Annie, other than brie, cam, and limbuerger, there is not not a cheese I do not like. Including the Black Star Frams raclette! I think I am part mouse.

And tht rubbery, salty wrapped in plastic stuff is not cheese. It is thick orange plastic wrap out to kill us.

I am a mouse and I love lots of cheese. It's a good thing because I've bought every kind (that I can buy) to catch that d@amn mouse that I had in my pantry.

I know that I would like this particular cheese...just because it's named for Grand River's first settlement near the farm. Ahhhh hats off to Larry, "The little town flirt and keep searching" has me thinking...

I don't like Goat, Blue or many of the other smelly cheeses (I was abused by Stilton cheese and Blue cheese as a child). I love Port Salut. My absolute favorite. I will eat it with everything humanly possible. I can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Karen, you might be interested in knowing that I was president of the international Del Shannon fan club from 1966 to 1968! A little late in his career, but he was still making new music then. I got a phone call from Chuck (Del) in 1966 after I had sent him a fan letter telling him about all of his records that I had - including Australian and English EP's plus his Coke and Pepsi commercials (yes, he did BOTH Coke and Pepsi!) that I had gotten from local DJs. He had a hard time finding me, but he asked me if I could send him copies of his Australian and English releases, as well as the commercials, as he did not have copies of those! Evidently, I had more Del Shannon records than Del Shannon, and that was not easy, since he had been released on an obscure label in the U.S. Anyway, he asked me if I would be president of his fan club, and so of course I agreed. Afterwards, I would call him every two months for interviews. I broke the story to the fans that he was already married and had kids. BTW, Jody has tragically died as well.

As for the cheese, Roquefort is my favorite, but I also like almost all goat and sheep's milk cheeses, especially Manchego. I tend to prefer Italian cheeses, including sharp Provolone, Asiago, Parmesan, and Buffalo Mozzarella. Next would be Swiss cheeses (including Gruyère) and the Norwegian Jarlsberg. I also love feta, but I'm not a fan of English cheeses, and I don't like Cheddar or Stilton.

Thanks for the Del Shannon reference, Annie!

Lars

Oh, I like Del! Remember those songs well!

I like most cheeses, limburger,,,nooo
Love feta...salad w/o it is blah for me..

Lars, you will never cease to amaze me I am sure. Nice to see and hear from you - I have your tiny teapot on my wndowsill still with toothpicks in it and I think of you a lot.

I like many, many different cheeses. Couldn't pick just one (or even just a couple) guess we're a cheese family.

The people at Whole Foods make fun of me because I buy every cheese that I sample. I have yet to taste a bad cheese. (I also buy every olive that I sample). I prefer cow's milk cheese, but I will eat the sheep and goat cheese if that's all I have.

I can clear out half a container and a room with my favorite, French Epoisses. A favorite of Napoleon, and so aromatic it is banned from French public transportation (I don't know why, when packaged I can't smell anything), this rind washed cheese is still not the smelliest cheese made.

I'd like to try every cheese mentioned on the famous Monty Python skit except for the Venezuelan Beaver cheese, LOL. I'm adventurous and love trying all cheese (as long as it doesn't have animal rennet - I read labels...). I prefer cheese that have flavor and character - monterey jack and cheddar are a bit boring for eating out of hand but I do use them in cooking.

Right now I'm nibbling on one of two pieces I bought on w00t from Three Sisters Farmstead Cheese central California, Tulare area. California has cheese!

We're cheese lovers over here too! They don't always love me, but my love is unconditional! LOL
Not a mozzarella fan, but I love sharp cheddars gruyere, baby swiss, jarlsberg,manchego, sharper dutch cheeses, brie, etc. Not a big fan of roquefort or gorgonzola, but I'll eat them cooked in something. I use parm, asagio, feta quite a bit in cooking as well.

Jessy, loved that site, where did you find that cheese?

