Mmmm, cheese.
I recommend including some of the soft cheeses; Camenbert or Brie - blue brie is fantastic melted on a split croissant under the grill.
Much of your selection will be dictated by whatever is available in your area though.
A dry white wine will enhance the enjoyment of most cheeses, I’d also suggest grapes, celery sticks and apple wedges (Cox type apples are the best for this; toss the wedges in a little lemon juice to stop them from turning brown).
Actually ruby I’m told that if you keep limburger wrapprd in the freezer for a while it cuts down on the smell
I know this one! Run to Whole Foods and pick up Blue Castello, verily the King of Cheese! It tastes like a wonderous mix of Brie and Bleu. We usually start out spreading it on crackers, but end up using our fingers.
Take it out of the fridge about an hour before the party, but don’t put it in the microwave, not even for 15 seconds, as I learned from bitter, bitter experience.
I’m having some lovely Blue Castello tonight, as soon as my SO arrives!
(brought to you on behalf of the Blue Castello Cheese Board.)
BTW, cheese party, excellent idea.
Oh Blue Castello! Oh! Suit you sir!- the only reason I didn’t mention it is that I wasn’t sure how widely available it would be.
Blue Castello melted on a split croissant, Oh!
Oh, and for dessert cheese–if you’re anywhere near Ballard especially–I grew up on a Norwegian cheese called gjetost ( pronounced ‘Yay! Toast!’). Sweet, carmelly; tastes like an oddly cheesy candy. Rich and custardy: spectacular thinly sliced with apples; decadent for breakfast layed paper thin on hot buttered toast. An odd cheese for most firsttimers, but one of my favorite things to put in my mouth.
Thank you, thank you one and all for all the suggestions. Happily, I have access to Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Thriftway (the one in Renton, at least, has an impressive cheese selection – whoda thunkit?), Ballard and the Pike Place Market.
We spent 10 minutes this Sunday sniffing cheese at Whole Foods. This is going to be fun.
Also noted: no OJ.
We had our party. We ended up buying 10 kinds of cheese from Whole Foods; various guests brought three other kinds. Lesson 1 for future parties: stick to 6-7 cheeses, tops. People burned out by the last 3-4.
That’s not strictly true – people still enjoyed the cheese, but with far less gusto than in the beginning.
What we ended up serving:
Epoisses
Camembert le Rustique (baked in a pastry crust)
Bourgogne Triple Cream
Chèvre (guest)
Spanish Valdeon
Persille du Beaujolais
Spanish Manchego
Pecorino Toscano (guest)
Viking Cracked Peppercorn & Chive (guest)
Mimolette
French Morbier
Isle of Mull Cheddar
Gjetost
I enjoyed all of them, which surprised me a little bit. The morbier is a washed-rind cheese, similar to limburger in that it reeks but tastes pretty good anyway. (Given the smell, it was almost disappointingly mild.)
Personal favorites: Epoisses, lovely and sticky and gooey like brie, but with a stronger flavor; the cheddar; gjetost, which was our “dessert” cheese; and the Spanish Valdeon, a strongly flavored blue.
The cheesemonger at Whole Foods had recommended serving the Valdeon with warm honey; that combo was my taste orgasm for the evening. Oh, my, that was good. I’d been wary of the blue cheeses (the Valdeon and the Beaujolais), as I’m really just learning to enjoy the flavor, but these were both nice. But oh, that Valdeon and honey…
Next time we’ve decided to do a theme tasting – either by nation or by kind of milk.
Glad your party was a success. And you got through this whole thread without one “Cheese Shop” reference! (It took all my restraint not to chime in with a recommendation for Venezuelan beaver cheese.)
That sounds like one heck of a cheese party, !?. What’d you drink?
I’m glad you’ve discovered the epiphany that is the combination of a salty, tangy bleu cheese with a sweet counterpoint. I love that as well - candied pecans would also be a good selection for the sweet note.
