Thanks to Sam’s generous donation last week, I did not have to choose between gasoline and cheese, so we had quite the spread for SCT this week!

Starting on the left, we have Président Brie in log form.  This is a wonderful way to present the cheese since every slice gets the full range of flavors and you don’t have to worry about someone coming and taking the tip of the wedge.  As for the flavor, Président makes a very nice brie, with a small amount of tanginess and a very smooth texture.

Next up is Sartori Sarvecchio Parmesan.  Since it is made here in the USA, they can’t call it parmigiano, hence the parmesan moniker.  That said, it is every bit as salty, nutty, and slightly sweet as the real deal.  This is an awesome cheese.

After that we have Saint Angel, a triple creme brie from France.  This was the winner today.  Good grief!  It is so buttery, and it just melts away in your mouth….  Simply an incredible, delightful cheese.

Lastly we have Castello’s Saga, a blue brie that is the best of two delicious worlds mashed up into one, single party in your mouth.  The blue is definitely there, but the funk is not overpowering.  The brie is a tad “footy”, but again, not overpoweringly so.  Combined with the smooth creaminess that the brie imparts, this is one of my favorites.

Thanks again to Sam, and stay cheesy!

We had decadent grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner last night.  We used a blend of Marco Polo, Skellig, and Fontina.  We even threw bacon crumbles into a couple of them, but this is one of the few cases that I think that bacon actually detracted from the meal.  A light drizzle of honey on the inside of the bread really makes a grilled cheese something special!  If you haven’t tried it, it is my biggest recommendation for really adding some zing to a pedestrian sandwich.

Well, we are still trying to deal with the fallout from the last couple of weeks, so this was another adventure in cost effective cheese procurement.  Unfortunately, it was also an exercise in basic literacy that I failed.

Starting off this week’s selection is Heini’s Lacey Baby Swiss, not only the best of the three, but also the only one with a website.  Being a baby swiss, it is not aged so it has a much softer texture than typical swiss, the bubbles are almost non-existent, and the flavor is much more buttery than nutty.  It is almost like a swiss cheese for people that don’t like swiss cheese.

Next up was May Bud’s Edam.  What can I say?  It is a passable Edam cheese.  I had fun taking off the wax.  Not entirely memorable.

Last, and most certainly least, we had Williams’ Hot Pepper Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food.  My failure to read the fine print on the label proved to be a quite a blunder.  It had the texture of Velveeta, and the flavor of Cheez-Wiz with a couple of jalapeños thrown in.  Not my finest find by a long shot.

Once again, my patron Sam has come to the rescue, and next week’s SCT should be a return to form, and not the completion of a trilogy of quantity over quality.

Stay cheesy, and thanks, Sam!!

Due to some rather large, unexpected bills this week, Stinky Cheese Tuesday had to be done on the cheap.  I was playing with the idea of doing Velveeta and Kraft American Singles, but found some good deals on a couple of awesome cheeses and one crappy cheese.

Starting with the weakest of the bunch, we have Henning’s Cranberry Cinnamon Cheddar.  It does not follow through on its promise of cranberry, or cinnamon, or cheddar, even.  It is by far, one of the blandest cheeses that I’ve ever tried.  I’ve reviewed several other Henning’s cheeses in the past, and they have all really lacked in the cheese department.  Some of them have excelled in the supplementary flavors, but their base cheese is just kind of "meh".  This cheese continues their tradition of mediocrity.  But, it was a rather large slab for about $4.50, so it had that going for it.

Next up is BelGioioso Sharp Provolone.  This is one of the best provolones I’ve ever had, and since it is from a rather large creamery in Wisconsin, I found it for $4 per slab.  When it says that it’s sharp, it really means it.  It will cut you if you’re not careful.  It also has just the right amount of moisture to give it a slightly crumbly, slightly grainy texture.  This is a great cheese!

Lastly, we have today’s favorite, Jarlsberg!  This is an absolutely wonderful cheese that we’ve had several times before, but nobody seems to mind the repeat appearances.  It is similar to a Swiss Emmental, but more intense in flavor with a buttery texture.  This cheese makes me drool just thinking about it, and the fact that I found it on sale makes it even better.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week, and stay cheesy!

@Cheese Forum+

Seeing as how it is the first Stinky Cheese Tuesday of the year, I tried to kick things off in style.  Unfortunately, it was busy enough that I really only have time to list the cheeses that were consumed.  Three of the four are from my favorite, Beecher’s Cheeses.  Their Flagship, Marco Polo, and No Woman cheeses were all up for the taking and if you’ve read any of my previous reviews you know that I am prone to waxing poetic about all three of them.  Lastly, we had a lovely Skellig from Kerrygold.  All in all, an excellent way to start the year!

The Zot enabled SCT forum was moved to a new server running Hubzilla and hosted by Contabo back in October. I finally got around to moving the WordPress blogs over to the SparkleChicken server, and thanks to Let’s Encrypt, all of them are now covered by a wonderful (and free!) SSL certificate. Now stinkycheesetuesday.com, zarathustraphoto.com, and Kristi’s soon to be populated taxicats.com are all hosted on much better hardware than the Raspberry Pi in my living room. A special shout out to SpiderOak for hosting the off-site backups!

Hopefully 2016 will bring more time to write up the wonderful cheeses that we sample each week. Happy New Year, everybody!