Cheeses of the week: Cooleeney and Le Roule

**I went to a cheese-tasting last week at Wheatsfield Co-op. I jotted down some tasting notes for two cheeses, BUT I didn't think it was appropriate to snap a few pictures with my camera phone. So, sorry for the lack of graphics. Happy New Year!

Name: Cooleeney

Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Co-op

Country of Origin: Ireland

Price in Iowa: $8.29/7 oz.

Milk: cow's milk

Processing: camembert style, available from pasteurized and raw milk.

Texture: soft

Color: golden

Rind: surface-ripened

Aroma: mild dairy

Taste: like a very mild brie with a nutty flavor

Mouth feel: creamy & smooth, like a cream cheese

Notes: This cheese was a pleasant surprise. It combined the decadent mouth-feel and complex flavor of a brie or Camembert, with a burnt/nutty flavor. The golden color of the cheese and the smooth consistency makes this selection a wonderful addition to a cheese plate, or a nice combination with toast and sliced apples.

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Name: Le Roule

Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Co-op

Country of Origin: France

Price in Iowa: $13.20/lb

Milk: cow

Processing: a processed cheese that is typically combined into flavored rolls (like a jelly roll)

Texture: soft

Color: white

Rind: natural

Aroma: clean

Taste: similar to a nice goat chevre; available in herb/garlic as well

Mouth feel: melt in your mouth creamy

Notes: This cheese had a nice mouth feel, but in flavor and application I believe that it would perform similar to chevre. The roll appearance might make it an attractive addition to your New Years party, but it didn't strike me as anything spectacular.

Fruit of the Week: Goji Berries

Name: Goji Berries

Brand: Tierra Farm Organic

Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Co-op in Ames, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin: Valatie, NY

Price in Iowa: $4.79 for 4 oz.

Description: Crimson-colored, almond-shaped raisins

Flavor: Tart (from the dried berry).

Aroma: A slight flowery scent, but the dried berries aren't very aromatic.

Texture/Mouth-feel: Drier than a raisin, but pleasantly chewy.

Notes: Yet another dried fruit. I saw these goji berries at the local organic food co-op and I decided to pick them up. Supposedly, they're a new superfruit. I know that you're not supposed to to pop these in your mouth. You can, but they're not very flavorful. You can put them into cereal, or granola bars, or rice dishes as a tonic. The reason for eating these sour little nuggets is their antioxidant potential, not their taste. When your body makes energy from the food that you eat, the process creates oxidizing compounds called free radicals. When you're young, your body can clean up these toxic by-products. However, as you get older your body loses its ability to take out the trash. So, certain vitamins (like Vitamin E and Vitamin C/Ascorbic Acid) can act as antioxidants to help with the removal of thesefree radicals and you you looking young. Goji berries are chock-full of antioxidants. And even though they taste like sour lint, they're good for you. So, give them a try and keep the wrinkles and the aches away for another year.

Cheese of the week: Sap Sago

Name: Sap Sago aka Swiss Schabziger

Place of Purchase: Ulrich's Meat Market in Pella, Iowa

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Price in Iowa: $6.99 for 3.17 ounces

Milk: pasteurized skimmed cows milk

Processing: Skim cow's milk is boiled, then mixed with blue fenugreek (a special kind of clover) and pressed into cones. The cheese is then dried for several months.

Texture: Hard

Color: Pale green

Rind: Natural

Aroma: Strong dairy, like a very-aged Parmesan

Taste: Sharp, dairy, slight herbal afternotes.

Mouth feel: Very dry. Because it was grated fine, and because of the low fat content.