Never met a cheese I didn't love....everything from Velveeta to Limberger and all the goat and sheep stuff in between, mouldy, both white and blue, ash encrusted, in brine, grapes eed covered, lacedw ith port orw ith pepper.
I prefer real cheese nor pasteurized cheese product....but will even eat that.
Linda C

Ellen: I bought the Three Sisters from woot.com. Not cheap but I'm a sucker for supporting cottage industries. Woot has 24 hours sales so it is long gone, but I think you can find it at Whole Paycheck or Bristol Farms.

I also forgot to mention gjetost. I first heard about this sweet Norwegian cheese from a recipe for Norwegian chicken meatballs in Sunset magazine which I used to make pre-kosher. Heaven!

I think spray cheese is the favorite in my house. I dispense it as a cat treat and Jessy is snacking on sharp chedder at the moment. Bought kitties both american and chedder flavors last time I was cat treat shopping.

I use lots of the american cheese on sandwiches for work. Half glue and half cheese that keeps a sandwich from being dry. Chedder for my nachos when I'm not on a diet. Some goat cheese in the drawer, brie, parmeasan, pepper jack, and cream cheese. Block of smoked chedder for snacks. I'm out of mozerella that I use in spagetti and sprinkle on nachos for variation.

Now I have a craving for venison and blue cheese. Have to go buy some in the morning... if I can wait that long.

: )
lyra

[lyra....requesting updated furkid pix....]

What a delightful thread Annie. It brought back a forgotten memory of stumbling upon The Sagra Nazionale del Gorgonzola, the annual cheese festival in Gorgonzola, Italy. What a wonderful day we had walking the streets of this little town outside of Milan sampling cheese. Dairy farmers were demonstrating simple cheese making and giving samples of fresh cheese. That was my first exposure to Gorgonzola and now is one of my favorites, not that many brands can match the taste and texture of the real thing, but they will do in a pinch.

Cheddar is also on the top of my list. Raymond moaned when I hollered "pull over, pull over" as we pasted the Tillamook factory in Oregon. Geez, you would think he would know by now. He just didn't get the excitement of going to a chessy cheese factory, but they gave samples and that appeased him.

Lars, that is a fascinating story, thanks for sharing.

Jessy, thanks for the Monty Python clip.

Karen, all that and it wasn't cheese (or chocolate) that did Ratatouille in the end.

There's bad cheese? LOL

Favorite: A blueberry stilton that I can get at Lotsa Pasta in Louisville. I can't for the life of me remember its name, but I sure like it.

I'm not crazy about Velveeta. As a matter of fact, yuck. Can't do it. Too salty, I guess. Just weird stuff.

I love any kind of bleu cheese, roquefort, gorgonzola, gruyere...smelly cheese is the best. Love goat and sheep's milk cheeses, too.

I guess I'm not too picky....LOL

I'm a big homesick mouse! How can I consider myself a faithful Michigander when I didn't know Michigan had these great cheeses?
Thanks for the post.

Oh, all I know is I've never liked an italian pasta dish I've ever been served that had Gorgonzola. They have either used way too much or I just don't like it, not sure which.

I love all cheeses, but I think my all-time favorite is Colston Bassett Stilton, no other bleu compares, oh maybe Bleu d'Auvergne does! I use Manchego when making quesadillas, instead of the usual jack.

We did the Connecticut Cheese Trail just last year & discovered several really good local artisan cheeses. I always think of Vermont when I think New England cheese especially Cabot Private Reserve cheddar; but this Cato Corner Farms place in Connecticut is making some really good cheese. Because I'm a cheddar fan I loved the Jeremy River. DH who likes stronger cheese liked the Bloomsday (similar to gruyere). I made pasta/shrimp with the 1/4 lb. we brought home & it really was terrific. I haven't thought much about it since last summer. I need to ask why Mystic's little delis aren't selling Cato Corner Farm's cheese?

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Cato Corner Artisan Cheese

Lars, I remembered that you were President of the Del Shannon Fan Club and I took that picture last fall when I took The Princess and Bruvver to ride the Pumpkin Train from Coopersville to Marne. 7 miles there and back with a crow and a scarecrow, singing and dancing, and a pumpkin for every child when we returned.

I had forgotten to post that picture for you and when I got the Coopersville cheese I remembered.

