You can't spell “fun” without a little ewe

There are some things that just shouldn’t be: 6am yogilates classes, bacon-flavoured ice cream, and double denim (or as I call it, the Canadian tuxedo).

Burtnee and Jaytee in their special outdoors clothin'.

Until today, there was another item on this list – sheep’s milk cheese.

Now I’m not claiming to be some kind of expert (of course I am! This blog is nothing BUT unfounded assertions of fromage knowlage), but I’m pretty sure cheese is made from cow’s milk, right? That’s if it doesn’t come out of an aerosol can, partially hydrogenated and mixed with the delightfully acrid stench of fake ham flavouring.

Ha! Just kidding.

But sheep’s milk cheese? How does one even milk a sheep? I imagine it’s like visiting the Big Merino in Goulburn – at the end of the day you end up feeling tired, ashamed and covered in lanolin.

Following the announcement a few weeks ago that I had to cut down all cheese except sheep’s milk cheese and ricotta (seriously?), I figured I should try it out. Sure, the last time I went to the Big Merino I ended up getting lost inside before emerging dehydrated and covered in fibreglass splinters, but really, that’s pretty much what happens any time I visit an exciting tourist attraction (cf. Space Mountain, 1996).

So I bought myself a piece of D’Affinois Ewe’s Milk Cheese. ($149 per kilo? Who am I, Gloria Vanderbilt?)

And the flavour...

Colour me pleasantly surprised!

It’s a little more sour-salty than goat’s cheese, but it has a milder taste – one that I sense would be more accessible for newcomers than goat’s cheese. For many, goat’s cheese assaults the palate with a flavour that says, “We raised this kid on nought but whiskey and tales of Scottish independence, and now she bears a cheese as strong as William Wallace…and twice as peaty!”

The best thing about this cheese is that its flavours are complemented and enhanced by a glass of wine. For this evening, I have chosen a fine February vintage and it works marvellously with my D’Affinois.

You know what? This cheese may be strange but, just like the Big Merino, it has a place in the great scheme of things.

Just like that old Goulburn landmark, it’s full of surprises. It reminds us of the importance of the humble sheep in our great agriculinary heritage, and it smells just a little bit like a disused shearing shed full of Scottish secessionists.

Fun fact: The Big Merino is affectionately known as Rambo.

Agent Orange

If there’s one thing that I love, it’s getting out of Sydney and enjoying cheese, in situ, at various locations around Australia and the world.

Last year, when I went to Paris and promised to cram you full of cheese blog posts like proverbial chestnuts in the squirrel cheeks of life, I truly disappointed you. I’d like to say it was because I got to Paris and it turned out their cheeses were really lame. But that would be a lie.

The real reason was that I was hit with a giddying bout of food poisoning on my flight, and had what shall hereafter be known only by its elusive epithet – the Tokyo Stopover. Please note that I also intend this to be the title of my first break-out Glam Hair Metal album.

But I digress.

Last weekend I went to a wonderful little town known as Orange, about 3 hours west of Sydney where they were hosting the Food of Orange District festival, also known as the F.O.O.D. Festival (hey guys, let’s be fair, country folks prefer the simple things in life – like the smell of a wheat harvest and outrageously contrived backcronyms).

Despite the fact that I’ve been visiting Orange for nigh on a quart-score (country talk for 5 years), I’ve never been to the F.O.O.D Festival, and I loved it! Some may say it was because of the night markets, complete with several glasses of Black Shiraz from Mortimers Wines. Some may say it’s because of the pâté I bought at the produce markets (which-i-totally-didn’t-eat-before-now-and-I-can-produce-a-photo-of-it-whenever-I-want-cause-it’s-delicious-and-uneaten). Some may say it’s the delightful dinner we had at the Racine Restaurant for a friend’s engagement.

There’s no one correct answer (B: Claire had one tub of pâté, and ate one tub of pâté far too quickly. Using the working space below, how many regrets does Claire have?)

Herewith, an image gallery of fun things in Orange.

"Borry" selling apples from Borrodell Vineyard.

Best friends 4 eva at the petting zoo.

Did I say the last one was my best friend? Ohhhh, that cute cow can cram it, because now I found THESE three! On closer inspection, the first one was a lamb, not a baby goat, but that doesn't mean she should be voted out of the group. She just wants to go to year 6 camp like the rest of you, and she promises not to tell Jess what you said behind the play equipment the other day.

Without baby goats, there would be no goat's cheese. I ate some of this delicious cheese (the one on the left, with the pesto) and it was truly amazing. 

