Here’s some holiday gift ideas from our staff that we’d love to share with you – favorites old and new from the cheese mongers and makers who spend every day with them!

Adina’s Pick – Fondue Fantasia

As Chief Tastings Officer, Adina has a wide-range of foodie loves but thanks to our most-recent tasting, she has found a new love – fondue.  It doesn’t get much more comforting on a cold winter night than settling in with some home made fondue for the evening.  Her go-to recipe is the traditional Swiss, with some Emmentaler and Comte (we have a younger-than-usual wheel in house that she loves in fondue) plus some great Fondue pots, cheese graters, and other accessories made by Boska.

Fondue Kit

• Boska Fondue Pot – $54.99
• Boska Cheese Grater – $6.99
• 1# Emmentaler $16.99
• .5# Comte – $12.50

Josh’s Pick – Michigan Paw Paw Gelato

Still our gelato guru’s favorite taste of the season, this obscure Midwestern fruit has become a local star in it’s new role as gelato ingredient.  The custardy fruit is de-seeded and pulped when we begin to receive the paw paws in early November and we will keep cranking out the trays until we run out of fruit, currently trending to be some time in the beginning of 2011.

Paw Paw Gelato

• 12 oz. Drum – $8.95

Mike’s Pick – Rush Creek Reserve

Mike is a softie and I guess it shows in his pick, the Rush Creek Reserve.  Made by our friends in Wisconsin, the Uplands Cheese Company, this is a recent addition to their repertoire.  Uplands has been making Pleasant Ridge Reserve for quite some time now, using the milk of their own herd only when they are out to pasture and selling the autumnal and winter milk to other local dairies.  This year, cheese-maker Andy Hatch began crafting these gorgeous little wheels, aping the French Beaufort-maker’s (the cheese Pleasant Ridge is modeled after) tradition of crafting Vacherin Mont D’or in the off season when Beaufort-production ceases for the year.

Rush Creek Reserve

• $26.99 per wheel

Jack’s Pick – Ricki’s Cheesemaking Kits

As our longest-tenured monger, Jack has been selecting and selling choice cuts of cheese to guests for quite some time.  But during his impressive tenure, he hasn’t been presented with many opportunities to make cheese.  So, this year, Jack’s holiday gift pick is one of Ricki Caroll’s Home Cheesemaking Kits.  We were one of the first retail shops that had her cheese kits available and they have been a huge hit since day 1.  We have 3 varieties, Mozzarella & Ricotta, Hard Cheese, and Goat Cheese, available in the Cheese Shop.

New England Cheesemaking Home Kits

• Mozzarella & Ricotta – $30.00
• Hard Cheese – $34.99
• Goat Cheese- $20.00

The possibilities are practically endless!

Happy Holidays from Your Local Cheese Makers and Mongers!

This time of year is one of my favorites chiefly because I get to bring in so many more kinds of cheese than I usually do for the Cheese Shop.  And that of course means it’s time to bring in some softies, particularly some stinky softies, my secret favorite of all the cheeses.  I’m a bit reticent to admit it it since we don’t make any washed-rinds but I can’t lie, they are my favorite.  I love the way they look, they smell, the paradoxical way that they are usually so mild to the tongue but potent to the nose, everything about them really.

For this year, we have expanded into a nice little line up of soft-ripened and washed-rind cheeses for the holidays.  WIthout a doubt the best we have ever offered.  Below there is featured two of our offerings and we have several others including Uplands Cheese’s Rush Creek Reserve, Ardrahan from Ireland and Gabietou from France.  Be sure to ask for a taste the next time you are in the Cheese Shop but be warned, supplies are very limited and I don’t expect too many to make it to next year.

Epoisses de Bourgogne

Few cheeses truly approach life-altering status, despite countless hyperbole to the contrary.  But there are few turophiles out there who could possibly argue with Epoisses’ place on the short list of truly life-changing cheeses.  A perfectly-ripened wheel, with its’ characteristically bright red-orange rind and pungently heady aroma, comes as close to perfection as a cheese can get.  At room temperature, this cheese is unbelievably creamy with a flavor that takes the milk from sweet to salty, paradoxically mild with a richness sure to warm you up to the bone. $25.99 per wheel

Cowgirl Creamery’s “Red Hawk”

From the northern lands of California, this washed-rind gem is one of the best stinkers in the States as far as I am concerned.  These guys have been setting the bar for many years and we are thrilled to finally have them full-time in the Cheese Shop.  This cheese, as Cowgirl Creamery puts it, “strives to capture the essence of West Marin” and as a frequent visitor to that area I must say, well-played Cowgirl.  If you have ever seen a sunset in Marin County, CA, you will easily see it echoed in the rind of this beautiful cheese.

Each year around the time of the first real snow, our little yellow cheeses here at the Creamery begin to develop a delightful blue and white mottling on their rinds as they age.  This happens for a couple reasons, both related to our distinct location here the fine city of Ann Arbor, in the great state of Michigan.  First, because we make our cheese right next door to Zingerman’s Bakehouse, and blue is a classic bread mold, our proximity to delicious baked goods lends itself to blue-y cheese.  Second, the cold temperature and low moisture of the winter months here in the Mitten make conditions especially good for this particular mold to find its way atop our young, mold-ripened cheeses.

We usually see it most on the cheeses with the geotrichum-rind (the yellow-rinded ones, like the Manchester and Ypsi), which is more accommodating to ambient molds in the air; the white mold (on cheeses like the Lincoln Log) is more aggressive and so we tend to see less blue there.  Either way, we always greet its pretty, patterned arrival as an indication of the changing seasons, and a reminder that, in all cheese-making traditions except for the modern factory, cheese changes along with the seasons, the location, the lactation cycle and feed of the animals, and a host of other environmental factors.  Variations in the cheese is a sign we look for to indicate its handmade, Michigan roots – a thing to be celebrated!  You could never recreate these cheeses exactly as they are anywhere else!

We invite you to stop in and taste some of the blue-y cheeses with us this time of year – don’t fear: the blue is totally edible and actually quite interesting and tasty!  We think blue is beautiful!  We hope you will too.