Madame Fromage has discovered a new stinky cheese called "Handkäse," but she can't tell if it's good or bad...:

Readers, you know how I feel about stinky cheese. I always welcome it into my home. That is why there is a funeral-sized incense burner in my living room. Alas, my last Stinky Cheese Mission went awry, and I am still puzzling over it. Did I eat a bad piece of cheese, or is Handkäse really and truly intolerable?

The tip came from a reader who heard about Handkäse during a German conversation class in New Jersey. She asked if I knew of it, then sent me instructions on how to find it. “My German teacher calls it Handkase mit musik,” she wrote. “The musik comes afterward.”

Okay. I like a fart joke. I’ll eat a farty cheese.

Read the full post here

Joanne Weir is many things: a world traveler, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, a cooking teacher, a chef and a television personality. She spends six months of the year touring the globe sharing her extensive background with regard to food theory and technique, in particular Mediterranean cuisine and the regional foods of the U.S. All these elements come alive in her thoughtful classes as well as her delightful words and television series.

Make these crostini for any occasion, and enjoy the simplicity!

Australia's branch of the international guild of cheesemakers just celebrated their launch in Sydney with the induction of storied cheesemonger and founder of the eponymous chain of specialty stores Simon Johnson. Via the Sydney Morning Herald:

Turn back the culinary clock 25 years and the choice of cheese amounted to cheddar and yet more cheddar.

Then people such as Richard Thomas and Gabrielle Kervella started making artisan varieties and, in 1989, a young New Zealand chef not long out of the kitchen began selling more interesting cheeses.

On Monday night, [Simon] Johnson's contribution to cheese was recognised when he became the first Australian companion of honour in the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers, Confrerie de Saint-Uguzon. The presentation was at the guild's inaugural event in Australia.

Will Lyons at the Wall Street Journal is bringing the world up to date on wine and cheese pairings. In case you've missed it in the past, white wine and cheese is often, in fact, the way to go:

White wine with cheese? What on earth is he proposing now, I hear you cry. Everyone knows not to order red wine with fish or white wine with roast beef, and the cheese course has traditionally been the preserve of a rather special bottle of red or a vintage port. But what's this—a chilled glass of buttery Chardonnay with a slice of soft cheese such as Vacherin? Are you serious? Well, yes, actually. If you try it, surprisingly it works.

This episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay is all about mac & cheese. We've got southern style mac & cheese (featuring two cheddars, asiago and one pound of Velveeta) pitted against Bobby Flay's mac & cheese (featuring pancetta, cheddar and asiago). Who will come out on top?

Jill at Cheese and Champagne, has made a delicious new discovery in the form of Laurier, from Vermont Butter & Cheese and Artisanal, and she's got some good notes:

I typically don’t buy cheese via mail order since I prefer to support my fabulous local shops, but recently Artisanal Cheese has been running a promotion offering a percentage off your order as a countdown to the Super Bowl. Never one to turn down a deal – or a chance to taste cheeses that I don’t usually see locally – I placed a large order and have been enjoying the fruits of FedEx ever since. My favorite from the box was this goaty beauty, Laurier.

Laurier is the delicious result of a collaboration between Vermont Butter and Cheese, makers of C+C favorite Cremont, and Artisanal’s director of affinage, meaning you can only find it at Artisanal (that’s where mail order comes in handy).

Last week we saw anti-cheese billboards in New York, and this week we're hearing about curbing the promotion of cheese to children in Ireland due to cheese's nutritional value. It's a rough few days for cheese. The Irish Times has the story:

The Department of Agriculture has raised concerns with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) about a proposal to restrict the advertising of cheese to children on television.

In 2009 the BAI commissioned a consultation document on the advertisement of food and drink products for children.

The report recommended that Ireland adopt the “nutritional profiling” model used by the UK, which includes a restriction on cheese.

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, Starbucks is planning to sell beer, wine, and cheese at 25 locations by the end of the year. The Washington Post has the story:

Bringing happy hour to Starbucks Corp. may be easier said than done.

After experimenting with alcohol sales at six West Coast stores, the world’s largest coffee-shop chain said yesterday that it will sell beer and wine in as many as 25 locations by the end of the year. Starbucks, which has 10,700 U.S. cafes, will also sell fruit-and-cheese plates and focaccia with olive oil.

The strategy is part of a broader experiment to find ways to lure Starbucks customers and even non-coffee drinkers into stores during slow periods of the day, especially afternoons and evenings.

Animal Husbandry author Laura Zigman is wondering what is up with bad cheese being in as many dishes as possible, and she's got a video to go along with her frustrations:

Do you ever wonder about cheese?

Not cheese in the French sense of cheese:

A really expensive hunk of something smelly with a few plain crackers and slices of ripe pear on a plate of pretentiousness.

But cheese in the American sense:

Buffalo cheese wings and cheese soup and cheesy bread sticks and cheesy dipping sauce with a side order of cheesy fries and spicy cheese chips with cheese on top?

What is our national obsession with fake cheese?

Read more

If you're keeping up with the news, you already know about the cruise ship Costa Concordia that ran aground last week off of the Tuscan island of Giglio. Sixteen passengers perished as a result of the accident, and now the major task is to remove this giant ship without causing an environmental disaster. This is where cheese comes in.
NPR has the story:

If the decision is made to junk the Costa Concordia, the salvor would likely remove it by cutting the vessel into smaller, manageable parts — though with a 1,000-foot ship like the Concordia, manageable is a relative term — and hauling them off piece by piece.

In past removals, SMIT has used a giant cutting wire coated with a material as hard as diamonds that is suspended beneath the vessel and then raised to slice it through.

"The Dutch call it a cheese wire," Umbdenstock says.