As I said earlier, I took a little hiatus from the blog and cheese for a few weeks. To welcome me back, my American friend, Alicia, hosted an American Cheese Tasting afternoon. alicia, it must be said, is a Cheese Heroine. She brought back more than 5kg of the stuff on her recent visit home. That’s 5kg of artisan cheese in her luggage. Thank god Qatar Airways has generous limits. The result of that haul is displayed below. It must be said we were joined by friends Jamie, Rachel B and Raven for this cheese hoedown, and of course me, the ring in.
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Pole Dancing
Warning. There are Poles, but no dancing as such in this post. If you feel misled, please feel free to complain. There is much ado about Poland this week in Doha, with the start of flights to the Polish capital Warsaw, which in my view is more famous for shipyards and some bloke named Lech. But it seems that there is more to Polish cuisine than piroskis and beer. I was invited to a gourmet dinner to launch this new route at the Grand Hyatt Doha The five course menu included venison, duck and an amazing cod dish, but I was stuck on the amuse bouche, which was a cream…
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Braying Power – Donkey Cheese Goes Global
Braying Power – Donkey Cheese Goes Global People who know me know tennis almost rivals cheese in my affections. So when I saw this story, I saw my two great loves (and Novak Djokovic) meld. I see a trip to Serbia on the cards in 2013…
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Feta the Devil You Know
Say what you want about the Greeks, they do two things really well – cheese and anarchy. I have always admired the Greeks for their ability to enjoy life, create amazing food and manage to plunge their country into widespread chaos at the flick of a switch. I last visited Greece in the 1990s, when the Drachma was its currency, an older Papandreou was PM and they weren’t beholden to Germany to pay their bills. I haven’t been back since, but I still remember the food – simply cooked, lots of lemon, olive oil and salty cheese – all served with their typical (sometimes dark) sense of humor. When my…
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Shopska Til You Dropska
I never wanted to lead a boring life, which is why I like to travel so much. But, while I love experiencing new cities and destinations, the process of traveling fills me with untold angst. I am a worrier at the best of times, but add travel, flights and other unpredictable events into the mix, and I become a tangle of fear and loathing. That said, I never pass up the opportunity to experience a new destination, so when Qatar Airways invited me to Sofia last weekend, the bags were packed in record time. The lead time was short, not giving me much time to worry. Sofia and other Eastern…
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Labne…labne my cheese addiction…
Sitting in my fridge, nestled next to the Mint Slices, are a lovely wedge of Machego and a ceramic pot full of stinky Stilton. I had all intentions of tasting them and blogging about their fabulosity this past week and a bit, but life and a bout of the flu got in the way. They will remain in the fridge for another few days as today I have decided to write about a cheese that changed my idea of what a cheese actually was. And this post is also a tribute to a little country that is close to my heart and again finds itself on the precipice of chaos.…