I had it in a quinoa and roast lamb salad, with mung beans and cherry tomatoes. A nice tart flavour, without being too strong or goaty - a serious consideration when it comes to goat's cheese. I think it would work beautifully on pizzas, on crackers, in salads or just squirreled away in your cheeks for an after-dinner snack. 

I give the cheese 8 spuds.

And speaking of spuds...

...The potato stall. The man who ran this stall actually looked like a potato. But there was no way to take a photo without looking like a jerk from the big smoke. So I just photographed his delicious earth jewels and ran away.

I can't live, if living is without cheese

Can I suggest you play the following music while you read this? Cause this blog is about to get real.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been a “no sugar” kid. Not by choice, and not as an exhaustive rule (I’m sorry, have you even Cadbury Cream Eggs? They’re made from unicorn smiles! They should be eaten all the time).

As a result of this, cheese has always been my go-to at dessert time. You get to enjoy something delicious, you still have a plate in front of you while others enjoy dessert (so you don’t look like an abstemious poindexter) and you get to enjoy a delightfully bourgeois rite of passage:

“Jenkins! Pass the cheese and my favourite Chateau de Pique! Would you fancy taking a turn across the room and a brief Quadrille?”

Precisely! Cheese = winning at life.

But herein lies the problem. I went back to visit the very same doctor that told me all those years ago that I would no longer be able to eat sugar. It was a check up of sorts. I was happy. He was happy. The whole situation was fine (apart from overly-loud 1987 documentary on “Ayers Rock” showing in the waiting room).

But then it all went downhill. He looked me in the eyes and said to me “It’s only fair that I should let you know what you should know.”

(He didn’t, it just fits in neatly with the song playing on your computer right now. He actually said something along the lines of, “So I went through your bloodwork and there were some issues. You’re going to have to make a few dietary changes”...)

He told me the impossible.

[Wait here until chorus].

No more cheese.

No more creamy brie, no more Roaring Forties Blue, no more Ceviste de Scey and (I choked up a little here) no more goat’s cheese. The smellier the cheese, the more I had to give it up.

Doctor Zhivag-no then told me it was okay, because I could manage without cheese.

You know what?! No!

I can’t live, if living is without cheese! What’s the point?

From now on, I’ll try to bring you all I know about the cheeses I can eat. Ricotta (Really? REALLY? A clotted sandwich salve at best), firm un-aged cheddar and Sheep’s Milk cheese. But dear reader, I shall become an expert. I shall forge on and triumph!

If you have any suggestions on cheeses to try, let me know. Suggested coping mechanisms also welcome, but unfortunately alcohol is supposedly off the list too. Unless you count Scotch that has been bottled in the last 4 years.

Awesome.

Prince of Persian Fetta

Jar cheese.

A few years ago, I was introduced to Persian Fetta. Um, let me just say, I played Prince of Persia for years as a child. If they could have only told me about the fetta they were hiding there, I would have tried so hard not to fall on those spikes and make it to the end of the game (for what, I can only presume, would have been a room full of cheese).

Nothing says obscure cheese references like an 80s platform game on repeat...

In the world of stored cheeses, Persian Fetta falls into a casually-monikered genus that I refer to as “Jar Cheese” – a delicious dairy product that comes preserved in some form of delightful olive oil, forever stewing in its own glory.

A dear friend came over last week and gifted me with a jar of Meredith Dairy Goat Cheese with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Fresh Herbs and Garlic.

She also gave me the gift of “this is the happiest day of my life”.

It is so deliciously soft. It is dripping in really tasty olive oil (which oozes out over the plate and your fingers as you eat it) and the flavours of the herbs and garlic have soaked down to the very centre of the cheese. I really don’t know what you couldn’t use this cheese for.

Seriously. It’s the kind of cheese that your partner will find you cradling in the bed in the middle of the night. And as you hold the jar and whisper sweet nothings into the glassy interior, cooing over the little cubes of joy in their suspended yumination, just remember to pay it forward.

Gift someone their very own jar cheese, and you will not be sorry.

And as a bonus, you can use the oil afterwards for cooking, drizzling over bread, or just plain drinking.

Cause there’s nothing classier than drinking a jar of cheese oil as you weep with joy.

An Appetite for Instruction: Cooking with Goat's Cheese

So cheese blogs aren’t just about eating cheese by itself on a plate. In your room. Under the covers. With the lights off. 

