, the monger couldn't tell me much about it -- although he consulted his Cheese Primer.

If cheeses were CDs, this would be on heavy rotation. Chabrin -- she is my new BFF.

Chabrin, posing for pics at a Jesuit function

Mount Sterling Raw Goat Cheddar

In this latest heat wave, goat cheese has become my cold compress. No, I don’t apply blocks of it to my forehead, but I do find it cooling – one glance at this icy white goat’s milk cheddar from Mount Sterling and my core temperature drops. I begin to hallucinate snow in the air, mountain goats bleating in the distance.

Really, I’m just happy to discover a new raw-milk cheese, one that’s made from goat’s milk no less. Raw-milk goat cheese is hard to come by. That’s because most goat cheese on the market is fresh – think of those crumbly, spreadable logs. Fresh goat cheese is always pasteurized because it’s only a few days old and American law requires that raw-milk cheese be aged sixty days or more. Mount Sterling, a producer-owned cooperative based in Wisconsin, is one of just a few creameries that make a variety of aged raw-milk goat cheeses.

I’m partial to this mild goat cheddar because it’s versatile and mellow – grate it into scrambled eggs, serve it alongside berries or peaches. It makes for a good hot-weather appetizer, especially in the company of a wheat beer. Citrusy notes often pair well with goat cheese. That’s because goat cheese has more acidity than cow’s milk cheese. Some people find this acidity off-putting, but Mount Sterling’s cheddar is exceptionally balanced -- it’s not the least bit goaty or sour, just smooth with gentle nutty notes. A good choice for children and the goat-cheese averse.

Mount Sterling Cooperative has produced goat cheese for 30 years, but it’s only gained national recognition in recent years. In 2009, the company’s cave-aged cheddar (Sterling Reserve) won gold at the Los Angeles International Dairy Competition. Their Country Jack and whey-cream goat butter have also gained attention.

Even if you’re not a goat-cheese lover, you just might have a conversion experience. Blame it on the hot weather.

Sally Jackson Goat Cheese

Splendor has a new name: Sally Jackson. This small-batch producer from Oroville, WA makes one of the most glorious goat cheeses I’ve tasted to date. Talk about nuance, talk about flavor notes, talk about a cheese that pairs so beautifully with ripe apricots I nearly crumpled to the kitchen floor, weeping. Oh heaven, it comes in grape leaves. If you are reading this, log off. Get into your car. Drive to Oroville now.

Like her cheese, Sally Jackson’s web site is rustic. You won’t find a lot of detail, but you will see her rather small herd of animals, all lovingly pictured – in fact, there are many more photos of goats than cheese. Don’t let the low-fi design fool you though. Sally and her partner Roger are credited with being among the first artisans to bring back craft cheesemaking in America. Twenty years ago, Sally sold cheeses out of the back of her car to chefs in Seattle. Now, chefs stalk her.

I picked up my wedge at Di Bruno Bros. (Italian Market location) here in Philadelphia, where cheesemonger Zeke Ferguson told me the story of how he approached Sally Jackson five years ago about carrying her cheese. She just now got back to him. Needless to say, it’s not inexpensive, but at $39.99 a pound, it’s still cheaper than blue jeans, so, come on.

Here’s why Sally's cheese is worth tracking down: You know how ripe tomatoes smell on the vine -- pungent, like heat itself? Well, this goat cheese has a similarly captivating smell, like warm earth. Then you put it on your tongue, and it tastes completely different – not musty or goaty, but sweet, floral, almost grapey with a lovely citrus hook that just goes on and on until you’re starry-eyed.

Alongside apricots, it’s sublime. I think some of those little champagne grapes that burst in your mouth would be awesome, too. And I’d serve it with rustic bread – although it doesn’t need any – and a glass of Riesling. Honestly, I stood in the kitchen last night and ate half this wedge without meaning to, and now I think I am going to go eat some more.