I don't like any blue cheeses, I've only eaten a couple of goat's milk cheeses that I like. No camembert or brie, either, and definitely no limburger. I only eat the Black Star Farms raclette when I get it fresh, the aged stuff smells like dirty socks, LOL.

I'll eat a slice of Kraft but I don't really consider it cheese and it's not a favorite. I like cheddar, colby or colby/jack, swiss, parmesan and asiago or romano, gouda and the gjetost that Jessica mentioned. We have a good local Pinconning, but I like the milder cheeses.

Annie

Oh my! Cheese was one of my first true-love foods. When I was a little girl reading, "Heidi" for the first time, and her grandfather made the first meal he served her, "he took a big slice of cheese, fixed it on the prongs of a long iron fork, and turned it over the fire until it was all toasted a tempting golden brown" I was hooked. It just sounded so wonderful, cheese toasted until it was "soft as butter" on a slab of bread with heated goat's milk to drink.

Now mind, I'd never had either goat's milk nor goat's milk cheese, but the image was so vivid in my mind that to this day I can't put a crusty roll in the toaster oven to melt thick slices of cheese until it bubbles (one of my favorite snack/meals)without it replaying in my imagination.

Good Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar, Swiss, Gouda, Blue...stinky cheeses, mild cheeses, smoked cheeses, fresh cheeses...I can't think of a cheese I don't like.

Well, except for the plastic-wrapped squares of orange-colored oil product that is the cheap version of Kraft American cheese-which I will eat, upon rare occasion, but I don't really consider it cheese. Same with ballpark nacho cheese sauce on chips...I'll eat it, but is there any real cheese in it?

One cheese that might tempt those of you who like Brie but don't care for Blue is, "Cambozola" which is a Camembert laced with Gorgonzola. You get the Blue flavor, but mellowed by the Camembert.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cambozola

Although I've never been to Wisconsin, I am definitely a cheesehead. I love cheese, and can't think of any I don't like, other than the fake cheeses like Velveeta and American and the like. Yuck. I go through pepper jack like water, so it's my favorite after work snacking cheese. Once I learned that Parmesan didn't actually come from those green shaker cans, and tasted the real stuff, Parmigiano Reggiano has been given a permanent spot in my kitchen. I also love Pecorino Romano, Bleu's, Cheddars, Mozzarellas, and Swisses, of all kinds, Goudas, Goats, Cream Cheese, Marscapone, Ricotta... I really like cheese way too much, and eat way too much of it, too. Bad for the waist line and the pocket book.

Jessy, how do you tell if a cheese has animal rennet in it? Some labels seem ambiguous to me.

Cathy, your visit to the Sagra Nazionale del Gorgonzola is a forgotten memory?! How could you forget an experience like that?

Rachelellen, I'm another Heidi fan, and like you, drooled over the parts where Grandfather prepared the cheese meals. I had forgotten he heated the cheese over the fire. Sounds like something to try.

I love, when I'm making a grilled cheese sandwich, to "spill" lots of the cheese onto the skillet. That toasted, or fried cheese stuck to the edges of the bread is my favorite part of the sandwich.

Sally

I probably spend oh....over $50 a month on cheese..
Yes some of it's American...okay about $10 worth..LOL That's hubbies favorite..and of course the boys love it too on sandwiches..however, they will also eat Havarti and Munster on sandwiches. I also buy a brick of Frigo Mozz and at least a medium cheddar.
I always have a 5lb brick of cream cheese from Costco in the fridge I work on over a 2 or so month period.
I buy a Raw milk Parm from Portugal at the Coop grocery store and use that for all Parmesan uses..Mmm mmm
Mine and #2 sons favorite cheese I get from my local co op buying group called Mutscheli..It's a "swiss" type. Again Raw milk...delish..just a bit above fridge stage..but not quite total room temp.
Friday I picked up a new cheese at Costco. A raw milk XX sharp cheddar..I can't wait to dive into that!
The other two cheeses that I love from Costco are the Dublinger and the other one that sits right next to it. One is a "Parm" flavor type and the other is a sharp cheddar. One is from Scotland and the other Britian I think.

