This photo really doesn’t do the Billy Hard Cheese from Tasmania justice. In real life I couldn’t describe it. It’s somewhere between a  artisan soap and  fossilisedice hockey puck.

It has a nutty flavour and a nice whiff of goat about it.  This is a welcome change to the pristine cheeses made locally that only really taste creamy. Full marks.

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Italian buffalo mozzarella

I’m not going to even go there and tell you about the agro I’ve been giving a friend for entering our house and taking the remainder of the last cheese I posted here. It turned out my neighbours were coveting it too and were contemplating breaking and entering.
Anyway Steve at Kirkfood, who got wind of my missing cheese, and by way of thanks for mentioning him in my Herald Sun column raced around in his souped up ute and delivered the superb mozzarella above and a replacement for my missing La Clarines.

When not revving his engine outside my house, it turns our Steve is a keen cyclist and is attempting a brave Le Tour de Fromage on his own blog to celebrate the upcoming Tour de France. He kicks off with Stinking Bishop.

When I write about people I don’t usually expect gifts but thanks mate. Much appreciated.

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Mungo, the little bastard who stole the Parmigiano-Reggiano and much more

This is the dog with the embarrassing problem that stole the Parmigiano-Reggiano that had been hardening in the fridge for weeks.
Little bastard.
Luckily I had already shaved, with a dangerous weapon, some of hard stuff onto the pasta and ragu.

There’ve been many lessons over the past few days. Here are a few:

1. Cheese is best kept in a special climate controlled environment such as the excellent cheese room at The Richmond Hill Larder. There are special temperature controlled fridges for wine and humidors for both chocolate and cigars. Why hasn’t anybody come up with a cheese humidor?
Sadly, almost all cheeses suffer in the fridge. Soft Brie and Camembert stay hard, the aforementioned Parmigiano-Reggiano goes hard. The wrapping from the cheese shop can’t protect them and cling film simply makes them sweat.
Lesson: Buy less cheese more frequently and eat as soon as possible (after leaving out at room temperature for a while).

2. A Jack Russell can jump high and poke its head a good 10cm in on a worktop even when wearing a lampshade. Items lost by leaving them too close to the edge include various takeaway containers of curry, Baker D Chirico muffins, Il Fornaio doughnuts, several soft and blue cheeses and, tonight, Parmigiano-Reggiano – to name but a few. He then runs down the corridor and hides in my office under the Chesterfield. Luckily he can’t get under tonight because of the lampshade.
Lesson: Don’t leave anything near the edge.

See how the sauce sticks

3. Last week I made a vat of ragu, my first meal being served with spaghetti. Once round and flat pasta would be made on a wooden surface and would take on the grain of the wood, which the sauce would stick to. Nowadays it is mostly made with stainless steel and has less stick – unless the pasta is specially designed to hold pasta sauce.
Lesson: Use a pasta like the one shown which will hold the sauce between the ridges on the surface and trap some of the meat inside.

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“France’s family-produced cheeses are a national treasure, but they are beginning to die out, strangled by EU regulations and pushed aside by the multi-nationals”

(more…)

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