Week 6 - Superbowl! Hosted by Jessie, Josh, and the wee baby Sloane.

I have to start my blog off with non-cheese

related matter because it was Dominic's birthday and he's one of my favorites. I didn't want to get out of bed that morning (did I mention girls night went very late?) despite it being like noon. After a tag-team of coercion those fools dragged me out of bed for food and a lovely stroll around St. John's. I'm so happy they dragged my ass out of bed because St. John's is a lovely little neighborhood, and this was the first sunny weekend day in I-can't-even-remember. Let me tell you, you never really realize how much you miss the sun until you feel it's heat on your skin again.

"It's my birthday and I'll die if I want to"

For my Superbowl Sunday cheese party my mom had the cool idea of having a soft cheese, a semi-hard cheese, and a hard cheese, which I totally loved. Also, it gave me opportunity to talk shop with Cute Cheese Guy (who I swear has a name, though I have no idea what it is. Max? Eric? Remembering names isn’t one of my strong suits). I do have to say though, I might have to change my sub header to *I know something about cheese, because while we were talking cheeses and pairings I actually was able to hold my own in the conversation. Maybe by the end of this I actually will be a cheese connoisseur, er, maître fromager affineur.

The Cheeses and Pairings: Soft: Fromager d'Affinois with Garlic and Herb paired with butter crackers. Semi-hard: Hopyard cheddar paired with beer (of course). Hard: Gruyere paired with almonds.

Clockwise: Fromager d'Affinois, Hopyard cheddar, Gruyere

*Quick note, I left comment cards for each of the cheeses so people could write down their thoughts and impressions for each.

Fromager d'Affinois with Garlic and Herb: This cheese was on my ‘off the table’ list for reviewing only because it’s my personal favorite cheese and I eat it like once a week, but it occurred to me that I shouldn’t deprive anyone else of the experience, especially when it’s my favorite. And to be fair, I actually haven’t tried the garlic and herb crusted so technically it was a new experience for myself as well. d'Affinois is a pasteurized cow cheese in the Rhone-Alpes region of France, typically aged for two months. While it looks like Brie, and is made in a similar process, Fromager d'Affinois is unique in that it goes through an "ultrafiltration" process, meaning that the water is removed from the pasteurized milk, allowing the fat molecules to disperse amongst the content. The result? A rich, creamy cheese, with hints of mushrooms, and a higher fat content than most. Comment card: Mild, moist, damp, and delicious. *I gotta say, most people don’t like the word moist, but to me, damp is by faaar a way more gross term to describe a cheese. Personal comments: A.) Of course my favorite cheese has to be the one more bad for you than usual. Fak. and B.) The crushed garlic and herb rind didn't really do anything for me at all. Instead of enhancing the cheese's natural flavor, I felt like it kind of detracted, making it duller tasting.

Rouge Creamery's hopyard cheddar: This hopyard cheddar is made at the Chatoe Rogue Hop Farm from pasteurized cow cheese aged for 1 month+. According the their website, this cheese is supposed to have "hop petals [that] provide an herbaceous olfactory hit like the first notes from a freshly poured IPA. Then layers of sweet brown butter and hazelnuts with slightly old-fashioned buttermilk tones follow. The flavors are presented in reverse when tasting the sweet buttery tones followed by fresh and detailed floral hop flavors." I think they are being really fucking generous in that description. Comment card: Boring, tastes like Monterey Jack, not the best, bland, lack of flavor. Personal comments: Everything the comment card said, this was really disappointing actually. I was hoping for a distinct beer-y flavor. The cheese on its own was almost flavorless, I was hoping that pairing with a beer would bring out some sort of flavor that we were missing, however, that was barely so.

Gruyere: I thought for sure that when I bought this cheese it was different from the Gruyere from week 2 so I was pretty bummed to realize when I got home it was exactly the same. However, unlike week 2, when the room was divided, this was far and away the fan favorite of the night. Comment card: Nutty, salty, crystal-y. Personal comments: This time around there was definitely less fish-y flavor, maybe that was just the batch we had. The almonds a nice pair, it complimented the sweet and salty flavor of the cheese while bringing out nutty undertones.

The Superbowl!

I really couldn't care very much about football, but once a year I can pretend. At least this year the Broncos were playing and their 'my team' if I were to have one.

Smells like team spirit

"Babies are...kind of gross"* - Me

Dad multi-tasking with Toots McDoots

"My uterus is glowing" - Lewis

*Not Sloane though, she's a cute ass little human.

What I cared about: The commercials: None of which were even very good. Basically every single of just tried to 'out celeb' the other. Also, literally right after the Dorito's ultrasound commercial Jessie said, and I quote to the best of my abilities, "People don't think fetus' are funny, lets see how long it takes for people to be outraged." (I'll give you a hint, less than 24 hours). At least they weren't trying to make us cry like every commercial the last year. The halftime show: In what world does Coldplay headline for Beyonce and Bruno Mars?! Don't they know this is Bey's world and we're all just living in it? The second Bruno started was when the show started. Chris Martin, bless his soul, tried his best to pump up the crowd, but really, who loses their bananas over soft alt-rock? They might as well been playing 'Yellow' up there. The hot ref: Nuff said.