If you have Tillamook purchasing abilities in your area, I highly recommend the Special Reserve White Extra Sharp Cheddar...Oh heaven off a knife!

And I do love a good smoked Cheddar too...

Oh I guess you can tell my favorite cheese is a Cheddar. LOL

oh and feta on my salads...

I love Manchego, but there's a lot of mediocre Manchego around. When it's good, there's nothing better. Saint-André is another favorite.
I only like cheeses that are either fairly firm or quite soft. I dislike the texture of all the cheese in the middle. That includes almost all the cheese DH eats, LOL. So, no cheddar unless it's real English cheddar, fairly dry. No blocks of anything in the supermarket.

Yes,Terri,that Tillamook is so good.I think if I could only have one cheese it would be that one. Cheddar can be rather bland sometimes but not that one. Cambozola was a surprise. It sounded kind of dorky but it's wonderful. I love port salut, in fact, almost all cheeses. Dh and number one dgd adore all the really smelly ones. The smellier the better. Our grandchildren don't drink milk the way our children did so I am always glad to see them eat cheese; even those tasteless sticks of rubbery mazzarella. This is too much I have to go and eat some cheese.

I'm glad you popped in Lars. I didn't remember you were the president of the Del Shannon fan club. He was a favorite of mine too.

Of the cheeses I've tasted there are very few that I don't like. I didn't like bleu cheese until recently. I haven't tasted limbeurger and not sure I want to. I love sharp dry cheddar, Jarlsburg, Pecorino Romano,Fontina, Provolone, gruyere,goat, brie, gouda, Jack, Parmigiano Reggiano. I'm not wild about cottage cheese or cream cheese. As for Velveeta, I love it melted in a casserole or something. I can't eat it out of hand though.

I think if I had to pick one cheese to eat for the rest of my life, it would be cheddar. So versatile. I missed it when we were living in Holland. The Dutch don't make cheddar. We could buy British cheddars, but they were astonishingly expensive, so we usually did without.

Cheese is my downfall. I'd rather eat cheese than chocolate. I'm with cloudy christine regarding Saint-André. It's like eating butter!

Some of the new cheeses we came across in our travels that we really enjoyed were a goat's milk Gouda from Holland and two from England: a blue-veined cheddar called "Shropshire Blue" and a white Stilton with apricots.

I've been able to find the goat's milk Gouda here. I've tried a white Stilton with apricots here, but it wasn't nearly as good. So far, haven't been able to locate a Shropshire Blue.

seagrass

Score! I went to the Italian market today to get Parmesan rinds for my spaghetti sauce. The guy behind the counter was young and didn't have a clue so he "gave" me the rinds saying that they just throw it away. I usually have to pay a a good price at Whole Foods.

Sally, It just wasn't in the forefront of my memory! Surprising what memories are now replaced by what Beau & Lily did yesterday.

Wow Cathy! You really did score!

I forgot about this cheese. It probably is one of my favorites.

Here is a link that might be useful: Beemster Vlaskaas

Annie, this reminds me of when we were in Laguna Beach with Jessy, Ellen, Diane, Gina, Scott, and others, and we went to that nice French cheese shop and got the wonderful samplers of French cheeses, plus olives, I think. That was a wonderful memory.

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie & Lars commenting on rose in Laguna

Living in Wisconsin, we're spoiled by access to exceptional artisan cheeses. I can't think of a single cheese I've ever had that I don't like, but my favorite has to be a well-aged (5 - 10 years) cheddar. They're drier than ordinary cheddars and there are even tiny crystals in them. The flavor is much stronger (and better) than that of un-aged cheddars.

If you're thinking to yourself "Eh, cheddar... I could take it or leave it!" or if you think you don't like cheddar, but have no specific recollection of tasting an aged cheddar, this is a cheese you really ought to try.

Lars, I do remember the cheese shop, I had a rhubarb soda there, LOL, and some wonderful cheese with herbs and black peppercorns, so good I bought some and took it back to the motel for Elery to try. I'd forgotten that cheese until you mentioned the cheese shop...

