Featured Cheese - August 2019

Ombra, unlike any other Spanish sheep’s milk cheese, is a four-month aged small format wheel showing a natural mottled gray rind. The small round wheels, roughly two pounds each, offer a firm snowy white paste. As the cheese ages, it becomes studded with crunchy nuggets of crystalized amino acids and turns a warm buttery color. As the cheese warms to room temperature, butterscotch and bright tropical pineapple notes emerge...

Most of the vegetation eaten by the sheep producing the milk used to make Paška Sirana is naturally salted by the winds that sweep over the nearby sea water, depositing it all over the island. The end result is a savory salinity that’s nicely balanced by the natural sweetness of the sheep's milk. As the cheese ages 12 months, the paste becomes drier and more condensed, offering praline-like crystallizations.

Grace’s Choice offers a creamy, fudgy paste and mouthfeel. It’s smooth, buttery and delicious. Perhaps a bit like Grace herself, this is one sensuous cheese: mellow and delicately laced with the taste of sweet grass and nuts. A solid snacking table cheese that would be a welcome addition to any cheese board, Grace is perfectly suited to the cooler days of fall. She’s quite versatile and will pair well with most beers or wines.

The most famous Dutch cheese, Edam, is made with partially-skimmed cow's milk, and is meant to be eaten within weeks of its creation, while it's still smooth. Pasteurized milk is heated and bacteria is added to increase the acidity level. Liquid rennet is added to create curd, and the curd is cut into tiny pieces, then heated, drained, molded and pressed. After the cheese is salted, it ripens and is exported wrapped in red wax.

Carr Valley Pinconning is made from an old recipe by Carr Valley Cheese Company in Wisconsin, which was established in 1902 and continues to employ the hand cheese-making skills of four generations. A mild blend of colby and cheddar cheeses, Carr Valley produces its Pinconning in large thirty-eight pound wheels which we slice into long narrow wedges for our club members. Carr Valley Pinconning is a yellow semi-hard style cheese with an open texture, which allows it to age quite well from mild to super sharp. This cheese is typically eaten instead of Cheddar or Colby, and works well in macaroni and cheese or in omelets and soufflés.