Cheese!

I love cheese. I adore it - I inherited this love from my father, who would buy a pound of mozzerella and a pound of swiss when he would come home, and would eat it piece by piece whilst reading Tom Clancy novels and watching the history channel. Of course, he'd be reading and not watching TV, but G-d help you if you changed the channel. My mom, too, is a cheese lover - she's one of those lived on Guyere in college types - and as a result, there was always cheese in the house growing up. There is not a time where there is not at least cheddar, mozerrella, feta and string cheese in my mother's fridge, and whenever my sister or I are home you can guarentee something fancier is around and in large quantities.

My sister and I are both big cheese fans. Her favourites are goat cheeses, while mine are sheep cheeses, but if you were to put the two of us in a cheese shop we would not leave for many hours and when we finally emerged, we would have easily a hundred dollars worth of cheeses on us. We've got a bit more exotic tastes than our parents (who are fans of milder cheeses, honestly), but cheese has always been a big deal for us. It is one of the culinary staples - like spices or family recipes for cheese cake or charoset.

While I was in New Caledonia a few summers ago, I was making my way back to my ship with some shipmates of mine - we'd gone on a bar crawl and had to walk the 3 miles back to the port stinking drunk - and along the way, we saw a Chevron gas station. We walked in, in search of cigarettes and water only to find - to our amazement! - that the gas station had baguettes and brie.

Baguettes and brie. at a gas station.

We picked up a bunch and dashed back to the ship, only barely managing to get back to the ship before curfew; and we ate all of it in the lower class lounge that night. Yum.

But the real point of this post is that i have a favourite cheese.

Valle d'aspe.

From Cheese Shop:

This aged wheel of goat cheese truly epitomizes an authentic tomme de Chevre from the Pyrenees Mountaints. The small production results in exceptional, complex flavor. It has it all in terms of nuances: fruity, tangy, and a little salty. It finishes with a wonderful caramelized nuttiness that makes you reach back for more. The texture is firm and flaky so it shaves very well, but is not too hard to be a table cheese.

they forgot to add that this cheese is friggin tasty as hell.