Annie

Lars, I bet she passed on the olives.. : )

I'm amazed at all the food ventures y'all have in MI Annie. You and Mr. E sure do have some fun checking them all out that's for sure. I'm a major fan of cheese...I'll pass on head cheese though..LOL

David

There is hardly any cheese that I don't like. You and Elery do like food exploring and so do my husband and I.

Lars, what a cool story you had to share!

OMG, I'd rather have cheese than chocolate ANY day! We always have some sort of cheese in the house, and in small amounts, it's a very good source of protein and calcium. I can't think of anything better than a nice crisp apple with a piece of cheese to nibble on.

My most fav are two in particular: there's a Truffled Gouda that I get from a local cheese shop and I ADORE it, and another soft brie called Fromage de Affinois.

Le sigh.

Okay, Cathy, I understand how that can happen.

I'm one of those that used to think cheddar was just okay, and not one of my favorites, until I started exploring all the different kinds of cheddar. I'm now a big fan of cheddar cheeses, especially the sharp cheddars.

I love feta, too, but it doesn't love me. I've had to start leaving it out of my salads at work, unfortunately.

Sally

Another cheese fan here. I love most cheeses except any cheese that has "something" added to it like fruit, smoked flavouring, herbs, jalapeno peppers etc. There are also many cheeses I love cooked but not out of hand, Swiss, Gruyere, Mozzarella, Asiago etc.

Five year old Canadian Raw Milk from Quebec is probably my most favourite. Currently I'm hooked on a goat milk cheese from Spain formerly called "Drunken Goat" but now has a new more sophisticated name.... which, of course, I can't recall. It a semi soft cheese not at all like the soft goat cheese you may be used to...not even close. I can only find it a Whole Foods, pricey but to die for!

Okay not impressed with the XXSharp Cheddar from Costco that I picked up on Friday. It says New York Style on the package and aged 12 months.
It was soft and I swear almost spreadable..if it was at room temp. Not very tasty either..I'll have to use it up with other cheeses..as I did lastnight in Baked Mac N Cheese.

Annie,I'm very much like you in that cheese is something I can take or leave. Although I have made them, I have never eaten a grilled cheese sandwich and cheese never touches my burgers or sandwiches. I don't mind a little cheese in an omelette or feta cheese in salads (and you know how much I love salads. LOL), and Reggiano Parmesan on pasta. I keep cheese around because Moe likes it and I can really appreciate a quality cheese and don't mind a little nibble now and then, but cheese really isn't something that I ever have a craving for.

Knowing how much you love your state of Michigan it doesn't surprise me that when you found a cheese to love it came from there.

Ann

Ann T, I keep saying that you and I could eat together. Rare beef, fresh bread, you could have all my olives, and just an occasional bit of cheese.

I DO love Michigan, I think it's just a couple of miles south of Heaven, as Renee used to tell me. I like our produce because it's fresh, I think it all suffers from long shipment. No way can a peach that was picked from the tree two hours ago at the peak of ripeness be compared to one picked 5 states away, last week, and slightly green so they can ship it successfully.

I've also found that, no matter where I am, I like the local stuff best. I am hugely enamoured of peameal bacon, which I ate at a family reunion in Buckhorn, Canada, but I haven't seen it anywhere else, ever. I thoroughly enjoyed the almond champagne with chocolate port I got at the vineyard in California and no matter how I tried to replicate it, I couldn't do as well here. The tangerines lacksboys3 sent and the honeybells gardengrl sent me were far better than anything I've had here. The fresh seafood I got in Maine was far better than any I've had elsewhere, but I still like our Lake Perch and Walleye better here than anywhere else. I'm definitely one of those "eat locally" people.

I'm looking forward to our trip to Texas, someplace in Brownsville sells cabrito, which I think is barbequed goat. Yup, definitely gotta try it and expand my food horizons, like I did in California with the sushi. Oh, and Sangria. Gotta try some sangria.

Annie

Please, please, please don't make have to choose between chocolate and cheese.