La Fête du Fromage - Brie de Nangis

When I go shopping and want to pick up some cheese to have around the house to nibble on, Brie is not one that I usually go for. I like Brie just fine, but living in the land of hundreds, some say thousands, of varieties of delicious cheese, I tend to go for more something a bit more interesting.

Then I spotted a big wheel of Brie de Nangis on offer at the cheese counter of our little local grocery store.
Hmmm...a Brie I've never seen before. How is that possible?


This is a delectable cheese!
It is lush with the taste of sweet creamy butter, and is packed with rich, but not too rich, mushroom flavors. It has a smooth, luscious texture and a pleasant, chewy mouthfeel that is wonderful with a crispy baguette.

Originally from the town of Nangis in the Seine-et-Marne département (home of Disneyland Paris, the Château de Fountainbleau, Brie de Melun and Brie de Meaux), this unpasteurized cow's milk cheese almost disappeared into obscurity until a lone artisan producer revived its production.

Brie de Nangis is charming and friendly and oh-so-easy to fall in love with.
Please try it. I promise you won't be disappointed!


A glass of fruity Beaujolais or crisp, summery Sauvignon Blanc would pair well with this cheese. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Brie de Melun

Brie de Melun is not your average Brie.

It achieved AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) status in 1980 along with Brie de Meaux and is produced in the same area as Brie de Meaux, about 50 kilometers outside of Paris in the Île-de-France region, but that is where the similarities end.

Brie de Meaux is soft, Brie de Melun is robust.
Brie de Meaux is refined, Brie de Melun is lusty.
Brie de Meaux is perfumed, Brie de Melun is heady.
If Brie de Meaux were Jackie O, then Brie de Melun would be Marilyn Monroe.

The difference in flavor has to do with the method of production. Whereas Brie de Meaux's production uses rennet to achieve coagulation in a mere 30 minutes, Brie de Melun relies on lactic fermentation, which takes at least 18 hours.
Seven to eight weeks of affinage* produce a dense, pale yellow colored interior and a bloomy, white rind that is brushed with reddish-brown streaks. The flavors are fruity, salty, slightly sour and rustic. I also tasted hints of mushroom and hazelnuts.

Brie de Melun is absolutely fantastic!



Serve with red wine such as Sancerre, Bourgogne or Gaillac.



* the process of maturing and ripening cheese




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Only 10 Days To Go!

A little morsel of information drifted across my radar the other day that I am very excited about.

Next Saturday March 28, in just 10 days time, France is celebrating the 8ème Journée Nationale du Fromage - the 8th Annual National Day of Cheese !
It's a ginormous, nationwide Fête du Fromage!

You have plenty of time to get out there and buy some Brie de Meaux or Bleu d'Auvergne, purchase a piece of Picodon, shop for some Selles-sur-Cher or Saint Marcellin, or pick up a small square of Pont-l'Evêque. Why not try something new? I'm sure there's some smelly French cheese that you have always wanted to taste.

Come on...it will be an adventure.




Let's celebrate la Journée Nationale du Fromage together! Write in and let me know what cheese you're going to try. Pin It

A Cheese Field Trip

As I sat on my friend's terrace nibbling a bit of rich, buttery Comté under warm, sunny skies last Saturday, I realized just how far I've come from my pastry chef days.

You see, I had just been offered dessert, a colorful selection of cassis, cherry or apple tartlettes, and politely declined each and every one. I was happy to just sit there and work my way around the abundant cheese platter they had placed on the table.
I actually chose cheese over dessert. My how things have changed!

So, it should come as no surprise that I will go pretty far out of my way to discover a new cheese shop or to visit a small cheese producer.


My sister is also a cheese enthusiast so while visiting her in California we decided that a little field trip to The Cheese Shop in Carmel was in order.


The Cheese Shop - Carmel

Carmel is only about 45 minutes south of her home so we jumped in the car one morning and drove on down.


the selection was impressive

It was a warm, welcoming and friendly place with shelves crammed with cheese, wine and gourmet foods from around the world.





They happily offered a taste of any cheese you were interested in. And we took full advantage of that!



We finally made our choices and purchased some wine, bread, chocolate, a piece of creamy Fourme d'Ambert, some sublime Humboldt Fog, an aged Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Brie de Meaux and a very special Parmigiano-Reggiano Vacche Rosse.

It was a very successful field trip!


The Cheese Shop - Carmel
Carmel Plaza (lower level)
Ocean and Junipero
Carmel, CA 93921


Finally...the cheesiest photo ever! Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Coulommiers

Take a nice hunk of Brie and intensify its flavor about five times and voilà, you've got yourself a ripe, robust piece of Coulommiers.



Known as the little brother of Brie, Coulommiers comes from a village of the same name in the Île-de-France region of northern France. The piece I bought was artisanal, but there are also fermier and industriel versions.
It was very ripe, thus the flavor was strong and rich, full of lightly sweet, mushroom and earthy flavors. We had to eat it quickly as its heady aroma was making it difficult to stay in the house!
We had a glass of sauvignon blanc with our piece of Coulommiers. A Côtes du Rhône would also be a good choice.

I highly recommend this cheese! If you can get a hold of some, especially a nice, ripe piece, you won't be disappointed.

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Fromage...continued

I finally have the chance to add to the post I started the other day about last week's delectable cheese tasting with my sister.

For someone who finds Roquefort cheese a bit too...well...fort, the Bleu des Basques was a breath of fresh air. It had all the qualities I appreciate in a bleu cheese, without being too salty or overwhelming. It was sophisticated, smooth and very, very tasty.

The little Picodon had a dense, chalky interior with an earthy flavor and a blue-grey rind from aging. It is made from raw goat's milk in the mountains of the Rhone-Alps, specifically the Ardèche and the Drôme. It was granted AOC status in 1991 and has its own festival every summer.



A final taste of Brie de Meaux was supposedly the last wish of Louis XVI before he was sent to the guillotine and it was also declared the "King of Cheese" at the Congress in Vienna in 1814. Creamy and rich with hints of hazelnut and fruit, Brie de Meaux has been made for over 1000 years and was a favorite of Charlemagne's. It is made from unpasteurized cow's milk and was granted AOC status in 1980.

Beaufort, delicious Beaufort! Made in the French Alps and aged for four to twelve months, it has a lovely, buttery scent and is best when served with white wine. It's flavor is smooth and fruity. The best is Beaufort d'Alpage which is made exclusively from the milk of free roaming Tarentaise cows that graze on the alpine grasses and flowers. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage...continued

We picked up some cheese at les Halles in Béziers yesterday where a very kind woman at la fromagerie helped us choose a few from the numerous varieties available.
We ended up with the following:

Bleu de Basque
Beaufort
Picodon
Brie de Meaux

There's no time to write about these cheeses at the moment as we're off again in the morning to drive to the villa near Cannes. We'll be back in a few days.
Let me just say that they were fantastic! Especially the Beaufort. Oh my god, what heavenly cheese! Pin It