Notes: At over $35 a pound, this has got to be the most expensive cheese I have tried yet. Granted, a little Schabziger goes a long way. I would bet that even if I used this stuff every day, it would still last me a few months. Because of the low fat content, most of the applications require the addition of some fat (usually butter). I tried some of the finely powdered cheese without any accoutrement, and it was so dry it was almost astringent. The dried cheese is mostly protein, and is probably very hygroscopic. The flavor wasn't as strong when I ate the raw cheese, either. With the addition of the butterfat, the flavor of the cheese bloomed. This included the herbal notes from the blue fenugreek. Chances are, I'll probably use the remainder of my Sap Sago to make a pesto. For seven-bucks, this was a interesting cheese.

Cheese of the week: Port Salut

Name: Port Salut

Place of Purchase: Ulrich's Meat Market in Pella, Iowa

Country of Origin: France!

Price in Iowa: $13.69/lb

Milk: pasteurized cows milk

Processing: aged one month then rind is washed with color and brine

Texture: Soft

Color: pale cream with an orange rind

Rind: Washed

Aroma: very little, perhaps a very mild dairy

Taste: a very mild flavor, only the slightest hint of dairy

Mouth feel: like butter

Notes: This was an ok cheese with a great mouth feel. The Port Salut didn't have much flavor for me. It felt nice and creamy in my mouth, but that will only get you so far. Now my wife had a different experience with this cheese than I did. I don't know why, exactly, but she had had brother try it too and he had the same experience. They both detected a bitter aftertaste that I could not find, no matter how long I kept the cheese in my mouth. Now, the rind is washed with added annatto, but she's never told me that cheddar or colby was bitter, and they have tons of annatto.

All-in-all, this was a nice creamy cheese, but nothing special.

Fruit of the Week: Sorghum

Name: Sorghum

Brand: Maasdam Sorghum Mills

Place of Purchase: HyVee Foods in Pella, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin: Lynnville, Iowa

Price in Iowa: $3.99

Description: Sparkling, molten copper syrup

Flavor: Sweet, an almost electric tartness, nutty and grassy afternotes. A very complex flavor.

Aroma: Burnt caramel, woody and grassy undertones

Texture/Mouth-feel: It's lighter than corn syrup, but thicker than maple

Notes: We're spending the holiday in Pella, Iowa. So, my fruit choices are super limited. I decided to do something a little different and pick a local crop that most people wouldn't be familiar with. Sorghum is not technical a fruit, it's a cereal crop like corn, wheat and barley. But the closest to something new I could find was some heirloom tomatoes, and that didn't seem genuine enough ("These tomatoes are more tomatoey than regular tomatoes"). So, I went with sorghum syrup. I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting molasses, which to me just has a burnt, caramelized taste. Sourghum is more complex than that. You can taste the rougher flavors from the grain, as well as a few barely-detectable metallic flavors from the various compounds concentrated from the extraction process. I wouldn't say that sorghum is for everyone. It certainly smacks you in the face with a distinctive flavor. But I would suggest that everyone try it. If you like it, you can use it whenever you would use honey, molasses, or maple syrup. I don't know if it can be used to replace corn syrup, but it could be used to replace cane syrup. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my pound and change of syrup. But I might just start making gingerbread cookies and spice cakes to use it up.

Sorry no cheese last week. My wife was stuck in the hospital and I needed to take care of her. I'll make it up this week.

Fruit of the Week: Ataulfo Mango

Name: Ataulfo Mango

Brand: Pilot Organic

Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Co-op in Ames, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin: Ecuador

Price in Iowa: $1.29 each

Description: A fist-sized, yellow ovoid.

Flavor: Sour and starchy. Aside from the tartness, the flavor was kind of bland.

Aroma: Starch and latex.

Texture/Mouth-feel: Smooth, firm and moist. Not stringy at all. Kind of astringent.

