So, when Mark asked me last week what was the one thing I wanted to do before leaving NYC, I told him: Cheese 101 at Murray's Cheese (one of the most famous cheese shops in the city - conveniently located a few block from NYU :), little did I know that he had already planned a date for us at the cheese shop!
They taught us about the ingredients in cheese, how aging, salt, humidity, bacteria make a difference. We learned to smell cheese before you eat them, and we also learned a bunch of new adjectives for describing cheeses! Some of my favorite included snowy, metalli, oozing, herbal, and barnyardy (yes, that's actually how they wrote it). 
We sat next to a girl from Hong Kong. She looovvvveesss cheese. In fact , she loves it so much that she came to NYC for two week just to take different cheese classes and workshops! She had just gotten in the night before and was ready to go, despite being jet-lagged. She even showed us a picture on her phone of her pile of cheese books back home :) It was cute. 
We tried seven cheeses. Clockwise starting at 12 o'clock: fresh ricotta, Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery Coupole (our favorite!), Epoisses, La serena, Blue Mont Bandaged Cheddar, Adelegger, Colston Bassett Stilton (a bleu cheese). There was only one I didn't like (La Serena) - it tasted a little fishy, like lobster maybe, and smelled terrible! The only one Mark didn't like was the bleu cheese. Our also told us other foods that went well with the specific cheeses. Biggest surprise was chocolate with bleu cheese - it was absolutely phenomenal! Even Mark liked it!Also, I learned that a Cheese Monger is a real thing! It's a person who sells cheese, ha. Such a funny word.
Last side note, thought I'd throw in my favorite cheese of all time - I discovered it a Murray's. It's called Pyrenees Brebis (pronounced pee reh nay breebay, I think). You must try it sometime.
Anyway, Mark hit the jackpot with this one - it was definitely one of the top three dates he's ever taken me on. I love cheese and now I have some basis of understanding about it. We had an absolute blast!
6 comments:
loved this date - so much fun! confession: when i moved from wisconsin to minnesota, one of my nicknames my friends gave me was 'cheese'. i dont know if that makes this cheese post even more interesting, but i had to throw it out there.
so funny how scientific this cheese making process is. i think we should share some fun facts about cheese with everyone...share the wealth of moldy knowledge. next post?
-m
What a fun date! Good work documenting, I hadn't even heard of most of those cheeses. Next time I come across Creamery Coupole, I'm trying it. I don't think I would have liked the fishy cheese either. When do you guys leave the big city?
You guys are so cute and I'm glad you had a great time 'cheesing' :)
Wow, this sounds so fun! Look at how cultured you two are.
A few months ago when I was desperately trying to find a job, I saw an opening for a Cheese Monger at a specialty grocery store in town. I seriously considered applying, but then just couldn't bring myself to go through with it...ha ha.
Fun date!!!! You two are so cute!
I love good cheeses!!! I bet it was so delicious trying all the cheeses, and it would be so interesting to learn how they make them!! Mmmmm!
did you learn how to cut the cheese?
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