#everycheese

It's been awhile since I last reviewed a cheese. This is Trader Joe's Potted Blue Stilton, a seasonal cheese available during the holidays. It came in a ceramic container with a lid and cost $9.99. We aged it for 3 weeks, which was perhaps too long. But it says "Use by Feb. 11, 2017," so we could have aged it another month if we wanted to. It was the sharpest Stilton I have ever tasted. To me, eating it felt as unpleasant as taking a shot of whiskey. After a moment it made me queasy, then it hit me in the stomach like whiskey again. The flavor was all untamed sharpness, without the complexity of stilton that I remember from trying it at cheese shops before. I tried it again from the middle of the cheese, and it was slightly better. Maybe I would have liked it as a younger cheese. But @pydanny loved it and said the sharpness was just right. We had it with Breton 7-grain crackers. #everycheese #stilton #cheese #traderjoes

This is Sottocenere al tartufo, a Venetian cheese filled with tiny black truffle flecks and covered in a rind made of ash. I started out eating it with olive oil toasts, but then I realized it tasted better on its own. It has a heavy truffle flavor and scent, but since truffles are so delicate, their flavor can be overpowered easily. The cheese itself is mild. It melts in your mouth, leaving a lingering truffle speck or two that make you want to have another bite. Purchased at @monsieurmarcelfm in the 3rd Street Farmers Market in LA. I also bought a 1 oz. jar of black truffle shavings on sale there for $12, but the cheese was 200% more truffly tasting. #sottocenere #truffles #everycheese

Cotswold Double Gloucester, pasteurized milk, Trader Joe's. Like eating scallion pancakes but as a cheese. Very green oniony. Thick, velvety texture. We are in the backyard eating our cheeses with water crackers as the sun sets and warm breezes blow over us. The temperature out was around 100°F earlier today but is now just right for a backyard cheese picnic. #cotswold #doublegloucester #everycheese

This is Abbaye de Belloc, a sheep cheese made by monks in the French Basque country. We bought it at @claremontcheese from a cheesemonger who said that it was his favorite snacking cheese. @pydanny and I weren't the biggest fans of this at first when we tasted it on its own, but then he tried it with water crackers and said it turned into an entirely different cheese. It's a semi-hard cheese with a thick, sheepy texture. I'd imagine it would melt very nicely. #abbayedebelloc #everycheese #sheepcheese

Colston Basset Stilton. A hard blue cheese that tasted surprisingly creamy and not as "blue" tasting as expected, though I left the spikiest, bluest parts for @pydanny to eat. The photo looks blurry, but it's not. That's just how the cheese looks. It's one of those blurry-looking cheeses. We had it with water crackers, crumbling off pieces with a butter knife. The pieces were so hard that I didn’t try to spread them. It was very complex: tangy, yet with a mild, slightly sweet finish. I see what the cheesemongers mean by hints of leather and molasses at the end. #everycheese #stilton

It's a giant wedge of smoked gouda! #everycheese

Here's the box of the #brie that we just tasted. Note the aging suggestions on the back cover. It won "Best American Brie 2014" at the World Championship Cheese Contest. #everycheese

Alouette Special Reserve #Brie at 25 days prior to sell-by date. Still very mild-tasting. It has started to soften but is still only semi-soft. We'll have to get another and try aging it. @pydanny and I are on a new quest to taste #everycheese.