This Week's Tasting Plate: Carpe Cheese-um

We don't spend a lot of time on the Dairymaid Diary contemplating the fleeting nature of time and our fugitive plans. We're just cheesemongers, after all. But seriously how is it already almost August and how have we only been to the pool once and bought a watermelon twice?


Summer will be over before you know it, "Call Me Maybe" will be a forgotten casualty of the past and your obsession with doing Michael Caine impressions after watching The Trip will burn out like a candle lit on both ends. 


Cheese is not there for you either! Pretty sure any time we've relied on food for emotional support it's actually disappeared faster. The seconds are ticking by as you read this. Quickly, bite into some cheese!


It's aging as we speak! Luckily, in the case of the California Crottin from Redwood Hill, that is a good thing. It gets firmer and the flavor intensifies, like diamonds. Maybe.

This week we'll also have Ewe's Blue from Old Chatham, Granbury Gold and Cowgirl Creamery's Pierce Point. The time is now. Carpe Cheese-um.

This Week's Tasting Plate: A Little Something Extra Edition

We consider ourselves purists in relation to many things. We prefer our hot chocolate without marshmallows, our movies without the 3D glasses and our steak without the au poivre sauce. Simplicity is a beautiful thing. 

There are, of course, exceptions and as much as we love our Marike Gouda in its original form, it's such a delicious cheese and we eat it so often that sometimes we like the little something extra. We carry a cumin and extra-aged version but this week we're featuring the smoked variety. It's amazing a little bit melty on burgers or mixed into a mac n' cheese. 

Our cheddar from the Veldhuizens this week also has some extra flair in the form of caraway seeds. If you yourself are purist, then we recommend the Pawlet from Vermont. Raw Jersey milk is the basis for this Italian-style toma, which is aged four to six months. It's versatile with broad palate appeal. 

Other than that, our special non-cheese treat that we're sampling is the ever seductive Taza chocolate. 

This Week's Tasting Plate: Video Made the Goat Cheese Star

We started carrying cheese from Latte Da Dairy not too long ago, but it was the hard-nosed investigative journalists at CBS that discovered the goat cheese maker back in March. You can watch their video report on vet-turned-cheesemaker Anne Jones and her little pack of loyal goats here. You can purchase some Latte Da Gouda at the shop this weekend.

We'll also be featuring Green Hill from Sweetgrass Dairy, Pt. Reyes Blue and Meadow Creek Grayson, which is reminiscent of an Italian Taleggio but beefier. The beefier the better, as we say at the Dairymaids. Except when you're talking Vinho Verde, which we will also be sampling this weekend and which is decidedly not beefy. We're not crazy. "Vinho verde," of course, translates to "green wine" in deference to its youth and the Arca Nova goes for only $9. July heat, $9 Portguese wine, tastes of fresh apple...stop us when we get close.

This Week's Tasting Plate: The Mini-Vacation Edition

This time of year, it's pretty normal for people to escape on exotic vacations to the south of France or Cozumel or Portland or wherever people with 10 days and no burdensome cats like to visit these days. Not all of us have been so lucky to go abroad yet this summer, but soldier on we must. Just like it's hard to eat chicken tenders without honey mustard sauce, but we handle it.

One thing we like to do to help with the vacation envy is suppress our wanderlust with cheeses from faraway lands. We pride ourselves on stocking amazing Texas cheeses, but there's nothing wrong with something oozy and Italian from time to time. (If you know of something else that qualifies as oozy and Italian but isn't cheese, just keep it to yourself.) Speaking of which, this week we'll have some La Tur from the great region of Piemonte. It's a dense, creamy blend of cow, sheep, and goat's milk that's runny around the perimeter with an earthy and lingering tang. We are expecting to run out of La Tur before the week is up, when we'll sub it for Cremont.

Also on the plate: Wagon Wheel, Cowgirl Creamery's first aged cheese, Dunbarton Blue and peppercorn-studded Bellwhether Pepato (Italian-style, but from Cali).