The death of style.

Stamps. Tradition. Standards. Designer Products.

This week’s blog post is all about the four words above. That’s right. Ok, five words. (I said I knew about cheese, not how to count.)

When you think about different types of cheeses, there are certain flavor profiles that are associated with them. A manchego is going to be salty, nutty, and buttery. A Saint-Nectaire is going to be a gray little tomme that tastes like the vegetal nether regions of a mushroom that you found on the slope of a volcano. A comte is going to be nutty with hints of berries and shallots and come in 80 lb. wheels.

But why? Why do these cheeses always taste the same? How do people know what they taste like? It’s not like they just magically taste that way. They are made by human beings with independent thoughts and ideas who believe variety is the spice of life and want things to taste new and exciting! So how come the order of Vacherin Mont D’Or we got in December of 2009 tastes just like the Vacherin Mont D’Or we got in December of 2010? WHY, I ASK YOU? WHY?

I can tell you my, children. So pull up your toadstools and listen. The answer is simple and can be summed up in one word. More like an idea. More like a state of mind and being: Appellation.

Keep on readin’…

…and more blogging. Hooray! It’s 2011! Did you miss us? Did you think we had gotten sucked into a void of cheese curds and customer service and got eaten alive by the boogeyman of Bedford Avenue?! Because we kind of did. And survived to tell the tale. But now that the mayhem of Holiday-geddon 2011 is over, we can resume our friendly and informative blog posts. Great. Super.

So while all you guys were opening presents and wearing bright and shiny Holiday sweaters and spilling egg nog all over yourself, I was here, contemplating cheese. What else? And I realized that I couldn’t stop thinking about one particular cheese we have in the shop. It’s like the QB of the cheese shop team…throwing that pig skin long and far and has perfect aim and is going to take the team to semi-finals and then is going to get a scholarship and go and play college ball…Ok. So maybe I was watching a lot of Friday Night Lights AND thinking about cheese (but seriously, I didn’t think NBC could actually create a show about football that sucked me in so fast…bravo NBC, bravo. And can we talk ’bout Tim Riggins for a second?!? Oh. My God.)

Anyways, I’m going to get to the point here.  The cheese I was thinking about was none other than the Essex Street Cheese Marcel Petite 16 month Comte.  Yeah, that’s right.  The one.  The only.  The classic.  The best.  It’s like the perfect holiday cheese.  You can use it to cook with, you can use it to snack, and you can cover it in mayo and cream cheese and serve it to your friends and they will LOVE you for it.

Do they still make this? Because I'm putting a case of it in my bomb shelter.

Keep on readin’…