Week 5 - Girls night! Featuring Carlotta, Reina, and Shannon

I missed a week of cheesing, so made it up this weekend with two cheese nights, girls night on Saturday and Super Bowl Sunday.

Girls night!

Saturday I had a few of my ladies over for cheese night, and let’s just say there was enough food to feed a small army. Mostly because Reina is a mama bear who needs to make sure her cubs are well-fed. And to say I was well-fed would be not entirely accurate; I was bursting at the seams (or to quote Reina “My pants are so full!”).

The Loot: Carlotta: 1,000 day Gouda and sourdough baked Brie Shannon: Ardiri wine (A local winery which I have not been to yet, but comes highly recommended, it has beautiful views and you can bring your own food to picnic! http://www.ardiriwine.com/) Reina: Enough Olive Garden to end world hunger*, Italian truffle cheese, and blueberry vanilla Chevre Myself: Beecher’s flagship cheddar

You can't tell in this photo, but the bottle next to the Aridri is literally called If You See Kay

*What I mean:

Clockwise: Italian truffle cheese, Blueberry vanilla Chevre, and 1,000 day Gouda.

The Cheeses: 1,000 Day Gouda: I’m pretty sure the 1,000 Day Gouda is specifically a Trader Joe’s product, but like everything else Trader Joe’s offers, this cheese was the bomb. It’s made in a typical Gouda manner, and very literally aged 1,000 days. Fun fact! This the 1,000 Day Gouda was a ‘Spotlight Cheese’ meant to be offered for only a limited time. The cheese was so overwhelming popular that it was literally brought back by popular demand. Very much like the extra-aged Gouda from week 2. This cheese was extra sharp, crumbly, creamy, and salty.

Italian truffle cheese: Another Trader Joe’s staple, this is a soft cow cheese from Italy's Umbria region. Typically aged for 15 days, this cheese has truffle oil and black truffle pieces throughout. Let me tell you-this cheese was stinky. And I mean in a funky toe jam kind of way. So much so that we we’re all pretty hesitant to even try it. As it turns out, this cheeses bark is much worse than its bite. In fact, the cheese itself is actually pretty mild, getting most of its flavor from the truffles. We found it actually paired well with something very sweet (in this case it was chocolate butterscotch bites and yogurt covered pretzels) to compliment the earthy flavor of the truffles. Fun fact! Truffle cheese’s are usually called Sottocenere (translating to ‘under ash’) and have a dark grey-brown ash rind. The ash rind is preserve the cheese without losing flavor, as well as adding flavor by mixing spices (cinnamon and nutmeg, among others) in the ash. Our truffle cheese was rindless.

Blueberry vanilla Chevre: Is it out of line to want this cheese slathered all over my body? Trader Joe's FTW! Also bonus points for the first goat cheese to be featured. I don't have a whole lot to say about this cheese except that it's fucking delicious. Goat cheese covered in blueberries with hint of vanilla, its basically a dessert that I want to be eating all the time.

Sourdough baked Brie: Let me just say now that Carlotta’s baked brie was MUCH better than mine. I’ve been converted, I’ve seen the Brie light. The sourdough bread bowl takes a little more time in the oven, but Carlotta brushed the inside of the bowl with a mixture of butter, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and oregano, added the cubed Brie, put the top back on, and slapped that sucker in the oven. It was melty, gooey, deliciousness. Also, the bread bowl had the extra benefit of keeping it together instead of pooling out.

Beecher’s flagship cheddar: It might be early in the game to making these kinds of claims, but this might have been the best cheddar I have ever had. I was worried that 'flagship' meant 'regular' , however CCG assured me that wasn't so. Beecher's (Seattle's equivalent to Tillamook), made their first wheel of this flagship cheddar in 2003 out of Pike Place. It's a semi-hard cow cheese aged typically for 15 months. The flavor was the most full-bodied and rich that I've had with a cheddar. It had hints of nuttiness (which for once I could pick out) that made scarfing it down with almonds by the handful that much better.

Reina, with the food sweats, sitting by the window to get some air, while still eating.

Shanimal!

Food drunk. And drunk drunk.

Did I mention we had Clueless playing in the background. Then Heathers. Because, like, duh.