Day 580 : Cheeses in Remembrance

Yesterday after a moving service commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we had a late lunch and I decided to bring three cheeses all ripened with ash as a way to fromagically look back, honor, and remember, yes there were other yummies as well but why not just focus on the ashen cheeses. So what were the three cheeses I brought?

1. Ardith Mae's Bigelo - A bloomy rind exterior disguises the goat's milk pyramid interior here hailing from Pennsylvania.  The pyramid shape was chosen as an additional way to commemorate the towers. Instead of the traditional cream line in aged bloomy rind cheeses, Bigelo boasts an ashen interior line. Dense and chalky with the most fantastically milky brightness for an interior paste. This is an elegant cheese with a light roundness to it.

2. Delice de Poitou - Our second cheese is from the Loire Valley of France and is aged for a few months with an ashen exterior. A darker ivory interior with a grey-ish black-ish charcoal exterior,  this is a delicately nuanced cheese -- full of grassy density with a vegetal finish due to the ash. This is a cheese that coats every crevice of your mouth that's for sure!

3. Sofia - Our last and final ash ripened goat's milk cheese did not simply have the ash on the exterior as a rind or on the interior to help the interior paste age but had both -- ashen lines separated the interior paste and coated the exterior paste of our dear Sofia. Soft and young, this Indiana baby is a mouthful -- farmsteady, barnyardy, semi-stinky yet light, citrus-y, grassy and alive, this cheese is not for the faint of heart but is an excellent way to finish.

Each ash ripened goat's milk cheese was a delight and an excellent way to see the broad spectrum of what ash can do to a cheese in its aging process.