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! :)

We've recently started posting Foodie related articles on the main Project Foodie webpage .  The most recent such article (Gourmet: A Defining Moment by Charles Nicholson) talks about when Charles had his first "gourmet" delicacy.  This got me thinking, what is the difference between being a gourmet and being a foodie?  I also got wondering if a person can be a Gourmet or is it that food is Gourmet and people are Foodies?  The most recent issue of Bon Appetite magazine celebrates the magazines 50th anniversary and refers to Foodies throughout not gourmets but this could be to keep the spotlight on their magazine and not on the actual Gourmet magazine. 

I think Charles aptly describes gourmet food.  I've certainly enjoyed many gourmet meals in the class he describes and I am looking forward to many more.  Yet after I finished reading the article I was left thinking something was lacking.   That is - the everyday enjoyment of food that I strive for.  Perhaps this is the difference between Gourmet and Foodie.  Gourmet is the exceptional (and expensive) whereas when one is a Foodie it is the desire to have enjoyable and delicious food everyday. Now if you can afford it and have the ability to remain thin and healthy no matter what you eat then go ahead and eat Gourmet everyday!  But for most of us eating Gourmet, at least as Charles describes it, is not an everyday experience.   So in my mind while I greatly enjoy eating Gourmet food I'm a Foodie and I don't always have to eat gourmet food in order to enjoy the food I eat...