Cheese, Louise!

I am here to write about cheese today.
Normally, I don't think about cheese every day, but today I thought about cheese, lusted after cheese, and ate a bit too much cheese. My vegan daughter has taken to preparing interesting things for the family to eat. This is very good, seeing as I do not enjoy cooking, but do enjoy eating. Being vegan, some of the ingredients for these dishes are, shall we say, obscure? Not really obscure, but some of them just are not found at the Sentry a few blocks from our house. It took two trips today to find rice paper spring roll wrappers, for instance. They were not at the large, modern grocery in the Village of Tosa, but they were down the block at the local health food Co-op.
You may be wondering, what does my vegan daughter have to do with cheese? If she's vegan, she doesn't even eat cheese (or want to talk about where it comes from). Well, Outpost not only carries fine organic food and tons of vegan choices and downright strange things (no offense), but it also carries a pretty darn good selection of cheese, Grommit. The budget is tight right now, so I passed up the imported Port Salut, the Manchego, the Chaumes and the Brie and settled on some ciliegine, otherwise known as little mozarella balls. Oh, glory! I just ran down to the refrigerator to check on the spelling of ciliegine, and had to eat another one while I stood there. There were about 12 little white almost spheres in the container (they are sort of shaped like something extruded straight from a baby cow, only perfectly white in color - don't let this keep you from trying them as they are delicious), but now, 30 minutes later, there are only four left. Oh, they are so good! Of course, you shouldn't be eating them like potato chips, especially if you're trying to lose those last 15 pounds. Can't eat potato chips like potato chips, either. But at least with ciliegine, you are getting some protein and calcium, calciyum.
I have this French friend, un ami francais, who has tried to frenchify my tastebuds with good wine, good cheese, good bread and good cat food (pate). He has tens of thousands of dollars worth of wine in his climate-controlled basement and has graciously allowed me to try all sorts of interesting vintages, yet has not yet succeeded in finding a wine that I prefer over plain old grape juice from concentrate. This is no fault of his own; I simply don't like the stuff, even the good stuff. But the cheese . . . ahhhh, the cheese. Fol Epi, Petit Basque, Beaufort, Saint Andre, Saint Albray . . . how wonderful! The French do make some fantastic cheese. It wasn't until I stumbled upon a chunk of Pleasant Ridge Reserve while in Spring Green a couple years ago that I could name an American cheese that I preferred over most French cheeses. PRR is made by Uplands Cheese Company in Dodgeville, Wisconsin and it is now my favorite cheese of all. This cheese was named US Champion in the US Cheese championship in 2003 and won Best of Show at both the 2001 and 2005 American Cheese Society Conferences. This simply means I'm not the only one who thinks it's the most wonderful cheese I've ever tasted. (See link at right.) It is worth the stunning price per pound, when you've got the dough. Most folks who drink wine will spend far more on that, so who could complain about a half pound or less of the best cheese there is for only $20.00/#? If you go out to Spring Green to the General Store, or straight to the farm, you can get it for $18.99. I hear if you're in Chicago, it's $24.99.
So that's the skinny on cheese for today. I like saying "skinny." Makes me feel better about cheese and eating more of it.
I want to go and hide those ciliegine in the back of the fridge so that no one else knows they're there, but if I go near them, there will be nothing left to hide.