Cheese of the Week No. 2

The federal government has outlawed raw milk cheese that is aged for less than 60 days. It's all for fear of the natural bacteria that exist in raw milk, and it's a shame because we don't get to try the wonderful raw milk Brie and Camembert of France. We do, however, get a few raw milk cheeses that are among the best in the world.

Chimay Lait Cru: raw cow's milk, Belgium. This washed rind cheese is made by the same Trappist monks who bring us the Chimay line of Belgian beer. The cheese is just as great, with huge depth of flavor and aroma. As a washed rind cheese, it is bathed with a brine solution during ripening that gives it a very stinky, sticky rind. A beer-washed version of this cheese also exists. The interior is sticky and soft, tasting of toasted walnuts, mushrooms and hay. Awesome. Serve it with red wine or Chimay beer.

Keen's Farmhouse Cheddar: raw cow's milk, England. This straw colored, occasionally blue-veined cheddar is in a class by itself compared to our orange blocks of cheddar. It has a much more interesting array of flavors that keep developing as you eat it. It's fruitier, spicier, deeper than the old standby. Goes great with nuts, fruit, and red wine.

Cabrales: raw cow, sheep, and goat milk, Spain. My favorite blue cheese. Grazing high in the mountains of the Asturias region of Spain, the animals who give their milk to make this cheese live a rough life. They really have to work to find good grazing, and it builds character that translates into one of the most amazing blue cheeses in the world. The cheese is wrapped in sycamore leaves and aged in limestone caves until the airborne bacteria (helped by piercing the cheese) permeate and create a wild network of deep blue veins. One little taste, if you can restrain yourself, will unlock smokey, berry, nutty, meaty flavors that keep exploding in your mouth. Keep the cracker or bread simple, and serve it with a red wine.

Cheese of the Week No. 11

I have to write this one down before I forget it. It was maybe the best cheese I've ever had.

Grayson (Meadowcreek Dairy): USA (Virginia), raw cow's milk, washed rind

Missy Kinz described the smell of French munster as "unforgivable." Well, Grayson gives off a funk that is equally unpardonable. Being a washed rind cheese, it has a briny, crunchy, funky-bacteria-loving rind that helps to ripen the cheese from the outside in. The paste near the rind was just becoming gooey, at its absolute peak of creaminess. It was described on the tag as similar to taleggio, but it's better than any taleggio we get here in the States. I find it more similar the Chimay Grand Cru, but better still. Chimay a la Biere is funkier, but not as delicious.

The taste is supremely earthy, nutty, fruity, grassy and rich. They must have some happy cows down there at Meadowcreek. It's not for the faint of heart (or nose), but if you like the funk, dig this cheese.