00:00:00 Speaker: You guys, I think we need to talk about something serious. I think we've been overdoing our cheeseboards for, like, a little too long. Somewhere along the way, whether it was Covid or social media, we decided that a good cheeseboard needed a lot more than cheese and meat. Maybe M&Ms. Chocolate chip cookies. In fact, I'm confession. I am a Facebook group junkie. I am in so many Facebook groups, I love them. And one of them that I'm in is actually all about charcuterie boards and grazing tables. And it's everywhere from novice people just throwing some cheeses on a plate to people who own their own charcuterie board business. In fact, there are eight hundred and thirty two thousand people in this Facebook group. That said, I was just kind of scrolling through just to get a little motivation for this episode. And I am not kidding. I literally came across a cantaloupe sculpture. Someone carved Leaves a tree. I may have to borrow this photo just for Instagram so you guys can see it. And in addition to that, he also had cheese cut and stacked like Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. I'm actually kind of speechless. I'm looking at it right now. It is. It is bananas. Another person has like the game of life done with like fruits and meats and cheeses and crackers and like all the little pathways like lead up to the middle berry bowl. Very cool if we're going to like a cheese art museum, but I'm tired. I have a two year old, I have a thirteen year old senior dog, and I've got a husband. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Britt and this is Curtis the Word. And today we are talking about how to make your cheese board work smarter, not harder. Think of this episode as your ticket to not the Pinterest board, but the efficiency board. We're going to talk about three cheeses, a handful of accompaniments, and how everything can work together with almost everything. As I mentioned in my last episode, I love to work with an odd number of cheeses because for me, once things start to have an even number, we need symmetry. And that is not what we like. We like a messy board. Things are thrown on. They're not messy. Messy, like scrappy, but messy is in like, look at this beautiful, unorganized plate of food that just now looks gorgeous because it's so full and it is overwhelming, especially as a non-Chinese person, to stand in front of a cheese counter or like your Trader Joe's, your kings, what have you, especially if there's not a monger there and you're like, okay, cool, I'm at the cheese section. Like, what the f do I do? And I feel like I mentioned this a decent bit, but if it bears repetition, doesn't that mean it's important? And what I like to do is pick cheeses that you know can double duty. So in this case today we're going to talk about a goat Gouda because that is knocks off the goat milk section knocks off the Gouda category. We're going to talk about a triple cream blue cheese. Knocks off your soft cheese category. Knocks off your blue cheese category. And then we're going to talk about a very special Spanish cheese called Idiazabal. Think of this as like manchego cheese. Really cool, sophisticated cafe smoking a cigarette like older cousin. And there you have your firm cheese, your hard cheese, and you've got a sheep's milk. You've got international. And then I'll walk you through how you can buy each accompaniment once and what they all work together with. That way you're not stuck like me spending seventy two dollars on four different kinds of fruit, and you now have used a third of each. And then they just sit in the back of your fridge until they grow mold and you have to throw them out. So without further ado, let's get into it. Our first cheese to talk about today comes to us from Holland and it is called Brabander. This is a goat milk Gouda. And as I researched for this episode, I was kind of surprised to see that it's only been aged from six to nine months because it's like, that's like elementary school for Gouda. Usually I, I always say if I, my desert island, two cheeses because I can't pick would either be an aged Gouda or blue cheese. I love them both so much. It really just kind of depends on my mood. But Aged Gouda is one of those cheeses where it's just like always for me, it's just like always delicious. And this one is no exception to my rule. It is ivory colored. It offers notes of caramel. It has some crystallization to it. And it really just checks off all the boxes of Gouda. Except it's not giving you that super thick mouthfeel that you get with like a typical cow's milk Gouda. It's very light on the palate, but still packs a ton of flavor. Brabander comes to us from a cooperative in Brabant, in southern Holland, from the goat milk, from the Sannen goats. They are aged by Betty and Martin Koester, who run a cute little cheese shop called Fromage Le Mieux near Amsterdam. And in their, you know, aging facilities, they actually have a white wax that coats the wheels of cheese. And they're aged at a temperature and humidity levels higher than usual Gouda. And this is how they get the crystallization on their Gouda cheese for it only being in there for six to nine months. Because when I first read this, I was like, this is kind of unheard of. But that makes total sense. This cheese is an absolute crowd pleaser. It's so moist. It's creamy. Like I said, light flavor, but still packs that Gouda Butterscotchy notes to it. It is absolutely delicious. I also read that the higher temperature and humidity levels also assists with letting the cheese have such a greater complexity and depth of flavor. Some people even report getting little notes of hay in the flavor of the cheese as well. I personally do not hate a