Like Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster and finding a decent coffee in the US, I believe I have unearthed the ultimate urban myth – a Frenchman who doesn’t like cheese. I have a friend, Dom, who must be the only real Frenchman in the history of Frenchiness…who does not like cheese. For him it’s not the taste, but the smell that he finds off putting. Despite this character flaw, he has am amazing sense of humour and will tolerate the consumption of even the stinkiest cheese in his presence. Which I recently did…at length. Dom and his wife Laila joined me for one of my weekend jaunts to Oman with…
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The Loving Spoonful
It had been a tough start to the week in the vineyard of truth. I was having technology problems, clients were being demanding and well, it was Tuesday. And it was March. When I heard about the new Grapes and Cheese night at Gordon Ramsay’s Opal at St Regis Doha, I am not one to pass up the opportunity to sample up to different types of wine and matching cheeses. After all, it was Tuesday. And it was March. The wines took center stage with a selection prepared by Sommelier Ashwin Tillousing who took us through wines from France, South Africa, Spain, Chile and New Zealand. Bearing in mind it…
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Friends in Cheeses
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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Fast Food Notion – Maccas Goes Gourmet
From the country that brought us 400 types of cheese, you would expect they would find a way to make Maccas palatable.
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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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Getting My Goat…
I think my cleaner judges me. One day I came home to find my decorative papal rosary beads artfully arranged on my bedside table. Once she told me I was sick because I “didn’t have a husband”. Another time, I had reason to call her because I couldn’t find a suit jacket. “It’s in your jacket closet Madam,” she answered with a sigh. When quizzed about said closet, she told me the location was in the guest bedroom and had been the “Jacket Closet” for at least six months. It’s rare our paths cross. I usually come home to find she has been and gone, like a midget hurricane. But…
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Going Whey Back…Evidence of Cheese Making Dating Back Thousands of Years Unearthed
Going Whey Back…Evidence of Cheese Making Dating Back Thousands of Years Unearthed What is it with Poland these days? Milk extracts have been identified on 34 perforated pottery vessels or “cheese-strainers”, which date back 7,500 years have been excavated in Poland. The only other written evidence for cheese-making activity occurs much later in the archaeological record, around 5,000 years ago. That’s some aged goodness…
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It’s Emmental My Dear Watson…
A friend reminded me this week that I had better get a wriggle on if I am going to try 365 cheeses in 365 days. This inspired two desperation buys this week. The first, Emmental aka the old favorite Swiss cheese. And just like the Swiss, it is mild, non offensive and just a little bit boring. Apparently three types of bacteria are used to produce this cheese, you would think that at least one of them would leave an impression? This one had already been massacred by the industrial cheese slicer at Carrefour and something may have been lost in translation. I tend to like my cheeses to be…