Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Cheese, glorious cheese!

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: we are serious cheese freaks. We LOVE cheese. We'd basically eat nothing but cheese if I didn't exert serious restraint and monitor our cheese consumption. Of course, living on the Vermont border, we have access to loads of amazing local cheeses, which we enjoy, but because we eat so much cheese, we also need a more utilitarian, run-of-the-mill, basic, everyday cheese. We call this "snack cheese" (as opposed to "special cheese" or "cooking cheese").


Lately our grocery store has been having amazing specials on cheese, bringing our standard snacking cheddar down to only $2.99 a pound, so of course we've been stocking up. With all that cheese on hand, however, the danger is that we'll go overboard and eat way too much cheese (yes, hard to believe, but there is such a thing). So we've rationed it. I figure that between the two of us, one 8-oz bar of cheddar per week is sufficient (especially since that's not the only cheese we eat - that's just for simple snacks). When the price drops this low, the limit is six bars at a time, so in theory, the supply should last six weeks.

We've done shockingly well with this allotment, even having some bars of cheese last longer than a week. The timing also works out well because it seems like Price Chopper runs this special around every six weeks - so right as we're running out, we can stock up again. Perfect.

When we lived in London, there was a greater variety of cheap cheeses in the supermarkets there, and we enjoyed trying out as many different kinds as possible. I especially liked to toss some Red Leicester in my mac and cheese, and we enjoyed Stilton with apricots on oat cakes. Mmmm, yummy! And of course the cheddar was great - more sharp aLinknd crumbly than supermarket cheddar here. Hard to believe it's been four years since we moved back!

What are your favorite cheeses? Anything we should try? I'm thinking a cheese taste-test series on the blog would be an excellent excuse to buy more cheese!

4 comments:

A_and_N said...

I see a lot of "American" names there like New York and Vermont. Are they actually American inspired cheeses or is this another case where places with identical names exist in both countries ;) ?

No Longer 25 said...

I'm a huge cheese fan too, and yoghurt - really anything dairy! Really sharp cheddar is my favourite and so easy to get in Scotland!

Did you freeze your stock of cheese or was it well dated? I need to find a way of storing it longer but it always seems to go so crumbly when we freeze it. At least if it's frozen we won't eat it so quickly - like it's rationed!

I love white stilton and apricot too, did you ever try cranberry and wendsleydale - so good!

Sarah said...

A_and_N, those are American cheese, from Vermont and New York. We live in New Hampshire now, but we're right on the Vermont border.

Jade! Thanks for visiting the blog. I didn't freeze any of the cheese, just put it in the fridge, and that worked fine. There was one block of cheese that did get moldy, but noting else lasted long enough for that to happen!

I don't think I have had cranberry and wensleydale but that sounds delicious!

Nicola Osborne said...

Wendsleydale with cranberry is super yummy!

I'm also a big fan of a cheese called "Ginger Spice" - basically sharp chedder with lots of spicy ginger. Seriously seriously good.

Then there's a lovely Irish brie (Heather will remember it's name) that's very creamy and oozy... ooh and all the proper French cheeses and... num! Too many good cheeses! ;)

Ok, I shall calm myself now ;)