Tag: cheese pairing

  • Tasting Notes: Métier Brewing Company Beers and Cheese

    Tasting Notes: Métier Brewing Company Beers and Cheese

    This year has wrought its share of terrible things, but one bright spot in the darkness is the beautiful foods that are still being produced for us to enjoy. Just as animals don’t stop producing milk, plants don’t stop growing and people don’t cease needing to eat—even when lives are threatened by a pandemic, social…

  • How to Pair Cheese and Beer

    How to Pair Cheese and Beer

    The first beverage pairing that comes to mind for many cheese eaters is wine. But humans have been eating cheese with both wine and beer for a very long time. Humans started making cheese between 6500 and 6000 BCE.[i] Then they started making the oldest-known wines in 5980 BCE[ii] and the first beers around 5000…

  • How to Pair Cheese & Chocolate for Valentine’s Day (or Any Day)

    How to Pair Cheese & Chocolate for Valentine’s Day (or Any Day)

    Cheese and chocolate pairings don’t always work. But when they do, the combination can be magical. I will admit that I haven’t always been a fan of putting cheese and chocolate together (in fact, I have admitted it before). But here I am, a person who co-teaches cheese and chocolate pairing classes at Theo Chocolate…

  • 8 Weeks of Celebration Cheeses: Week 8

    8 Weeks of Celebration Cheeses: Week 8

    We have made it to the end of my “8 Weeks of Celebration Cheeses” series—and subsequently to the end of 2018. If, like me, you are scratching your head and wondering where the time went, just know that it tends to fly when you are having fun—as you should be when cheese is a part…

  • Have A Blue, Blue Blue Blue Christmas (Pairing)

    Have A Blue, Blue Blue Blue Christmas (Pairing)

    When we talk about pairings for blue cheeses like Stilton, the conversation tends to head toward dessert wines like Port, Madeira, or Sauternes. After all, the fortified wine plus assertive, salty blue cheese is a classic combination—and it works. But that got me thinking: If you are going to eat your cheese for dessert, what…

  • Pairing Chocolate and Cheese at the 2018 Northwest Chocolate Festival

    Pairing Chocolate and Cheese at the 2018 Northwest Chocolate Festival

    This past weekend, one of the largest chocolate conventions in the world took place in a cruise-ship terminal on the southern crest of Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. The Northwest Chocolate Festival, which celebrated its 10th year, hosted hundreds of exhibitors from around the globe and a steady stream of hour-long chocolate education sessions that took place…

  • How to be Sweet on Citrus with Cheese

    How to be Sweet on Citrus with Cheese

    Ah, the dead of winter. That means different things to different people, to be sure. In general, we associate this time with darkness, cold, and snow. For much the northern US, Europe, and Asia, that is the reality of January and February life. When I lived in Arizona for my first 23 years, winter was…

  • Why Do Cheese Shops Always Sell Fig Bread and Date Cake?

    Why Do Cheese Shops Always Sell Fig Bread and Date Cake?

    “This is cheese?” That’s the question—always practically shouted, always with incredulity—we get 99-percent of the time when a customer notices our fig bread and date cake for the first time. Last week, an older gentleman even picked up a wedge, looked me square in the eye, and said, “so this is what’s become of fruitcake?”…

  • The Truth About Pairing Cheese and Fruit

    The Truth About Pairing Cheese and Fruit

    One of the most common questions cheesemongers get from customers is a varietal of “what fruit goes with this cheese” or “what cheese goes with the [insert fruit here] that I just picked up?” A lot of people are only imagining fruit when they ask you for a good pairing for a certain cheese. Why,…

  • Hey Honey, Comb try these Cheese Pairings!

    Hey Honey, Comb try these Cheese Pairings!

    Honeycomb is delicious, luscious, and expensive. So you know when you are about to eat it that you want the experience to be worth the money, honey. Since cheese is also delicious, luscious, and sometimes expensive, it makes a great partner for honey and honeycombs in kind. I asked in a social media post a…

  • Pasta Filata Cheeses: Not Just for Pizza or Pasta

    Pasta Filata Cheeses: Not Just for Pizza or Pasta

    Pasta Filata: it’s kind of fun to say. And wouldn’t you know, this family of cheeses is also fun to eat! Pasta filata is Italian for “spun paste,” meaning that the cheeses’ curds are spun, or stretched, before the cheeses are aged (if they are aged). Filata means “string” or “thread,” and can be translated…