And epoisse is a spectacular cheese! I’ll bet it was a “lait cru”, or raw milk cheese. Technically, we’re not supposed to get raw milk cheeses imported from Europe, but Whole Foods somehow sidesteps this rule occasionally. I won’t ask them how they do it, I’m just thankful that they do - otherwise, no uniquely flavored camemberts or epoisses would come our way.
It was a repast. A feast, even. Before the party started, my sister-in-law asked if we were having dinner first – ha! Cheese for dinner!
We didn’t work very hard to pair drinks with cheese. We had a couple of all-purpose dry red wines recommended by our local wine shop (one Spanish, one French…I think), cranberry juice, white grape juice, hard cider and water.
When we do this again and develop a more cohesive theme, we’ll probably at least try to match wine with the cheese.
I missed this thread the first time around, so I’m glad that you got some fabulous suggestions–I would have certainly pointed you in the direction of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. 
Epoisses is an amazing cheese, as is Manchego.
Next party, try Istara, an aged sheep’s milk cheese from the Basque region. And, for the chevre, try serving with figs–either fig preserves or roasted/grilled fresh figs. At a restaurant I worked at last year, I made an appetizer of chevre whipped with toasted walnuts, thyme, a little sugar, and walnut oil, which was served with toasted pumpernickel and grilled figs. I could just eat a whole plate of that.
And, as a basic reference for choosing wine for your cheeses: wines and cheeses from the same region tend to go well with each other: Barolo with Parmesan, Sancerre with Chevre, a Californian Cab Sav with an aged, dry cheese from N. California, etc.
This handy-dandy little list from Winespectator.com will help: http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Main/Feature_Basic_Template/0,1197,1288,00.html
Fondue and Brie are Good.
Yay gjetost! I’m glad there’s another fan out there.
Go to wholefood, smile nicely at the cheese person, explain you will be holding a wine and cheese party for lots of friends.
WHILE not sick of taste of cheese
point at cheese and say may I try some
UNTIL you have choice of 8 cheeses.
Check out any cheeses from Neils Yard cheese company,
try the Raw Milk Rockafort (sp?)
try the best Stilton
Also get a soft Goats Cheese (local goats cheeses can be very good), a French Garlic Roul(sp?), a Brie.
Traider Joes has some of the nicest cheese biscuits I have yet found in USA, Traider Joes has some pretty good cheese, but all pre-packed so you don’t get to taste it before you buy.
I’m sure you also know TJ’s has great selection of moderately priced wines. Non alcoholic drink to go with Cheese would recomend home made (or home made style) non-sparkelling Lemonade, and Pure Water.
Follow **Mangetout[/B['s advice…
You might want to try the ‘Quince Cheese’ they will have at Whole Foods. It does nothing for me personally, but it seems tres-chique to have with cheese at cheese parties.
P.S. Tell us how the party goes afterwards. It is frustrating to not hear how an event went.
Bippy – scroll up seven posts. The party was a success. It will be repeated sometime after we eat the leftovers.
lissener – Gjetost is the cheese most likely to be added to the occasional shopping list. It seems perfect for breakfast or brunch, for one thing. And it tastes great for dessert, is the other. All hail the Ski Queen!
The best thing I know to eat good cheese on is van der Meulan Melba toast this site is Dutch but I buy them in my local Sydney supermarket. They are just wafer thin toasted bread slices big enough and strong enough for a decent load of toppings.
Don’t just stick to fruits with the cheeses - a pile of salad leaves, slices of tomato, cucumber, sweet peppers, radish, capers and olives add occasional variety to the tasting experience.
Indeed. Yeah, my grandfather used to bring it back from Norway, so I remember the nostalgic thrill I experienced the first time I came across it in a supermarket (yay ski queen!). He also used to bring home another cheese, that in today’s more cautious world would never make it through customs. A greenish cheese called–no idea how to spell it–gomarrost. Pronounced GOM-uh-rrroast. Fairly quivered with microscopic life. My grandmother used to joke that you had to watch it or it would crawl off the table. Little wavy stink lines in the air above it. STRONG stuff. Never seen it here. Not a recommendation; more like a horror story.
Stick to the gjetost (you KNOW I’m buyin some on the way home).
Doh! 