*Warning this post contains bad puns about cheese. I am a bit of a conservative when it comes to my cheese. The more unadulterated, the better. The only exception being truffle brie. On a recent supermarket spree, I found two new hybrid cheeses – a truffle Moliterno and a bruschetta brie. For me, the Moliterno was the more successful hybrid. Unlike most truffled cheeses (where the cheese is added at the last minute before sale), the wheels age for about six months before being infused with pure black truffle paste, so that the cheese develops a very particular character and depth. The vein of truffle is part of the cheese, not an…
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The Secret Life of Cheeses and Other Ugly Truths
Like many things in life – sausage making lawmaking being two – I try not to dwell on the finer points on what makes cheese taste as awesome as it does. I mean, we all know it’s about mold, and bacteria, but frankly, if we think too hard about it we wouldn’t ever eat it again. Which is why this piece on the BBC website both fascinated and repelled me at the same time. The Strange World Inside Cheese Read it at your own peril. Spoil the mystery if you must.
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Fromage Fortifications
As a cheese blogger, having a fridge full of the good stuff is an occupational hazard. As of yesterday I have leftover pieces of Manchego, Parmesan, Swiss, Cheddar, Gorgonzola and several unidentified randoms. Now you know how I hate waste as much as losing perfectly good cheese, so I dug out this recipe by the amazing David Lebovitz for Fromage Fort. Fromage fort is a French cheese spread, literally “strong cheese”. It is traditionally made by blending together pieces of different leftover cheeses, white wine (or other spirits) with garlic, herbs and whatever takes your fancy. I made mine with around seven kinds of odds and ends cheeses The recipe calls for…
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Fromage to You – Review of The Cheese Market
OK yes I did a bit of a Gone Girl and disappeared off the food blogging scene for a couple of months. I would love to tell you I was getting drastic plastic surgery, or had eloped with a billionaire. Truth is, I just needed a break from blogging. As you sometimes do. And I also ran out of cheese puns. What dragged me back was several people telling me how they missed the blog. And not just my Mum. So while I was away something interesting happened in Doha. A dedicated cheese shop opened. The Cheese Market requires a special trip to find at The Pearl Qatar. Although I plan to open…
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Hard to Brie-sist
Many of my American and British friends believe much of the Australian vernacular is made up. They allege they are just jumbles of ridiculous sounding vowels meant to bamboozle non-Australians, that it’s one big in-joke at the expense of other lesser nationalities. “That is NOT a real word,” my friend Alicia exclaimed once, upon hearing the place name “Wharoongha”. Fair suck of the sav indeed. This post came to be thanks to my friend Brooke who recently hosted a gaggle of women, a lot of wine and a slew of Australian cheese. Much was discussed over cheese and wine in her “Secret Garden”, including sport, men and bad bad boyfriends.…
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Fromage a Trois…Paris three, four, four, five… cheeses as a time
It’s Paris and great food, especially cheese is everywhere. Herewith my cheese porn diary from a week in Paris…
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If You Leave Brie, Can I Come Too?
I’m an expat and have been for some time now. It doesn’t define me as such, but it’s an important part of my life and will be for a long time. There are some great things about being an expat – no tax, travel, decent wages. But the downsides are homesickness, frustration with bureaucracy….and seeing important people in your life leave. It happens, in expat land, nothing is forever. We are all guests in our country and as always, there will be another opportunity in another country. The thing about expat friendships and relationships is that they develop fast and strong, kind of like the uncertainty of our lives fuels…
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It’s not ewe, it’s Brie…
Chagrined but not defeated, I returned to Jones the Grocer today and knelt at the altar of cheesy fabulousness. I bought another sliver of Truffle Brie as a replacement for the “lost” one, and was rewarded with a sample of another cheese, Fosseway Fleece. Truffle Brie is a departure for me. I am usually a cheese purist – that is someone who likes their cheddar without sage and their goats cheese without chives. But the lure of the earthy taste of truffle and brie is just too much. It’s pretty hard to overwhelm the taste of a good brie and those one manages to balance both strong flavors. It’s made…
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Who moved my cheese?
My grand plan to launch the blog with the much discussed truffle brie melted faster than a Kraft Single on white bread under the griller. I forked out close to $15 for a hunk of the prized cheese but somehow managed to lose it between the store and my house – it’s somewhere in Doha, stinking up a storm. I would like to hope it went to a good home. Sadly I think it was just thrown away. I had intended to share the brie with a French friend, a triumphant start to the blog. But instead had to confess my crime. And to a French person, losing any brie,…