 To me everything tastes better with cheese. Well, ok, I can think of a few things that don't go with cheese such as ice cream or, um well coffee. But for almost everything else cheese is great. My interest in cheese has been growing in recent years. Last year, Husband got me a cheese book that summarizes the worlds greatest cheese. While I'd love to try them all, sadly, it will take time. As a result I try to taste cheeses whenever I can. I've found a great way to try out different cheeses is to serve a cheese-course as an appetizer at dinner parties. This has many advantages. It’s a nice way to try out 4 or 5 different cheeses and because my guests will also be trying them out we can all learn from what each other thinks. Another advantage is it prevents me from eating too much cheese because my guests will be eating it too! I've found using several different types of cheese works best for my parties. While I'd like to also have a party with a focus on a specific type of cheese I find this harder to do because not everyone likes every kind of cheese. Some people will go for the goat or other soft cheeses, others will go for the washed-rind cheeses, others will go for the blues, and so forth. In my cheese tasting and entertaining quest I'm using the book "Cheese: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Best", by Max McCalman as a basis for the cheese I serve. This is restricted, of course, by availability at my cheesemonger. Some cheeses seem to be all around favorites such as Petite Basque and aged Gouda. The goat and blue cheeses seem to be the most limited with some guests only liking one or the other. Recently, our favorite goat cheeses have been St. Maure and Cypress Grove Mad River whereas our favorite blue cheeses are Valdeon, Social Roquefort, and Bleu d'Auvergne. But with so many other choices out there we try not to repeat any cheese more than once. In terms of cooking, my most recent favorite cheese is Piave. Piave is a hard cheese that resembles a young Parmigiano Reggiano both in terms of texture and taste. While I love Parmigiano Reggiano, the problem with it is that it comes in very large wheels. This means that most stores can not buy a whole wheel and must order a partial one. So, by the time the Parmigiano Reggiano gets to us at a store it has most likely been cut and stored wrapped in plastic for some time. End result - unless you shop at an extremely high volume cheese shop it will not be very fresh at the time of purchase. Piave on the other hand is produced in much smaller wheels that can be cut to order by a cheese shop and sold quickly enough that it will be very fresh when purchased. I've found side-by-side comparisons of Parmigiano Reggiano and Piave very enlightening. The flavors are similar but, to me, Piave seems so much more alive. Piave is also, at least where I shop, less expensive than Parmigiano Reggiano. These days I almost always use Piave in place of Parmigiano Reggiano. Now that I have been trying all of these wonderful gourmet cheeses, I'm quickly becoming accustomed to eating magnificent cheeses. While I still buy some cheeses at the local grocer I can really tell the difference between them and the ones I get from the cheese store. So what I once thought was good is now only ok. And when it comes to bulk produced generic yellow or white cheeses I simply stay away. Hmmm and I've only tried a fraction of the cheese varietals available! So this holiday season my motto for all of those parties is - Bring on the Cheese! :)
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