This Week's Tasting Plate: A Vegetable Without A Cheese Does Not Taste As Sweet

Who among us has planned a massive holiday meal (be it for Thanksgiving, Christmas or what have you), or merely considered what to bring to one we were invited to, without thinking, "Hmmm. We might need a vegetable side dish. You know, one without cheese." Then, just ended up preparing something with cheese.

Because as surely as you will be eating a turkey next week, you will also be presented with several dishes awash in, brimming with and capped off with dairy. As the saying goes, if you like a vegetable, then you should put a cheese on it. And of course, we have all the cheese you could possibly need or desire.

For your Southwestern sweet potato gratin, creamy squash casserole and plain ol' mac n' cheese, we're stocked up especially for Thanksgiving with Sarvecchio Parmesan, Dunbarton Blue, Bonne Bouche, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar and Reading Raclette. We have Lucky Layla butter and Blue Heron cajeta for your coffee, ice cream and an extra kick to your pecan pie.

If you're like us and serve cheese as its own course, then you might be interested in our showstopper--the Rush Creek Reserve. Made only in the fall, it features the richer texture of hay-fed milk and the delicate ripeness of a soft, young cheese. It's spoonable, and wrapped in spruce bark, making it lovely for special occasions.

Store hours this weekend will be the same as usual: 10a.m.-6p.m. Saturday and Sunday. We'll also be sampling beer and wine, in the likely event you find yourself in need of that, too.

This Week's Tasting Plate: Desert Island Cheeses

Alright, frankly, if we were stranded on a desert island, cheese would not make it into the top five things we wish we had with us. Aside from being calorically dense, it's not really suited for the situation, seeing that it generally doesn't pair well with coconut. We don't think saying that makes us any less dedicated  dairymaids.

However, in a figurative sense, we definitely have a cheese essentials list and it is in fact posted in our shop. We just updated it this week, and if you haven't tried what's on it--Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Dunbarton Blue and Tarentaise among others--you're definitely missing out. All of them are among the best of their type and generally loved by all, so we recommend having a few handy in the cheese drawer at all times. It's like a party life preserver or even a Wilson-like companion, if you're having one of those nights.

In addition to those cheeses, this weekend we're featuring Beehive's Smoked Habanero Cheddar, Pt. Reyes Toma and brandy-soaked Rogue River Blue. Come by, eat some cheese and ask us about our island survival skills. Haley can do like, 10 pushups (ask her to prove it!) and Elizabeth has probably saved several lives by the time you've finished reading this sentence.

This Week's Tasting Plate: Trick or Cheese?

"Dairymaid store hours, spooky scary. Milk becoming cheese, cheese becoming lunch."-- Sung to the tune of Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.

If we hadn't experienced the making of cheese first hand, we would probably just assume that it was created through inexplicable supernatural phenomena. It's so incredible, how grass becomes something so fatty, creamy and delicious, surely some mysterious force must be at work. And so, we invite you to tour our haunted cheese mansion and eat something substantive before pigging out on Reese's Peanut Butter cups while watching Hocus Pocus.

This week, we're featuring one of our all-time favorites, the Smokey Blue from Rogue Creamery. Cold-smoked over Oregon hazelnut shells, the cheese ends up with a slightly caramel-y, campfire flavor that makes it so perfect for this time of year.

We're also carrying La Tur, which is a dense, creamy blend of cow, sheep and goat's milk. Runny and oozy around the perimeter, it's a decadent treat even for a cheese. Dunbarton Blue, Bellwether Pepato and Matos St. Jorge round out the tasting plate. Happy Halloween!

This Week's Tasting Plate: A Little of This, A Little of That

Did you guys know that Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta reunited to record a Christmas album? As in, this year, 2012? Check out the album cover. We're pretty sure given the angle at which they're holding those coffee cups, the beverages are just painted in.

As terrible as that album may be, we can't help but sigh a little nostalgic sigh. Remember when Sandy became a little trashy for Danny and Danny a little preppy for Sandy? Together, they were two very different yet very compatible flavors.

Just like in Pure Luck Dairy's June's Joy, where the crushed peppercorns studding the goat cheese is like Danny's leather jacket and the touch of honey is Sandy's sweet innocence (now sullied). Turns out, sullied cheese is delicious cheese. We'll have this Dairymaid favorite on our tasting plate this week along with Barely Buzzed, Pawlet and Rimrocker.

Cheese: You're the One that I Want. Ooh ooh ooh.

This Week's Tasting Plate: The Black Sheep of the Family

There are plenty of cheese-lovers out there who still don't care much for blues. Some people can do all manner of funky, beefy, salty and tangy cheeses, but choose to skip the last tasting on our plate. We're not the type to be pushy about it--what is recreational diary consumption about if not freedom?--so we typically don't shout about it from the rooftops/our blog.

This week, though, we're featuring the exceptional Old Chatham Ewe's Blue, which is not only a blue, but also a sheep's milk cheese. Neither of those characteristics is a tour headliner, but neither was Van Gogh until it was too late. Sheep milk has been a part of other cultures around the world for some 12,000 years, but we still don't see it much here in America. Sheep are extremely hardy, but those kind of survival skills aren't really necessary in our climate, so sissy cows work just fine for us.

Of course, sheep's milk is richer in fat than cow's milk, so the acidic sweetness that comes with blue veining provides a wonderful balance to the luxurious creaminess. The Ewe's Blue is really one-of-a-kind and so we hope that this week you'll be encouraged to give it a try, even if you usually don't.

Also on the plate are the Marieke Gouda with cumin, Texas Gold Cheddar, Bonne Bouche and Appalachian.