If you’ve wondered why people freak for raw-milk cheese, this is why.

Sharp Chevre+Buckwheat Honey

Last night, my friends Cat and Ben hosted a birthday fete for our mutual friend, Shanta. It was a steamy night here in Philly, and I wanted to bring along a cheese that would be cooling and yet fabulous, since Shanta is a sharp-cheese lovin' gal.

I wanted texture, too, because Cat and Ben live in an architectural-feat-in-progress, an old brewery that they have spent the last two years rehabbing into a music studio cum living space, and I'd heard this was a beautiful place -- full of gilded light, rusty curiosities, and cupola-views of the city.

Chevre and buckwheat honey. There was no other choice. What else says "rust and resurrection"? What other pairing could bring together light and dark, new drywall and exposed brick?

I love Shellbark Hollow's Sharp Chevre because it is a creamy goat cheese with depth, with feistiness. It tastes apple-clean and yet rich. Drizzle it with some toasty buckwheat honey, and this cheese gyrates.

My bruschetta were gone in seconds, and they were so simple. I made two kinds: toasted walnut and fig. Incorporating fresh lemon thyme from the garden was a last-minute burst of inspiration -- a green kick to brighten those dense little figgies. And the toasted walnuts -- mmm, baritone goodness.

Shellbark Hollow makes a variety of goat cheeses, including fresh chevre, crottin, marinated goat biscuits, and herbed chevre spreads. You can find their products at Headhouse Square Farmers' Market and the Piazza Market. I bought mine at the Fair Food Farm Stand, along with the honey from Two Gander Farm in Berks County.

I don't know of anyone besides Shellbark's Pete Demchur who makes Sharp Chevre. When I talked to him a few weeks ago, he said it was his specialty -- his personal fave. Donna, his wife, told me she loves to serve it with sliced Asian pears. It's a great choice for anyone who finds plain chevre a little too mellow. I think the Sharp would be great to cook with, especially as a topping for grilled meats, bitey salads made with watercress, and as an accompaniment to olives and fresh herbs.

All I know is, Shanta's friends liked it.

Acapella

Permit me to continue my goat cheese tutorial. I have eaten the ash puck of all ash pucks, a yeasty goat cheese from Petaluma, California made by a classical pianist. In fact, every cheese made by Soyoung Scanlan is named after music, but Acapella – it’s something else. It is the most lyrical cheese I’ve ever eaten. Thanks to the folks at DiBruno Bros. for inviting me in yesterday for a nibble of this new arrival.

Scanlan makes cheese for Thomas Keller, of Napa Valley’s French Laundry and New York’s Per Se. You won’t find her cheeses, sold under the Andante Dairy label, at very many cheese counters, but they appear on best-of lists compiled by dairy-lovin’ celebs like Janet Fletcher. Some of Scanlan's other cheeses include Metronome, Minuet (a gorgeous triple crème), and Rondo (a mixed milk bliss-inducer dotted with pink peppercorn and tarragon).

Of the four Andante cheeses I tried, Acapella was the stand-out, not just because it was rolled in ash and Penicillium Roqueforti – I know, I know, my weakness – but because it was so distinct, so quirky. Imagine eating a cheese that tastes like the smell of fresh bread dough rising in your oven under a wet towel. Andante’s even got the same springy consistency – when you push down on it with a finger, it pops right back up. 

DiBruno’s Hunter Fike calls the cheese from Andante Dairy “amazing.” He favors Scanlan’s Minuet, a goat’s milk triple crème that is so tender and mild you could cry. I like a cheese that haunts me, and Acapella does that. It hits notes I’ve never tasted in a goat cheese; even the smell of it – I have a tiny wedge in my crisper – makes me shiver, makes me want to put on some Tallis Scholars and lay down on the floor in the dark and just hum.  

