In this blog series intern Kate E. interviews the staff here at culture: the word on cheese to give you an inside look at a day in the life of this goofy group of cheese-lovers and their work on the magazine you've come to love. Have specific questions for or about our staff? Be sure to send them to staff@culturecheesemag with the subject line, "Meet the Staff".

Each week we taste a sampling of cheeses in our Cambridge office and discuss their flavors, textures, and our general impressions of them. Yum!

Tasting Tuesday: Sheep's Milk Pecorino and Reblochon

Pecorino de Pienza in Fossa
Sheep's Milk - Italy

In between the Superdome power outage, Beyonce's killer performance, and oh yeah, that nail-biting football game, I noticed an abundance of farm and dairy-themed commercials last Sunday night. Some were funny, some were powerful, and some were just downright weird. Watch all the advertisements below, and let us know which one was your favorite!

Pepsi Next: Party

In this blog series intern Kate E. interviews the staff here at culture: the word on cheese to give you an inside look at a day in the life of this goofy group of cheese-lovers and their work on the magazine you've come to love. Have specific questions for or about our staff? Be sure to send them to staff@culturecheesemag with the subject line, "Meet the Staff".

In this blog series intern Kate E. interviews the staff here at culture: the word on cheese to give you an inside look at a day in the life of this goofy group of cheese-lovers and their work on the magazine you've come to love. Have specific questions for or about our staff? Be sure to send them to staff@culturecheesemag with the subject line, "Meet the Staff".

As is required by a civilized society bent on projecting introspection (aka Will made me write this)...I've rounded up 5 things I found curious and captivating about 2012. I could run down a list of bad crap, but we've had enough of that for now, yes? So, here they are, in order of how they dawned on me:

In a world gone mad...
1. I'm surprised by how few surprising things there were. This probably either means I'm clueless, inured, or too quirky myself to see quirky for quirky. But if you take a look at Epicurious' prognostications on 2012 (delivered at the end of 2011) you'll see homemade dairy and cheesemakers sitting proud on their list of things to watch for this year. So I guess the fact that 'new trends' scooched a little closer to my reality in 2012 tamps down the 'surprising' factor.

In November, Elaine and I had a long-awaited chance to visit with Jesus Pombo Lanza and his wife Yolanda at Poncelet (pronounced Ponthelet) in Madrid. The couple own and operate three very closely inter-connected cheese businesses under the Poncelet name. The original store which opened in 2005, is located at Calle Argensola and sells a carefully chosen selection of cheeses from across Spain together with a healthy representation of some of the best from France, Italy and Portugal. In addition, some years after the store opening, the couple decided to develop their own maturation caves and these are located away from the center of the city in a state of the art facility. There, there are several separate maturing rooms, each with a separate environment particularly suited to the type of cheeses it contains.

For me, one of the best parts of working at Culture is when, as a group, we review images that come in from the various photo shoot assignments. We collectively go through them and decide which ones will work best with the editorial and layouts.

As you can imagine, the decision making process is often challenging as there is only so much "print real estate" available and inevitably there's never enough room to include all the ones we want.

Given a singular common denominator of cheese, there's an amazing spectrum of subject matter contained within the many hundreds of pages printed over the last year. In no particular order, here are some of my personal favorites from 2012.

There hasn't been a Christmas yet when I haven't eaten far more than my fair share of cheese. Even when working the cheese counter right up to the moment and sleeping far too late on Christmas Day, then getting back behind the counter the day after...I am still eager for cheese itself on December 25th. Why? Because I love it. It's my favorite food. And working day in & day out with it doesn't make that go away. Strange, but true.

And I am asked repeatedly what that 'must have' cheese is, the cheese that I can't resist eating even when my partner has wandered under the mistletoe and is waiting, patiently but very clearly, for a passionate kiss. What is it that I'll still need to pop in my mouth regardless of breath and residue? Well...

It's got to be oozy and semi-fluid. Must be full-flavored and not overly buttery. Nothing but sheer cheesy goodness with a hint of yeast, nuts, meat. Something that is bulging out of its rind and literally showing off its glorious innards.

The kraken slithers in its watery realm and the dire wolf scents the air...yes, indeedy, HBOs new season of Game of Thrones is amassing its vast marketing army for full scale invasion in Spring. Of course I started it with my garden picks for the characters (ok, that's a lie. HBO probably came up with merchandising ideas on their own...) and now HBO has (reportedly) tapped Ommegang to produce Iron Throne Blond Ale to coincide with the start of season 3.

GoT Geek digression...while various reporters seem to think the beer is a clear reference to Joffrey, I think it could just as easily be Cercei, or even Tommen.