CurdNerds

Attention cheese-loving New Yorkers: this Tuesday (7/29), Supermac is teaming up with 8Coupons.com to offer 8-cent mac and cheeses, available all day. Supermac is a mac and cheese mecca here in New York City, offering no fewer than 13 different varieties of the dish.

I've never been to Supermac (and I call myself a Curd Nerd?), though I have been a few times to their very similar downtown competitor S'Mac, which is a great restaurant itself. But it's pretty tough to resist 8-cent mac and cheese, so I'm definitely going to go try it. The website that's co-sponsoring the event seems interesting too; the premise is that you can text-message coupons to your cell phone, and redeem them at stores simply by showing the cashier the text on your phone. Pretty cool idea, and I downloaded a bunch of other coupons for a kosher deli near my office.

I'll be sure to give a full review of Supermac's offerings in the comments below. Check back on Wednesday!

Supermac
348 7th avenue (btw. 29th - 30th Street)
212-760-1900

What respectable curd nerd has not, for even a moment, contemplated leaving the rat race, moving to a farm, and making their own cheese? Well, lest there be any doubt that being a cheesemaker is easy business, check out this recent post that Kris Noiseux of Meadowstone Farm published to a cheesemaking listserv:

We have a grade A goat dairy in CT, milking 20 with 4 dry and 6 replacement kids. I work full-time and have the help of my retired father. My significant other works weekends and does morning milkings during the week plus animal care, soap, order tracking and supply stocking. We make soap, lotion, have a farm shop, and sell raw milk as well as cheese. We also keep bees, broilers and layers. We service commercial accounts and do two farmers markets.

I work 100-120 hour weeks, every week. I normally work to extreme exhaustion and, during high season like now, will find myself passing out in odd places and and generally incoherent. I regularly work 48 hours at a stretch, especially on the weekends. I have no idea how other farms do it, I would guess each season probably takes a few years off my life span. We couldn't afford to hire an employee.

Thanks to all the hard-working cheesemakers out there! We appreciate you!

It's a question I am asked frequently, and my answer is always the same, "Yes, but you'll know it if it's so spoiled that you can't eat it." That's kind of a loaded answer though, because many people think that cheeses that are perfectly fine have spoiled. For instance, Époisses is so stinky that it smells spoiled even when it's perfectly ripe! That said, if a cheese is so smelly you can't bear to eat, don't. (But make sure you find the nearest curd nerd and ask them if they would want it!)

In fact, cheese is just milk that has spoiled in a controlled way, so asking whether spoiled milk can spoil is kind of a non-question. But maybe you want some more details. The folks over at Philadelphia's DiBruno Bros. have published an extensive blog entry on cheese spoilage. Definitely worth a read!

Apologies for the noticeable dearth of posts lately. Things in my life have been busy and I haven't been able to give this blog proper attention. However, I continue to post a weekly cheese column called Serious Cheese over at SeriousEats.com. Be sure to check there every Tuesday if you're jonesing for cheese-related blog posts (this week my cheese post is hitting today). Thanks, and I look forward to getting back on track here soon!

In the meantime, take a look at this interesting history of cheese someone posted in the forums. (No sources are given, but anyway it makes for entertaining reading and is a somewhat plausible theory. They also link to an interesting-looking site that has videos of cheese-making and other wine & food related things.)

-Jamie

UPDATE: Just installed a widget at the right that lists my most recent posts over at Serious Eats. Check them out!

Artisanal announced today that they have begun a same day delivery service in Manhattan. Cheeses are delivered via rickshaw, and, for now, the service is only available in midtown from 34th Street to 63rd Street. Orders must be received by noon for a 5pm same day delivery.

This is a really cool service and I hope it does well so they can add more neighborhoods. Only certain items can be ordered online, but you can place a custom order by calling the toll free order line (1-877-797-1200).

I'm not located in the delivery area, but if anyone is and has tried out the service, please leave feedback in the comments below!

(Caution: contains some adult language.)

From the BBC's That Mitchell and Webb Look, via Steve

I received the following email the other day from Deborah over at the Jersey Cheese Festival:

I am the event co-ordinator for the first World Jersey Cheese Awards, a cheese competition purely for cheese made using Jersey Milk. The competition is due to be held in the island of Jersey on May 23rd. I am looking to contact cheesemakers using only Jersey Milk, would any of your readers be able to help? We do have a website for the awards on www.jerseycheese.com.

Cheese made from the milk of Jersey cows is especially tasty, owing to an unusually high cream content. Of course, you wouldn't want to make a Parmigiano-Reggiano from Jersey milk, but most cheeses really benefit from the extra fat. In fact some cheesemakers, like the folks behind Vermont Shepherd and Nettle Meadow Kunik, add Jersey cream to their sheep and goat cheeses to give them some heft and richness.

The Jersey cow originated in Jersey islands of England, but can now be found all over the world. This is the first I've seen of a cheese contest specific to one dairy breed, and it'll be interesting to see the results.

If you have any leads on Jersey cheesemakers for Deborah, leave a comment here or contact her directly.

This is perhaps the best use I've seen for commodity block cheddar, since of course you wouldn't ever want to eat the stuff. Sure it's a waste of food, and I am utterly opposed to wasting food, but here's an example of a food that just should never have been made in the first place. So you might as well turn it into art, I suppose.

In February, Showtime Networks hired ace cheese carver Troy Landwehr to convert 1200 pounds of cheddar into a likeness of the Statue of Liberty. The process took four days and is condensed into two minutes in the video above. Watch and be amazed...

Via Crooked Timber, a great tip for remembering what cheeses you've bought: Take a picture of the label, and then bring the picture with you the next time you go buy more cheese. Simple! Brilliant!

This week Madison, Wisconsin hosts the 27th Biennial World Championship Cheese Contest where cheesemakers from around the globe show their wares in pursuit of awards in 79 classes of cheeses and butters. Most interestingly, this year's finale will be broadcast live on the internet, tomorrow, March 13th, from 8:30am CST. Be sure to tune in for some exciting, cheesy action!

UPDATE: Results from Cheese Underground:

Cheesemaker Michael Spycher, of Kaserei Fritzenhaus in Wasen, Switzerland, took top honors out of 1,941 entries from 19 countries for his Le Gruyere Switzerland. First runner-up was a Gorgonzola made by CERPL Cheesemakers in Italy, while second runner-up went to an Emmentaler made by Bernhard Naf, of Guntershausen, Switzerland.