Sea Smoke

Over the weekend, I hosted an all-goat blow-out. Really, I just wanted to show off the glorious work of Amazing Acres’ Debbie Mikulak, a new artisanal cheese maker from Elverson, Pa. whose pristine chevre has every cheesemonger I know talking.

Debbie makes unusual goat cheeses – her Sea Smoke reminds me of Humboldt Fog, the famous ashy streaker from California’s Cypress Grove, but Debbie’s version has a bloomy rind, which lends an Alice-in-Wonderland-like quality to this delicate, pleasing cheese.

Picture Humboldt Fog as a mochi ball, and you’ve got the texture down – a veil of damp, slightly gummy bloom serves as the surface here. Sea Smoke looks like a magic mushroom, a cave formation, a doorknob into an underworld of talking caterpillars and rabbits.

The texture is dense, moist, and a little chalky – crumbs settle on the tongue, like cloudcover. The taste is slightly floral at first, with a mild tang, and a flourish of pepperiness at the end -- think watercress. The layer of vegetable ash is mostly tasteless, but there's a woodsy cleanness to the whole package – it’s a spring dream. I like it best with blackberries and strawberries, as dessert.  For a light supper, it would go well with sautéed fiddleheads and a glass of Prosecco.

Debbie also makes Banon, a denser cheese she wraps in grape leaves and soaks in brandy – a nod to the French, who popularized this adorable, giftable cheese in Provence (the French use chestnut leaves and eau de vie). Debbie’s version is firmer than the French varieties I’ve tried, but really delicious, a perfect appetizer alongside almonds and a glass of Cote-du-Rhone.

I’ll be writing about Debbie’s cheeses for the next issue of Grid Magazine. I also mentioned her goat cheese in a recent segment of “A Chef’s Table” on WHYY, Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate -- it's at the very end of the program, listen-to-able at the link. I guess I’m turning into something of a Sea Smoke evangelist, but then…you know, I have a thing for bloomy rinds and ash.   

If you live in the Philadelphia area, look for Sea Smoke and other Amazing Acres cheeses at Fair Food Farm Stand, DiBruno Bros, and Quince. (You might want to call first, since supplies are limited.)

Here are a few scenes from Debbie’s goat-cheese debut, beginning with a photo of her and husband, Fred Bloom.  

A Denver Cheese Party

I went to Denver, Colorado for a writers' conference this weekend, but I got sidetracked by cheese. First, there was soul-food mac'n cheese at Tom's Home Cookin' in Five Points, then there were late-nite nachos at Garbo's, followed by cream-cheese-stuffed French toast yesterday at a Jewish deli. Just as my friend D. was driving me to the airport this morning, he remembered an all-grilled-cheese joint in Denver, called Chedd's, and we almost had to turn the car around.

Luckily, I was still full from our cheese party the night before, a meal crowned by gorgonzola-slathered steak and preceded by one of my fave new discoveries: marinated chevre.

I went to Denver on a mission -- to eat some mountain goat cheese from Colorado's beloved Haystack Mountain Dairy, based in Longmont. Having eaten my share of Pennsylvania goat cheese lately, I was curious to nibble at new elevations, and Haystack's gorgeous jar of chevre floating in herbs and oil was a highlight -- better than the mac'n cheese and the stuffed French toast put together.

Sometimes the simplest pleasures are unadulterated, and that was the case as I reached into this jar and withdrew a moonish cutlet gilded with crushed herbs. My old roommate, David, was working on his Parm risotto, and his partner, Tim, stood at the fry daddy, staring into bracelets of breaded onions, while I sat purring in a corner chair, goat cheese in my mouth, olive oil running down my wrists.

Haystack's marinated chevre was delicate and pillowy, fluffier than other marinated goat cheeses I've tried. The mouthfeel was exquisite -- not the slightest bit chalky or grainy -- and the flavor, it tasted of mint and fresh snowfall, bringing to mind a spring herb garden, lightly dusted with sleet, the herbs still young and tender. What are the Haystackers feeding their goats?

