Keepin it Cheesy

I may love cheese as much as the next girl, but you know what's also pretty awesome? Cheese stuff. So in the interests of people like me for whom cheese is not just a food but a lifestyle, I present to you my awesome cheese things roundup.

I just got this fantastic cheese ring from purveyor of vintage wonderments, Jezzybelles on etsy:

I am slightly too excited for it to get here. Anyway I apologize that this is one thing you cannot have as it's a kind of found item, but you could always keep it classy with this wine and cheese ring from SouZouCreations, also on etsy:

Dress up your iphone pics with the cheese-friendly pic-editing app, Mr. Chiizu:

  

Take a trip down memory lane with the Cheese Roll Call from Pinky and the Brain:

Lucy Knisley, who graciously sent me a leftover shirt she still had from ages ago with this print on it when I messaged her about it, now has the print available on her Society6 shop:

I can't wait to order one for my kitchen! Just like I can't wait to save up to get these ridiculously cute vintage cheese label plates from Uncommon Goods:

Found any other cool cheese swag lately? Link me! 

Cheese Challenge Guest Post from Unicorn Parade

FFF note: I had no idea that when I put up the challenge that I would get some submissions from some blogs that are already my favorite daily reads. Please see below for the first Cheese Challenge guest post from Tanie at Unicorn Parade:
 
True confessions time: I'm not a brave eater. I don't like trying new things or new flavour combinations. Give me something even a tiny scootch out of my food comfort zone and I'm like LOL NO I'LL JUST HAVE SOME TOAST. When it comes to cheeses I tend to stick to cheddar, goat cheese, and the curds on my poutine. I'M SUPER BORING, OKAY? I'm like the white bread of cheese eating.

Pretty much the only time I step outside of my cheese zone is during the summer when the farmers' market by my house is running, because one of the vendors is my favourite cheesery, Little Qualicum Cheeseworks. They are located on Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia and about 25 minutes from where I grew up, although they didn't start operating until after I moved away. I keep saying I want to go back and visit the cheeseworks, but I need a cheese enthusiast to go with me, so if anyone knows someone who fits that description...

Of course even with all their lovely artisan cheeses I rarely stray from my favourite, Qualicum Spice, but the other weekend I decided to take the plunge and try something new. I settled on the Tipsy Jill, a softer and more delicate version of Jack cheese, marbled with blackberry wine (I'm pregnant so this is the closest I'll be getting to wine for another five months). It's so pretty!

By the time I got around to trying this I was S T A R V I N G so I decided to add it to my fried egg and tomato sandwich. To be honest I was a little apprehensive about it, since I wasn't sure it'd be a good match. This cheese definitely has a berry wine fragrance- does that go with eggs?

 YEAH. YEAH IT DOES. This was soooooooooo gooooooooooooood, the cheese melted just a little and the mild fruity flavour complimented the eggs and tomatoes perfectly without being overwhelmed by them.

I can't wait to try this cheese on every single other thing I eat for the rest of my life, or until I finally get brave enough to try something else new. WISH ME LUCK!

National Cheese Day Challenge

Happy National Cheese Day to all of my readers! You can celebrate however you like, but I think this National Cheese Day will include for me the following challenges that I will attempt to complete at least one or all of, and I welcome you to join me:

1. Try a cheese I have not tried before
2. Find a way to incorporate cheese in to a food I normally do not eat it with
3. Upgrade a dish I eat with cheese often

What do I mean by upgrade?

I mean anything that involves adding a new ingredient on top of in or with the cheese, or trying to use a different technique in prep to kick my favorite cheeses up a notch. Singing your favorite Beyonce song while doing so is optional but recommended. Check out this listing of grilled cheese upgrades for examples, like this grilled brie and nutella:

I think my mind was just blown with hazelnut chocolate melty deliciousness.

I will let you know how my own venture goes, but I think I already have something in mind for some Buglarian Feta that's been chilling in my fridge for a while. Anyone else want to join me?

