A goaty predicament

I may have a problem. I've recently been seriously considering spending more than $60 on less than two pounds of cheese.

It all started a week and a half ago, when I had the pleasure of attending a goat cheese tasting hosted by Zingerman's Creamery. We tasted eleven different cheeses, with selections ran the gamut from fresh and bright to hard and salty, from boldly tangy to mildly stinky, from white and rindless to impressively blue and fuzzy. Now, I wouldn't consider myself much of a true cheeseophile – I shy away from most blues and tend to turn up my nose at appropriately-named “stinky” cheeses. But a there's something about a tangy, creamy, bright, fresh goat cheese that sets my heart a-flutter. And a well-made hard goat's cheese – now that is something to get excited about.

I'm thrilled that fresh goat cheese – or chèvre (meaning, simply, “goat” in French), as it is sometimes more pretentiously labeled – has recently made a splash on the American market. Not only is Chavroux showing up in groceries across the country (that is, if the completely random and unbiased sampling of Baltimore, MD and Ann Arbor, MI, are any indication of national trends), but American-produced goat cheeses are popping up, too.  The Zingerman's Creamery makes my favorite, boasting a bright, almost lemony flavor and a superbly smooth texture that is a real pleasure to eat.

But hard goat cheese is a little more difficult to find. I had my first really memorable hard goat cheese in Amsterdam, when I stumbled upon a cheese tasting at Reypenaer cheese shop. (As an aside, if you ever find yourself hungry in Amsterdam just after noon on a Saturday, I highly recommend hunting down Reypenaer's shop for a tasting of an outstanding selection of naturally-aged cheeses.) The tasting started with two hard goat cheeses – one aged four months, and the other aged ten. And oh, what a revelation that ten-month-aged cheese was: rich and tangy with just a subtle goatiness, firm and a tad crunchy with salt crystals like a good, aged Gruyere.  At the end of the tasting, I absolutely would have bought myself a wedge or two as a souvenir, were it not for the minor detail that I was just beginning six weeks of schlepping myself - and all of my possessions - across France.  There were already too many things to be carried, and too many other foods to be eaten, and besides, at the end of the tasting, they mentioned those magic words: "everything you tasted today is available online, and can be shipped anywhere in the world."

Not that I've actually taken advantage of the online store, of course.  Hard goat cheese hasn't been on my mind much in the past few months - until that tasting last week, that is.  We tasted a fantastic hard goat cheese called Old Ford made by Mary Holbrook near Bath, England.  Mary produces her cheese in small batches, and I learned last week that my potential local supply has sold out for the year, and does not expect to have any more until around Christmas time.  Quelle horreur !  The Old Ford reminded me of Reypenaer's ten-month Chèvre Gris, which I can get shipped directly to my door.  But what do you know - transatlantic cheese shipments aren't exactly cheap, and I have to say, spending upwards of $60 on cheese that I tasted once eight months ago seems a little ridiculous.

It is certainly quite the dilemma.  I better think it over with a fresh goat cheese grilled cheese sandwich.

It may not be fancy enough for a grilled cheese social, but good bread crisp with butter surrounding a warm, decadent layer of outstanding fresh goat cheese, topped with a sprinkle or two of freshly ground black pepper for good measure, is really quite consoling.  I think it may just keep me going until I can figure out what to do about finding a hard goat cheese.