gamey cheese. I love savory stuff. And to me, this cheese walks like a really fine line between like caramel, butterscotch, sweet, and at the same time a little farm farmy. Hey, uh, a little gamey for sure. And a few other fun facts. It is a pasteurized cheese as well as using a vegetarian rennet. If you're interested in giving this cheese a try, I will link it on my website, w w w dot Curtis dot com, and you can try it for yourself. Our next cheese pulling double duty is a cambozola which is made in Germany. It is a cow's milk cheese, and sometimes it's actually referred to as blue Brie. It offers the exact same texture as Brie with a bloomy rind, very soft, creamy, fudgy paste inside. Yes, it has the flavor of blue. It has the Rochefort mold in it, and its name actually comes to us as a hybrid between Camembert and Gorgonzola. It's a triple cream. It's really just delicious. I think this might be Tyler, my husband's favorite cheese ever. It does not last long when we have it in the house, and quite frankly, it does not last long in general. Um, compared to other blue cheeses as well, the blue itself. I know I mentioned in my last episode I've told people to eat around the blue. This is also a very good gateway blue cheese for someone who loves Brie. It's really, really mild. Um, it's so smooth and creamy. It's really just like this extra little kick in the cheese itself, but it is just. MM. This is a delicious cheese. It's actually older than me as most cheeses probably are. It came to fruition in nineteen eighty three. It's still produced today. And yeah, what's so fun about this cheese? And as soon as I talk about the other cheese, we'll talk about why these cheeses work so hard for you. But you can actually put any pairing that you would do for Brie, Camembert or blue cheese, uh, Gorgonzola more specifically, that would work for this. So now you're talking about like what, seventy five percent of the typical accoutrements that you'd buy this cheese, almost like works, crackers, bread, different flavors of jam, honey, different fruits, grapes, cherries, boom, peaches, apricots, all the things. So we love Cambozola. It's actually produced by a company called Hoffmeister Champignon. And I don't know, there's not really much more to it. It's aged for about four to six weeks, so it is a little younger. Cheese. It is pasteurized because fun fact you cannot import raw milk cheese younger than sixty days into the US. So four to six weeks just a little baby. So this is a pasteurized cheese. Um again triple cream. We're looking at a seventy percent fat content. Yes. I took the CCP. Yes. I had to memorize some formulas about fat and dry matter. And no, we will not touch upon that right now. Um, yeah, Cambozola is really just very unique and at the same time, another, another crowd pleaser. I do believe I've seen other brands make cambozola. Um, I don't see any. I didn't see anything while researching that the name is protected. So you can find different producers making the same kind of cheese. At the end of the day, delicious is delicious. And finally, our third cheese. Who's really throwing in there? Elbow grease is a Spanish cheese called idiazabal. It's a pressed cheese made from raw sheep's milk, typically from the Laca and Carranza sheep in the Basque country, especially the southern Basque region of Spain. Now I love a cheese that has a party trick to it. Idiazabal is. The name itself is protected. This means that only specific breeds of sheep can be used. Only animal rennet can be used. It can only be made in specific places in Spain. In fact, I believe the list is only like six or seven different towns that are able to make real, true idiazabal. We love this about this cheese. There's a really long list of French cheeses, Spanish cheeses, a couple Portuguese cheeses, and other cheeses too that are legally documented on how to make them. And not just everyone is able to make this cheese. And because of that, it really offers such a beautiful flavor. You have people who have been doing this for however long, tens of hundreds of years, and Idiazabal is no exception. It is smoky, it is nutty. It is just a snackable grabbable easy to love cheese. You can pair it with produce. You can pair it with quince. Jam is like the famous pairing for that. Um, it's very buttery. It's very smooth and supple. And what's kind of funny? Not ha ha funny, but funny in general is that our first cheese Brabender goat Gouda is also a little bit nutty, very smooth, creamy, uh, also a little savory and buttery. And at the same time, they both taste incredibly different. So it's okay to have cheeses that, you know, looking at the flavor notes, if you will have similar properties, but at the same time, they will be different. They look different. They have other flavor properties with them that actually help distinguish them apart. This cheese is only aged about three months or so, but you can age it longer and then use it to grate over, you know, soup, salad, pasta, etc., etc. because it becomes a lot drier and the flavor actually gets a little bit sharper. And when I say sharp, I want you to think of like a provolone type of sharp because the word sharp is so subjective to everyone. But that's the kind of sharp in this case we're talking about. Um, in October of nineteen ninety three, the International Academy of Gastronomy gave it a gold medal as one of the best European cheeses. So Idiazabal is no joke, even though the cheese itself has a bit of a smoky flavor. Some ideas wheels are actually smoked with either like cherry wood, birch tree, beech tree, white pine. It really just kind of depends. Sometimes the rinds of these cheeses are engraved with drawings or symbols characteristic of the