No, cheese blogs should be about the celebration of cheese in all its forms. This belief was heartily affirmed when I enjoyed a lovely lunch today with a blogging-and-cheese-loving friend of mine. I ordered some kind of pie, and accompanying it was a Greek salad with hearty chunks of fet(t)a. Each piece, my friends, was so chumpy you could carve it.

Anyhoo, this cheesexperience was so wonderful (“Cheese totally fits with every meal!” – “I know right?”) that I decided to share one of my favourite recipes with you peeps.

Introducing: 

Spaghetti Brocetta with So Much Goat's Cheese

- 400g Pancetta (cut to bacony thickness, either spicy or regular).

- 1 head of broccoli.

- At least, I’d say, 5 cloves of garlic.

- Some really good olive oil.

- 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (250g ish).

- 1 packet of spaghetti.

- So much goat's cheese. So very much.


 1. Cut the pancetta into little squares (1-2cm in size) and fry them off on a medium heat in a large and deepish frypan. Enjoy aromas where appropriate.

2. Cut the broccoli into small florets and throw them in with the pancetta so they take on the flavour. Add some olive oil here if it starts to dry out (which it will). So…add the oil. Turn the heat down a bit.
3. Finely chop the garlic and add it to the pan (with a dash more olive oil).
4. Halve the cherry tomatoes (and try to avoid getting sprays of tomato innards in your eyes. Good luck). Add half of the quantity of cherry tomato halves to the pan, turn the heat down low and let it simmer away.

Did someone say "simmering"?

Oh wait. You should probably cook pasta while you’re doing this. Um…

5. Cook spaghetti. There are instructions on the packet. Follow them. They’ll know what to do.
6. When things are looking delicious and nicely incorporated in your frypan, add the remaining half of your cherry tomatoes. Then turn off the heat. The frypan will still have some residual heat to warm the tomatoes while you—
7. Drain your pasta and coat it in really nice olive oil (the kind you get for some crazy price per 300ml bottle at farmers’ markets in the country. Really farmer? Is it that good? Yes. Yes it is.)
8. Put your pasta in a bowl, add a couple spoonfuls of the sauce (which should be chunky and not too runny – like a good provincial Italian creation).

And now, most importantly…

9. Add SO MUCH GOAT'S CHEESE. Like, an uncomfortable amount. It’ll be awkward. Your partner will say, “Hey Claire, maybe you should take it easy on the chevre?” And you’ll say, “Cram it Mr. Boring!”

10. Enjoy your meal. It’s so freakin’ good.

So much!

Women who stare at goats…cheese.

You know that experience when you went to the first school dance, and you were so freakin’ excited you didn’t know what to do with yourself?

You put on your favourite jelly sandals, glitter lip balm and blue hair mascara, and that moment you walked into the hall and caught sight of all those boys from the boys’ school, you were like “this is so exciting and scary I think I’m going to scratch my face off!”

And you did. Just a little.

I had that experience today, 15 years after the fact, when I entered the Simon Johnson fine foods store in Sydney’s fancy-pants waterside suburb of Pyrmont.

Seriously. I don’t use the phrase amazeballs very often (oh wow I do) but this store was so sexy I could have died.

Everything featured matching labels, there was a significant collection of olives and, my dear cheeselovers, a fromagerie!

Some cheeses at Simon Johnson's fromagerie.

When you walk into the room, the aroma is face-scratchingly amazing. I could smell a thousand cheeses all at once, vying for my attention like so many awkward and toe-shuffling fifth grade boys.

But unlike the boys, these cheeses didn’t avoid my gaze, leaving me paired with the shifty one up the back in some form of nightmarish dancing competition while he fist-pumped the air to the strains of the Macarena.

Because to have done so, my friends, would have been seriously un-amazeballs.

I gawked and poked, and I chatted to the delightful young attendant who, with her lovely hair and coral lipstick, was the perfect chaperone for my experience.

As has been my wont of late, I was eyeing off the goats cheeses. After a little chat with my chaperone cheese merchant (“I like my goats to punch me in the face with flavour”) I chose the Tomme de Chevre Glac Affinee.

A-maze-balls.

Being a chevre lovre I didn’t know what to expect. But the Tomme de Chevre was so smooth and rich (with that goaty punch that I so love). It was surprisingly soft and creamy for a cheese that appeared to be so firm, and its dry and crumbly rind offered a sharper contrast to the subtle flavour within.

It was almost as if we chose each other, Tomme and I. Across the room we just…connected, and before long we were doing our own gustatory slow dance.

Yeah. We’re going steady.