What better wine to pair with Cypress Grove's Purple Haze, than Purple Haze Wine? The answer is none, and here's a quick video from ifoodtv of Cypress Grove's Kris Ellenberg conducting a tasting of this very combination with Charity Winters:

Everyone knows that pimento cheese is a southern thing that northerners miss out on. Until now, that is. Palmetto Cheese - pimento cheese with soul, is debuting across the country and claims it's real, southern style pimento. I guess we'll be the judge of that:

Pimento cheese impostors, those products that resemble an orange goo, have been prevalent on store shelves in the northern states for some time now. Palmetto Cheese sets itself apart by using premium sharp cheddar cheese, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise and a unique production process that maintains the homemade texture. Palmetto Cheese’s spread beyond the South is due in part to tourists carrying the product back home with them and requesting the pimento cheese at their store.

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Get your cheese fix through this new show hosted by Australian fromager Alison Brien. Each episode takes place in a different epicenter of cheese, examples being Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm, Italy's Luigi Guffanti, or New York's Casellula Restaurant. Check it out:

Channel Cheese is a new web show that explores the flavours, places and faces of the world of cheese.

Hosted by cheesemonger and fromager Alison Brien, each episode features exclusive interviews and one-on-ones, coverage of some of the biggest cheese events in the world, and of course, delicious cheese.

Check out Episode 4, featuring a trip to Casellula restaurant in New York

For more episodes and info click here

The inconceivable is happening in France: McDonald's is using real AOC cheeses on their burgers. It's almost enough motivation to get me on a plane over there just to try it. Here's hoping that the next step for McDonald's will be Rogue River Blue and Pleasant Ridge Reserve on Big Macs throughout the US. For now, we'll have to watch enviously from across the pond as French burgers get all-star treatment. The question is, will McDonald's experience a boost in sales?

A well-timed counterpoint to the recent anti-cheese campaigns in New York and Wisconsin, DCI Cheese Co. has made a sizable donation to Action for Healthy Kids, thanks to their holiday sales of their Black Diamond line. Here's hoping that goodness prevails, and cheese is not permanently relegated to the bad food category:

DCI Cheese Company has made a donation of $50,000 to Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) in support of the organization’s efforts to improve nutrition in America’s schools. This donation represents a 25¢ contribution for every piece of Black Diamond purchased from November 1 to December 31, 2011.

AFHK is the nation’s leading nonprofit and largest volunteer network working with schools and families to fight childhood obesity and undernourishment.

Saveur is going all out this Valentine's Day with this insanely luscious recipe for Coeur à la créme, accompanied by caramelized strawberries. Impress the socks off your special someone with it:

We based this classic French heart-shaped dessert on a recipe from our friend Wes Martin. A perforated coeur à la crème mold is traditionally used to form the heart shape, though a mesh sieve makes a fine substitute for the mold.

INGREDIENTS
FOR THE COEUR À LA CRÈME:
6 oz. fresh goat cheese
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup honey
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. confectioners' sugar

Read the full recipe here

Photo by Todd Coleman

With such a dramatic name, how could anyone resist being intrigued by these tasty morsels? This recipe from Kitchy Kitchen is easy and wildly delicious. Check it out:

These bites used to be the hottest appetizer of the 70s and are way overdue for a comeback. Possibly named after Norman warriors who terrorized southern England, these little treats are ugly as sin but oh so delicious. They will be hoovered up in a minute so definitely have some extra floating around. The toothpicks, while kitsch, also make them an extremely convenient hors d'oeuvres. Enjoy!

20 medjool dates (or any large date), pitted
10 strips of bacon, cut in half crosswise
1 small log of fresh chevre
toothpicks

Read the recipe here

Be original this Valentine's Day, and take candy matters into your own hands. These tasty morsels are easy to make, but appear super impressive when finished:

These seem to be everyone's favorite holiday candy recipe. Could be the melt in your mouth texture, or perhaps the sweet peppermint taste. Could also be the fact that this is the easiest candy recipe around! If stored in airtight container, these can be frozen for a couple months. These can also be made into pretty shapes by rolling in granulated sugar, pressing into candy molds, and dropping them out.

Ingredients:
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
2 drops peppermint oil
any color food coloring paste (optional)

See recipe instructions here

Madame Fromage has a cheesy alternative to going out this Valentine's Day. I think I like it:

With the economy in the toilette, it’s an awfully good year to be a loving spendthrift. Instead of bedazzling a sweater and going out on the town, I suggest you bedazzle some goat cheese and stay in with some Steely Dan.

It’s as easy as picking up these chevre hearts—available at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal—or making your own. Come on, you can find some fresh goat cheese and figure out how to press it between sheets of waxed paper for some easy molding. Pete Demchur of Shellbark Hollow rolls his cuties in fresh lavender buds and pink peppercorns, but you could roll yours in some paprika, craisins, or za'atar. That a grrrl, Martha.

Read the full post here

Max McCalman has been watching the American cheese movement grow over the past years, and is doing a bit of comparison between then and now. Hint: now is better than then:

Our friends at Huffington Post are recommending “rare” cheeses! Most of them are produced right here in the U.S.! We have witnessed dramatic improvements in artisan cheese making here, especially within the past decade. As we have been saying – this is where the excitement in the cheese world is occurring, right here within our shores.

There was a time not that many years ago when superior domestic cheeses were harder to find; they simply were not that many! I recall thinking that I could skip the American Cheese Society’s annual conference every other year; the cheeses were all pretty much the same: some excellent cheeses could be found but the dramatic improvements in cheese making were just beginning to take hold.