The rest of our cheese party surpassed my expectations. David's risotto was gorgeously mushroomy, Tim's onion rings were feather-light, and the gorgonzola-garlic butter I made to top our steaks was furious good (see recipe below).

Next time I'm in Denver, I want to try Haysack Peak, an ash-coated pyramid that won first place at the 2009 American Cheese Society Awards. And I want to check out Chedd's for a Meatless Horse Sandwich. In the meantime, I'll keep dreaming of that pillow-light chevre, atop a crusty baguette with green olives. Glorious.

Gorgonzola Garlic Butter

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola (I used Rogue's Oregonzola)
2 Tbsp. fresh chives, minced
1 garlic bulb, roasted
Salt & pep

An hour before eating, roast the garlic bulb at 400 for 40 minutes -- you'll want to lop the top off, drizzle it with a little olive oil, and wrap it in foil. When it's fini, mash it in a bowl, until it's pulpy, then stir in butter, gorg, chives, and salt and pepper to taste.

Slather it on grilled steak, and save whatever is left to spread on toasted baguette.

Shellbark's Crottin de Chevre

I’ve been on a goat cheese bender lately – the light, lemony taste of fresh chevre just reminds me of spring. Aged goat cheese, on the other hand, is my new tote. I picked up this tiny puck of Crottin over the weekend, and it was so cute -- like a child-size brie – I wanted to put it on my desk at work and use it as an eraser.

So it was a suhhhr-prise, when I cut into this baby last night and felt a complex, flinty furnace, redolent of hay and brine, shoot through the roof of my mouth. Pete Demchur, who made the Crottin for his Shellbark Hollow Farm label, spent time in the Pyrenees last summer observing how French farmers aged their goat cheese. “I’m going hog wild with it,” he told me over the phone a couple days ago. “I like my cheese dry and sharp.”

Pete is a self-taught cheesemaker who runs the oldest goat dairy in Chester County. He started about 15 years ago with a few goats, and now the man makes cheese seven days a week. This summer, he and his wife Donna are debuting a couple new cheeses, including Crottin and jars of marinated goat cheese biscuits (soft, unaged goat cheese in oil and herbs). I have one in my fridge and it is so damn beautiful, I hate the thought of opening it.

If you’re open to compact, barnyardy goodness, Shellbark Hollow’s Crottin is worth seeking out at a Philadelphia Farmers’ Market. The Demchurs sell at the Piazza on Saturdays, and at markets in Chestnut Hill and Elkins Park. Crottin would be great on a spring cheese board, or served warm on a salad of grilled asparagus and woodsy mushrooms. The flavor is a conversation piece; it escalates from salty-sour (that catches you in the back of your cheek pockets) to a barnyardy headiness that seems to off-gas through your nose, then it turns green-apple-and-black-pepper on you at the end.

Crottin means “turd” in French, but this is no cheese worth tossing. It does kick you in the arse though, so watch out.

Note: Check out the "Meet the Cheesemaker Happy Hour" that the Fair Food Farm Stand is launching on April 30, from 4-6 p.m. in Reading Terminal Market. Shellbark's Pete Demchur kicks off the first one. Ask him about his Crottin and tip back some beer provided by the good folks at The Foodery.

Montenebro

I’m into surface mold. I can’t explain it; maybe it’s because I was one of those kids who didn’t mind the crust on her sandwich bread. Or on pizza. When I see people carve out the gooey middle on brie and leave the rind behind, I secretly scoff at them. Silly wabbit, I think to myself, the rind is the best part. It’s where the flavor is.

That’s why I got so excited by a goat cheese pictured in Wednesday’s New York Times, Le Cendrillon. It was coated in ash and had a surface that looked like a bubbly chalkboard – thick, black, stippled. I emailed a cheesemonger with stretchers in his ears, hoping he could fix me up – I figured, if he likes big jewelry, he probably likes bold rind. Was that wrong?