Local Love for La Copa Loca

Just a quicky post to talk about a spot I just visited on a whim (or rather on the whim of Yelp's around me function) that I ended up loving, La Copa Loca. A mainstay gelateria in Mission, it makes use of local flavors and produce to create some really unique gelatos. I wasn't expecting there to be any cheese here, but they had among their flavors marscapone and espresso, ricotta and orange zest, and my selection of goat cheese and fig:

So tangy and I appreciate when the scooper takes the time to get as many chunks of fig or other filling in as they can in to my humble scoop. It was tangy and sweet, and now I wish I had gotten some of the ricotta and orange zest to go with it. Guess I'll just have to go back!

Costco Cheese Haul and Tips for Perfect Pizza

I love the cheese selection at Costco and have been going back to the one near us time and again to try and find one in particular that my grandmother always seems to have whenever I visit, but when I try to go back and find it there myself it's gone like some kind of cheese Brigadoon. I've been on a crazy smoked gouda kick, and in my opinion Yancey's Fancy Smoked Gouda from upstate New York is one of the best, though seemingly elusive as Costco has it in stock maybe once in a blue moon.

I sort of wish that it was appropriate to do haul videos the way one does on a fashion blog, but I think a photo will suffice. My entire haul from the shopping trip:

Just a cart full of my favorites, the successfully found Yancey's Fancy Smoked Gouda, Pacific Cave Aged Blue, Bulgarian feta and Balsamic BellaVitano cheeses, like 8lbs of goodness right there. The Pacific blue ended up on this pizza:

It's my usual bacon bleu cheese fig pizza with a minor upgrade of balsamic fig reduction drizzle. I know hypothetically I could have made my own reduction, but when I make pizza it's all about speeding things along so I used Blaze's Balsamic Fig Glaze, which would like you to know that it was the first one thank you very much:

Pretty damn good, and a little goes a long way. I've also been finding that I love it drizzled over some fresh mozzarella balls for a little appetizer:

I love me some good pickled things, olives, pickles and some rosemary pecans on the side.

My beloved Yancey's Fancy ended up on this glorious pizza:

This one used the gouda instead of mozzarella with caramelized onions, cut up chicken sausage, butternut squash cubes and ricotta on top. I broke my own rule of 3 toppings again but

Ir was amazing, I just wish that the butternut squash was a little more in season and in general I love the way that squash and gouda are the perfect bffs. However this pizza would not have been the same without the ricotta, which I think adds a little texture and sweetness to balance out how sharp and smokey the gouda is. It's definitely one of the more underestimated cheeses in my own opinion, and a favorite pizza topping.

Shoutout of course to Trader Joe's pizza dough, which is about the best stuff you can use if you don't want to make your own. Construction instructions can be found on my previous pizza post linked above or at my post on goat cheese, bacon and date pizza, but my primary tips are:

- prebake your dough to about half done on nonstick foil directly on the rack
- put a layer of cheese under and over your toppings
- put the pizza directly on the rack to finish baking and DON'T TOUCH till it's crispy and delicious
- rest your pizza 5-10 min before cutting

You end up with a perfectly crispy crust, bubbling cheese and nicely toasted toppings every time, plus the beloved sauce line on the dough that those of us from NYC miss so much. Now I gotta go start brainstorming what to do with the other 6lbs of cheese I have left!

Cheese-stagram

Instagram has been such a fun new way for me to document my cheese related exploits, especially because it's a lot less intrusive than me yanking out my camera every ten seconds to snap pics when out with friends.

Italian meats and cheeses at a bachelorette party, a lovely aged pecorino romano and my first time trying burratta:

The burratta was amazing! Is it strange to say that it reminded me of labna, a Middle Eastern fresh yogurty type cheese? Especially with the olive oil:

Surveying the cheese selection at our local wine and liquor shop, BevMo:

Triple cream creme brulee with an aged cheddar, local charcuterie and a 2008 malbec:

Super fun and definitely tasty. I think it's great that it's become such a good way to share pics of food and restaurants in a simple format, and I really love reading blogs that include them in updates like http://cr33pingitreal.blogspot.com/. Do you have and like Instagram? 

I was just cave-aging my blog, I swear.

I've been a negligent blogger, and for that I offer my sincerest cheese-filled apologies. I have however been thoroughly documenting my exploits, and I hope you'll bear with me as I catch up and post everything I've been slacking off on for the last few months.

In the meantime, please enjoy this amazing cheese-centric comic by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:




Click through for the source. I'm glad to see that Zach Weiner (and God) share my passion for stilton.