![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBut if you weren't here two years ago, note that "Advent Cheese" was an advent calendar with like five kinds of cheese and not twenty-five. In that, it was a disappointment. I was hoping for twenty-five different kinds of cheese in an Advent Calendar Of Cheeses. While I dutifully ate the included cheeses, they were not at all what I was hoping for in an Advent Cheese calendar.
Now, advent cheese was a gift from my dear friend Lala. So, she knew that it was not the Advent Cheese that I had hoped for because she's the kind of friend with whom you can discuss the gift and its lack-of-being-the-right-thing. She was all "What do you MEAN it's only like five kinds of cheese? Aren't they all different?" because she, too, thought it would be an adventure (lol, an ADVENT-ure and yeah, I used that joke last time, too) of cheese rather than five cheeses repeated.
Because this is a longterm friendship with the Lala, things proceed in a measured pace. That which was of interest two years ago is this year being revisited. This year, I am presented with Twelve Days Of Festive Cheeses which is twelve different kinds of cheese. They're also bigger pieces, so I'll be reviewing them more slowly as I work through the twelve different kinds.
There's a pretty fancy box with also pairing suggestions for the festive cheeses. Today's Festive Cheese is Manchego PDO. It's a sheep cheese, product of Spain. (The festive cheeses are all imported. This is a fairly pricey festive cheese sampler, here.) The box says the Manchego is festive with merlot, fig spread, or hazelnuts. I do not think I have any of those items at home, so I paired it with a date. (I've had manchego before and as sheep cheeses go, it is not overly sheep-y or overly mineral-y.) It goes nicely with a fairly assertive sweet dried fruit like a date. Dates, in fact, cut the minimal sheep flavor in case you don't like the minimal sheep flavor. I'm OK with the minimal sheep flavor, tho. It's nice. Earthy. Different.
Lala's interest in the Festive Cheese box is mostly that she kind of wants me to research an ideal grilled cheese sammich for next summer.
Now, Lala does not, as a general rule, like cheese. I don't know why she is in pursuit of an ideal grilled cheese sammich if she doesn't like cheese, but here we are. She likes the cheese on french onion soups. She'll eat white cheeses, but not yellow ones. Swiss is good. She likes swiss. (I mean, if you're good with swiss cheese, can't we just get some nice baby swiss and call it a day?) If you're not a huge cheese fan you are probably not going to love fancy cheeses from across the Atlantic and especially not hotted up as a grilled cheese because while I like manchego and find it pretty mild, it is not going to fly for Lala with its faint hint of sheep that I bet dollars to doughnuts gets more sheep-y when it's hot.
An ideal grilled cheese is also not a simple thing. I mean, there's an ideal grilled cheese sammich where you have white mass market bread and kraft cheese singles and it's perfectly melted as only process cheese melts, cut across the diagonal for dipping purposes into the steaming bowl of campbell's tomato soup it's served with and you are having a rainy afternoon of nostalgia where you want to be ten years old. And there's an ideal faux-fancy grilled cheese sammich where you have swiss and some sharp mustard and a nice dark rye, with perhaps some apple slices and walnuts on the side. And there's honest gourmet grilled cheese with multiple kinds of cheeses grated so that they melt well and maybe mayo instead of butter for the bread to grill with, obviously some sort of lean sourdough bread with a bite to it and enough structure to make a meal. I mean, what are you going for? What do you *want*? So I'll eat the cheeses and make some notes and we'll discuss cheeses and come up with a plan.
Festive cheeses indeed. :)
Now, advent cheese was a gift from my dear friend Lala. So, she knew that it was not the Advent Cheese that I had hoped for because she's the kind of friend with whom you can discuss the gift and its lack-of-being-the-right-thing. She was all "What do you MEAN it's only like five kinds of cheese? Aren't they all different?" because she, too, thought it would be an adventure (lol, an ADVENT-ure and yeah, I used that joke last time, too) of cheese rather than five cheeses repeated.
Because this is a longterm friendship with the Lala, things proceed in a measured pace. That which was of interest two years ago is this year being revisited. This year, I am presented with Twelve Days Of Festive Cheeses which is twelve different kinds of cheese. They're also bigger pieces, so I'll be reviewing them more slowly as I work through the twelve different kinds.
There's a pretty fancy box with also pairing suggestions for the festive cheeses. Today's Festive Cheese is Manchego PDO. It's a sheep cheese, product of Spain. (The festive cheeses are all imported. This is a fairly pricey festive cheese sampler, here.) The box says the Manchego is festive with merlot, fig spread, or hazelnuts. I do not think I have any of those items at home, so I paired it with a date. (I've had manchego before and as sheep cheeses go, it is not overly sheep-y or overly mineral-y.) It goes nicely with a fairly assertive sweet dried fruit like a date. Dates, in fact, cut the minimal sheep flavor in case you don't like the minimal sheep flavor. I'm OK with the minimal sheep flavor, tho. It's nice. Earthy. Different.
Lala's interest in the Festive Cheese box is mostly that she kind of wants me to research an ideal grilled cheese sammich for next summer.
Now, Lala does not, as a general rule, like cheese. I don't know why she is in pursuit of an ideal grilled cheese sammich if she doesn't like cheese, but here we are. She likes the cheese on french onion soups. She'll eat white cheeses, but not yellow ones. Swiss is good. She likes swiss. (I mean, if you're good with swiss cheese, can't we just get some nice baby swiss and call it a day?) If you're not a huge cheese fan you are probably not going to love fancy cheeses from across the Atlantic and especially not hotted up as a grilled cheese because while I like manchego and find it pretty mild, it is not going to fly for Lala with its faint hint of sheep that I bet dollars to doughnuts gets more sheep-y when it's hot.
An ideal grilled cheese is also not a simple thing. I mean, there's an ideal grilled cheese sammich where you have white mass market bread and kraft cheese singles and it's perfectly melted as only process cheese melts, cut across the diagonal for dipping purposes into the steaming bowl of campbell's tomato soup it's served with and you are having a rainy afternoon of nostalgia where you want to be ten years old. And there's an ideal faux-fancy grilled cheese sammich where you have swiss and some sharp mustard and a nice dark rye, with perhaps some apple slices and walnuts on the side. And there's honest gourmet grilled cheese with multiple kinds of cheeses grated so that they melt well and maybe mayo instead of butter for the bread to grill with, obviously some sort of lean sourdough bread with a bite to it and enough structure to make a meal. I mean, what are you going for? What do you *want*? So I'll eat the cheeses and make some notes and we'll discuss cheeses and come up with a plan.
Festive cheeses indeed. :)
no subject
Date: 2021-11-22 05:04 am (UTC)She might be into a very mild cheddar (no wait that’s yellow — maybe just some swiss she knows she likes) on brioche or challah, maybe with a small dollop of champagne mustard. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-09 02:43 pm (UTC)