He didn’t have any Le Crendrillon, but he had something similar. When I paid him a visit, he held up a chalky log with thick surface mold the same color and texture as a pussy willow. Montenebro. I’d read about it – a Spanish goat cheese with one maker. I liked that. It’s not like a cheddar, say, where you have lots of makers and umpteen variations. When you order Montenebro, you get the one made by Rafael Baez and his daughter, Paloma, in Avila, Spain.

This is a young goat cheese, aged two months, and it has a magnificent texture -- an oozy rim and a dense center that spreads like frosting. What a treat, I love a multi-textured cheese. The flavor is bold, sweet, lemony with a faint bluesy tail from the Penicillium roqueforti (the same mold that’s used in making Roquefort) that’s rubbed onto its surface, along with the ash. So there is just a twinge of blue taste. Ahhh, amazing.

With a Pinot Noir or Vouvray, this tangy lover is going to make for a perfect picnic some chilly dusk. I can’t wait to serve it up to my rind-mindful friends.

Monte Cabra

My friend – I call him the Blue Cheese Brit – has a cheese boy.  This is his cheese boy, the affable “Rich,” well-known in cheese circles for his owly glasses and vaguely Capote-esque style. I think of Rich as the cheese oracle. Whenever I see him, he doesn’t ask me what I want, he tells me what I want – which always turns out to be true. He knows my palate better than I do.

On a recent cookie-eating junket, I ran across Rich unexpectedly at a new cheese counter – he’s the second of two Di Bruno Bros. cheesemongers who have been poached by Philadelphia’s new Garces Trading Co. Okay, well, maybe not poached, but I’m just sayin’. There’s gonna be a rumble.

“You want Monte Cabra,” Rich said to me, when I saw him, and he unwrapped a wheel of charcoal-black butter, a cheese that had my name all over it. I like ash, what can I say?

Monte Cabra is a Spanish goat cheese (from Catalonia), very mild with a pleasant, sweet, pasturey taste. Like its black shroud, its story remains something of a mystery: I couldn’t find squat, not on the Net, not even in my go-to cheez books. Everyone who has written about Monte Cabra compares it to feta, which doesn’t make any sense. It’s dryer, like Manchego, with a firm, not-quite-crumbly texture. I didn’t taste salt, which is what comes to mind with feta; I tasted hay, wood shavings, an ashy sweetness with a tart hook.

It tastes, and looks, great with blackberries.

Someday I’m going to do a cheesemonger-of-the-month profile, and Rich will hopefully be one of them. Once again, I’m pleasantly surprised to discover the cheese of my dreams. 

Purple Haze

Cheese or bath bomb? You decide.

I, for one, am having a love affair with this goaty disk, dredged in fennel pollen and lavender. It’s a good cure-all for a gray-weather hangover, and I’ve been enjoying it for breakfast. It goes nicely with Rose Earl Grey and thin toast. You don’t want to overpower the herbiness of the fennel pollen, which lends a hint of licorice.

Licorice and goat cheese? Oh, don’t be irritable.

Purple Haze is made by some of the best dairy dreamers in the business, Cypress Grove – makers of the legendary Humboldt Fog. One of their most recent creations, Truffle Tremor, was featured on this blog when it won top honors at this year’s Fancy Food Show in New York.

The folks at Cypress Grove don’t mess around. Founded by Mary Keehn (a goat hobbyist turned breeder), this California cheese company is recognized as the premier artisanal goat-cheese maker in the country. If you’re on a quest to learn about artisanal cheese in America, Cypress Grove is a good place to start.

In fact, this month Cypress Grove is running a holiday special, where you can have three of their award-winning cheeses over-nighted in a tote bag for just under $50. Pretty cute. A good gift for the tough-to-please foodie on your list. The special includes a wedge of Truffle Tremor, a wheel of Fog Lights (a mold-ripened cheese, covered in ash), and an herbed chevre.