Basque culture. I would. I think I would love to see that kind of sounds like cheese hieroglyphics. Maybe we do an episode on cheese hieroglyphics, but I digress. So let's go back through our three cheeses. We have Brabender, which is giving you the nutty caramelized roll that a Gouda usually fills, but the goat's milk is adding brightness. It's familiar enough for those who are little cheese shy, and yet it is complex enough for those who are not. Our next cheese. We have cambozola, which instead of buying a Brie and a blue, you just buy cambozola. It's creamy enough for people who are scared of blue cheese. It's flavorful enough for people who love blue cheese. That alone is the definition of working smarter, not harder. And then lastly, we have diazepam. And basically this is just taking the role of manchego, but maybe giving it a little bit more personality. The smokiness makes the board itself feel a little bit more complicated in a good way. Like interestingly complicated, like, wow, this person must really know their stuff about cheese. And then you don't have to buy any other aged cheeses because you've already scratch that itch. So how are we eating these? Ready, set. Go. Here's your grocery list. We're going to have fresh cherries. They are still in season. I'm recording this on September sixth. And cherries pair amazing with all three cheeses. We're also going to go with our trusty fig jam again pairing incredibly well with all three cheeses. Same thing for marcona almonds, rustic baguette, good crackers. And then we're also going to buy some really good fresh prosciutto, which is delicious with the brabender and the idiazabal, the idiazabal, it'll bring out more of that smoky flavor in both the meat and the cheese. And with the brabender. I mean, have you ever had aged Gouda with prosciutto? And if you haven't, now's your chance. We're also going to throw some honey on the board. You can even do a honeycomb. You can literally buy them anywhere, which to me gives a little bit more of an elevated look. And the honey goes absolutely amazing with the brabender, the cambozola, honestly, the Ausable two. And for a little pop of color, we're going to go with the Italian Castelvetrano olives. And that pairs so well with the ideas and also the brabander just kind of a smooth, supple little pop of salt, just to really bring out both the saltiness for the brabander and the idiazabal. So now instead of buying twelve different things, you've only really bought seven. Everything gets used. Nothing sits forgotten in the fridge. If you're like me, I would literally just be buying. As I mentioned earlier in the episode, just so many different things. And then you know what else too? When I'm looking for crackers, guess what? I have four different kinds and they're all stale. So I don't know about you, but by the time school starts, which probably was around this week, calendar is getting full. You've got sporting events, you've got this club after school. For me, I mean, I have a two year old who is just nonstop energy. I don't always want to be putting together Eminems on my board because there's some open gaps. Um, some nights I just want to open up a couple cheeses, a jar of jam, pour a drink. If I close my eyes and my daughter's asleep, I can pretend to be on a patio in Spain. And if you like an episode like this, because I do tend to get a lot of questions about like, how do I know what to put on the board? And, you know, like I said, Pinterest is showing you just like really over the top make Martha Stewart blush types of boards. And we don't always need that. Sure. If you want to be my guest once in a while, I get really carried away with it too. And I love to make sure there's no open gaps or let me throw a couple pistachios, both shelled and unshelled for aesthetics, but you just don't need to do that. So we've got three beautiful, delicious, versatile cheeses. And that's my that's that's kind of the definition of luxury, not perfection, but just a luxury indulgence. So those of you putting together this cheese board, definitely take some pictures. Feel free to tag me, send them to me. I would love to see it as I've recorded this. I'm like, shoot, I think I need to go get some of these cheeses and just plop, you know, love a plop. Um, if today's sheep's milk cheese made you curious, the Basque region Idiazabal, feel free to go back to listen to my episode about Ossau-iraty. Basically the very similar style cheese, but made on the French side of the Basque region. That could be a fun taste test too. It's another incredible sheep's milk cheese, but again, entirely different personality. So next time you're standing in front of the cheese case, whether it be a Wednesday night, a Friday morning, a holiday weekend. Don't think about buying more. Think about buying smarter. Find cheeses that can wear multiple hats. Your guests won't notice that there's only three cheese. They'll just remember how good everything tasted together. If today's episode helped you rethink your cheese board, send it to your friends who's always in charge of the apps. And if you're feeling adventurous, pick one cheese whose name you've never pronounced before. And you know what? Try it with the fig jam that you bought for this board. You might just discover your new favorite. If you liked today's episode, definitely click to subscribe. I also subscribe to my Substack. Follow my Instagram. I have an event coming up in Bergen County in a couple of weeks. Feel free to join my newsletter. You can find me so many places you can hire me for your girls night out. Whatever works for you works for me. And that, my friends, is today's episode of Curt is the Word. Stay cheesy and I'll see you next time.