Notes:I love mango. Mostly as a juice; but I'll eat mango in salad, mix mango into smoothies, put mangoes on ice cream, cook mangos into stuffing, baste my poultry with mangoes. You get the idea. So, imagine my delight when I come across a different variety of mango at the Wheatsfield Co-op in the organic produce aisle. I bought the little morsel and took it home for immediate inspection. My wife inquired "What the heck is that?" I told her that it was "a different variety of mango." The Ataulfo is also called the Manilla or Champagne Mango. It's marketed for its smooth, buttery flesh and was originally cultivated in Mexico. It is also hard to find as an organic product. So, with that sales pitch she was excited too. We peeled off the skin and sliced all of the flesh away from the thin pit (the Tai Dam way of slicing a mango is creating a bunch of thin slices, rather than the traditional Indian hedgehog). The flesh was buttery smooth and devoid of fibers. The fruit itself was a smack in the face of sour, followed by a starchy blah. There was none of the flowery complexity found in the Florida or Hawaii-grown varieties that I've had before. Part of that could easily come from the fact that unripe mangoes are chosen for shipment, and they always lack the flavor of a fresh, tree-ripened fruit. It could also be that, yet again, I should have let my fruit ripen for a day or two before digging into it. Patience is a virtual, and the product of patience is apparently sweeter produce.

Libation of the Month: Jeremiah Weed Bourbon Liqueur

Name: Bourbon Liqueur

Brand: Jeremiah Weed

Place of Purchase: HyVee Liquors West, Ames, Iowa

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Country/Region of Origin: Kentucky, USA

Tasting Conditions: Straight up in a shot glass.

Price in Iowa: $17.99

Description: A slightly viscous golden, like a light schnapps.

Flavor: Sweet, woody, but this stuff is 100 proof. It has a medicinal finish.

Mouth-feel: Smooth, with a bite from the alcohol.

Aroma: It's definitely bourbon.

Notes: Supposedly, at least according to Wikipedia and the Jeremiah Weed website, this is the favored drink of air force pilots, submarine sailors, horseback riders and fishermen. So, I had to try it. The first shot had a flash of sweet, followed by the burn of rotgut whiskey. According to legend, Jeremiah Weed is made from the dregs of whiskey barrels. I believe that myth. After my first shot, I moved onto mixers. I just used 7-Up for starters. It gave the drink a really foamy head, like Sloe Gin or Southern Comfort. Which was nice. Mixers smoothed out the bite significantly. I also tried Tonic Water and Pepsi. 7-Up and Tonic mixes both had the foam, Pepsi did not. I'm not a big fan of schnapps. I like some liqueurs (Irish Cream & Chambord, for example), but I usually avoid the sweet stuff. I might buy this stuff again. Especially if I'm going to be doing some jet fighting or horseback riding.

Cheese of the week: Sweet Vanilla Cardona

Name: Carr Valley's Sweet Vanilla Cardona

Place of Purchase: Carr Valley Cheese in Fennimore, Wisconsin

Country of Origin: USA/Wisconsin

Price in Wisconsin: $16.10/lb.

Milk: pasteurized goat milk with added vanilla & sugar

Processing: Original Spanish-style goat cheese, vanilla and sugar added, aged eight months

Texture: Semi-Firm

Color: pale cream

Rind: Natural

Aroma: Sharp dairy

Taste: warm dairy, floral notes, sweet caramel, umami finish

Mouth feel: firm and creamy

Notes: I was up in Wisconsin doing some cave camping at Eagle Cave with the Scouts, and we passed Carr Valley Cheese on our way home. Well, I just had to stop. Their selection was modest, but unique. Sure, you could find Cheddars and Colbys, squeaky cheese curds and Goudas. But there was a whole cooler full of unique, artisan cheeses made from cow, goat or sheep milk. I eventually decided on one of the cardona cheeses, a family of "spanish-style" semi-firm goat cheeses unique to Carr Valley. I couldn't find out much about the processing, but my choices were between Cocoa and Sweet Vanilla Cardona. I thought the cocoa was a bit over the top. I've been seeing cheese fudges slowly edging into the cheese coolers, so I'm gunshy about buying a treat instead of a cheese. The Sweet Vanilla Cardona is probably a dessert cheese. It would go well with dessert wine or fresh fruits. However, the added sugar wasn't overpowering, and the vanilla just added warm flowery flavors. It was complex and robust enough to hold its own on any cheese tray. I think my next step with Carr Valley Cheeses is to get one of their Champion Cheese Selections by mail order. It's pricey, but you get a lot of unique cheeses for your money.