Tonight, I’m going to try a recipe off the web site: Purple Haze-stuffed figs, served warm, with honey. Meow. It’ll be perfect to serve to a few food nerds who are coming over for a game of Agricola – my other recent obsession. Think wooden animals. Think Euro games.

Hey, if I can’t have my own goat farm, at least I can pretend. Plus, the game pieces look kind of like cheese cubes.

Patches of Star Havarti and Queso Blanco

Here’s my deepest fear: discovering I’m lactose intolerant. Gulp. Every few weeks, I hear from someone I know who has been given this diagnosis, and I shiver. At least I could still eat goat cheese, right? According to Elly Hushour, humans can digest goat’s milk in 20 minutes, while cow’s milk takes an hour.

Hushour is the cheese mistress of Patches of Star Dairy, a goat farm in Nazareth, Pa. that is licensed to sell raw milk. I met her this morning at the Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market in Center City Philadelphia; her arm-length loaf of goat havarti – a new product –stopped me in my tracks.

Hushour started making goat cheese back in the mid-80s when she was a new mother. She read about the nutritional value and easy digestability of goat’s milk and began experimenting with recipes. Today she produces a variety of raw milk-certified yogurt, ice cream (woo hoo!), and cheeses, including Queso Blanco and the only domestic Halloumi I’ve ever seen.

I love Patches of Star Havarti. More and more, I see how raw-milk cheese carries a complexity I just don’t taste in pasteurized cheeses, and this one is no exception. Havarti is usually a weed of a cheese in my book – a cold-case snoozer – but Patches of Star Havarti is superbly creamy, gently grassy, with a barnyard hook. It almost tastes like Provolone.

I also tried the Garlic Parsley Queso Blanco, which Hushour recommended as a topping for pasta (crumbled on top of noodles with black olives, she said). I liked the herbiness of the cheese, and, okay, I have a weakness for any cheese that’s shaped like a wigwam. But I’ll go back to the havarti again. It’s outstanding.

If you want to try Patches of Star cheese, you’ll have to haul butt to Headhouse Square, because Hushour only sells directly to her customers. Or you could drive out to Nazareth and check out her rotational grazing and her goats, who are fed on sunflowers.

Caña de Cabra

Around the corner from my house in Philly, there’s a wonderful mother-daughter shop that sells Spanish cheeses. Nicole Marcote and her mother Joan Sauvion, of Quince, introduced me to Mahon with quince paste this summer, and today I stopped in for my second round of Caña de Cabra, a soft-ripened goat cheese that I have come to think of as the cheese-lover’s salted nut roll. The rind is firm and tangy, while the center is soft and slightly sweet, like the nougaty filling of my favorite truckstop candybar. Hey, in a pinch, you know.

Earlier this week, I took Nicole’s advice and baked this cheese in a crock, then sprinkled it with toasted pine nuts, drizzled it with honey, and served it alongside some toasted baguette rounds. It’s served this way at Bar Ferdinand, a local tapas bar, and – I squeak inside, as I write this – it was delicious, every sweet-salty lover’s dream. If you eat it with your eyes closed, it tastes like a salted nut roll à la Julia Child.

Caña de Cabra wasn’t listed in Steven Jenkins’ Cheese Primer (horrors!), but Cowgirl Creamery’s Library of Cheese gave me the DL (a thousand bows to those lasses). Caña de Cabra is made in Murcia, an orchard-laden, mountainous region of southeastern Spain. If you’ve ever eaten French Boucheron, you know this style of goat cheese. It looks like it fell off a lumber truck. There is something earthy and mushroomy about it, and it’s so adorable, you’ll want to make felted pillows resembling it.

Please do. And send me one. In return, I will send you a box of salted nut rolls and a beautiful log of Caña de Cabra.

If you live in Philadelphia, stop by Quince Fine Foods, 209 W. Girard Ave., for a cheese-tasting this Thursday, August 20, from 2-4 p.m.