Fruit of the Week: Gooseberry

Name: Gooseberry

Brand: Hartley's

Place of Purchase: Ames British Foods in Ames, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin:

Price in Iowa: $3.95 per tin

Description: Reddish-beige orbs in light syrup (with a few pedicles floating in the juice)

Flavor: Tart, mixed with sulfurous compounds. Mone says that they were probably packaged unripe, which is why they are so sour.

Aroma: Since the berries were in a can of syrup, all I smelled was sweet.

Texture/Mouth-feel: Because of the can, I was expecting firm moist berries. "Mushy" is too kind a description.

Notes: I love going to Ames British Foods and World Market. MOSTLY, I'm picking up sweets and cheeses. Perhaps I'll pick up the occasional odd condiment, like the spicy apricot chutney I bought last week. However, with Christmas around the corner, Ames British Foods has a larger selection of foods for folks from the UK and Ireland. This includes dozens of cans of things that I have never seen before. The canned gooseberries jumped out at me. I know that they grow here in North America, but I've never had them before. At this point, I wish I hadn't. Squishy, brown, sour and a flavor reminscent of gym socks. I'll have to try these again fresh, but this experience wasn't great.

Queso de la semana: Queso Chihuahua

Name: Queso Chihuahua

Place of Purchase: Fareway Grocery in Ames, Iowa

Country of Origin: From Shullsburg Creamery in Wisconsin, USA

Price in Iowa: $9.99/lb.

Milk: cow

Processing: fresh milk is cultured and curdled, whey is drained and the curd pressed into (basket) molds; cheese is served fresh (less than 10 days of resting/aging) or aged for a sharper flavor.

Texture: semi-soft

Color: cream

Rind: natural

Aroma: not very aromatic at all; fresh with the mildest hint of dairy.

Taste: mild as the mildest cheddar; clean with a slight diary finish; reminded me of plain derby.

Mouth feel: chewy and rich

Notes: This is the cheese that quesadillas should be made with. It melts perfectly. It isn't to salty. The melted cheese doesn't get oily. But every quesadilla you have ever had has probably been made with mild cheddar or Monterrey jack. Fresh, this cheese is nothing special. It's chewy and bland. But melted, the richness of the 50% milkfat content blends with whatever is added. I added sauteed onions and mushrooms, and salsa and I could detect a new complexity in the dairy flavor of the cheese; plus it amplified the earthiness of the mushrooms and the sweetness of the tomatoes and onions. Plus, it melts so evenly (and quickly) that it only took 2 minutes in the toaster oven to coat one tortilla completely. Fantastic cheese!

Fruit of the week: Starfruit

Name: Starfruit

Brand: Fresh from Flordia

Place of Purchase: HyVee Foods in Ames, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin: USA

Price in Iowa: 99-cents each

Description: A long, five-lobed tube that looks like a star when sliced. Green to yellow with brown when ripe.

Flavor: Sour with a hint of sweet. The flowery aroma is barely detectable in the flavor.

Aroma: Citrus and flowers. I detected papaya and pomelo. Distinctive and lovely.

Texture/Mouth-feel: Sort of like an orange or grapefruit, with a crunchy skin on the outside.

Notes: I should have waited longer. It looked ripe to me, but the longer you let starfruit ripen, the sweeter and more flavorful it will get. I only waited three days after I got this baby home. You can smell the starfuit all through my kitchen, and it was driving me batty. It tasted okay. It could have tasted better: sweeter and more intense. Maybe I can pick up some more this week?