Tis the season to be cheesy!
For fromageophiles like us, the twinkling star of Bethlehem is our signal to celebrate in a milky way. Whether you’re looking to impress a gourmet giftee, come up with an original ho-ho-hostess gift or just treat yourself to some dairy-based self-care, we’ve put together a cheese lover’s gift guide that’s sure to delight.
Merry Kit-Mas! Whether you’re looking for a hands-on activity to share with kids over the holidays or you’re just the crafty (But never Kraft-y!) type, the just-add-milk at-home cheesemaking kits from Farm Steady ($30) are easy, educational and delectable. With the Mexican Fresh Cheese kit, you can make crumbly queso frescoand perfect-for-melting queso panela, the Goat Cheese kit lets you make some baaaaa’d ass chèvre (So long as you’ve got a nearby supermarket that sells goat milk), and our favorite, the Italian Fresh Cheese kit lets you whip up creamy ricotta, bouncy mozzarella and lush burrata: Note the “and” in that sentence—In addition to cheese thermometers, baskets and draining cloths, Farm Steady kits include enough of the all-important vegetable rennet and citric acid you’ll need to make 8 batches of cheese per kit. Kits also include links to online recipes and video tutorials.
After tasting our first batch of fresh FarmSteady ricotta, we jumped back into the kit-chen toenvelop our homemade cheese in perfect pasta pillowcases. The Global Grub Ravioli Kit ($33.99) includes the 00 flour you’ll need for ideal pasta dough, a ravioli stamp to make your frilly-edged pockets, plus some dried porcinis and truffle oil for some gustatory gussying-up.
How voracious is the cheese lover in your life? Its an issue to take under consideration in determining just how many copies of 33 Pieces of Cheese ($5.00), a terrific pocket tasting journal, you should stuff in their stocking. Created by Portland publisher Dave Selden, these handsome Moleskine-style books feature templated pages on which to record your nibblings. Each page provides prompts through a Texture Meter—where you can mark your cheese’s mouthfeel on a scale from hard to runny—and a Flavor Wheel, which encourages you to map out a range of sensations from caramel to herbal to crystalline. And, just for fun, the ink used to print each booklet is infused with a few morsels of cheese that varies from one print run to the next (My first purchase was made with an ash-rubbed Croatian sheep’s milk selection). Prepare to get hooked: Selden makes similar sampling journals for everything from 33 Drops of Hot Sauce to 33 Jiggers of Gin.
Waterboarding is a torture; holiday cheese boarding shouldn’t be! Yet with the rise of online pandemic classes in the art of tasty arrangements and an explosion of cheese-fancying Pinterest Picassos, putting together a cheeseboard has become competitive bloodsport among a certain one-upsy subset of Karens and Kevins. Never mind such status-conscious nonsense: Whether you’re making a gift arrangement, entertaining guests or putting together a mini-meal, you do you, cheeselover! Gouda and grapes? Go for it! La Vache Qui Rit and Reese’s Pieces? It’s your palate, pal! Still, if you can’t let go of your jones to keep up with the Joneses, these giftable accompaniments will place any board on the far side of boring:
Bees Knees honeys from Bushwick Kitchen ($13.99 each) come in squeezy, cone-capped condiment bottles, which means no gloopy spoons or sticky jars. It also means you can do impressive zig-zaggy sauce painting on your cheese plates and boards. Each of the line’s three flavors is best paired with different cheeses: The briny salted honey works brings a lively pop to fresh mozzarella in a slightly sweet caprese salad; the hard kick of habanero in the spicy honey begs for a creamy blue like Cambozola alongside celery sticks on a “Buffalo Board”; and the Meyer Lemon infused iteration is ideal with goat cheese and green olives.
Enjoy a cheese board jam-boree with the sublime spreads from Oregon’s Three Little Figs ($12.50 each), made with organic ingredients in small, copper pot-simmered batches. The Balsamic Fresh Fig spread adds new depth to a familiar favorite; Tomato Tapas Jam with pimenton and cumin should be manchego’s BFF; and the Puddletown Pub Chutney—made with simmered apples, onions, espresso stout and molasses—takes cheddar up a level.
For something a little different this season, switch up traditional cheeseboard nuts for Vör nut butters (from $4.99), specifically matched to bring out the best in your cheese selections: Slightly tannic walnut butter marries well with tangy barnyard goat cheeses; umami-rich cashew butter makes a fine foil for Comté, Appenzeller and Emmenthal; and a light dab of unsweetened, unsalted peanut butter works wonders with fruit-speckled Wensleydales.
All that said, if you’re still feeling board-insecure—or just pressed for time—turn to Boards & Co. a new online resource from the creators of Curdbox, one of our favorite cheese subscription services (Another great gift idea!): Boards & Co. is a beautifully curated showcase of handcrafted cheese accessories and boards that you can order pre-loaded with goodies or use as the pedestal for your own creations. The website features an array of free video tutorials on how to pair, cut and display cheeses, which adds a whole new educational dimension to any gift selection from the site.
Celebrating Hannukah? Add a Semitic snap to someone’s holiday festivities with cheeky, cheese adjacent gifts from The Matzo Project, a Brooklyn-based bakery that’s taken unleavened bread up a level with innovations like seedy, garlicky bagel-inspired Everything matzo (Just add cream cheese). Our favorite item in their line, the Spicy Harissa Matzo Chips, will have you happily sitting shiva for Doritos: Their peppery heat is distinctly Middle Eastern and your fingers will remain blissfully free of orange faux-fromage residue. Instead, we recommend going for the full multi-cultural megillah and dipping them in homemade queso. Havah Nagilah Navidad!
Outside of Transylvania, you’ll have a hard time getting ahold of branza de burduf, a traditional soft sheep’s milk cheese with an alluringly spicy vegetal flavor that comes from being wrapped and aged in fir bark. In Sardinia, where casu marzu is made, European Union regulations forbid sales of this pecorino variety to which fly larvae are intentionally introduced in order to break down fats, creating a creamy texture and pungent aroma; its bought and sold on the dairy down-low. And in the Polish highlands, fewer than 150 shepherds make the traditional smoky golden-skinned ornamental cheese called oscypek, formed in barrel-shaped molds approximately the size of a mallet head. While we’d love to gift you with a tip on our favorite blackmarket monger, we’ll toe the legal line and point you instead to further info on these and other esoteric cheeses featured among the lively mini-essays on all manner of edible oddities featured in Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide ($40) by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras. A hardbound culinary spinoff of the Atlas Obscura website, this profusely illustrated book is organized by region, so you can scope out peculiar cheeses along any upcoming itineraries.
Another title to consider for a cheese lover’s library is Up to No Gouda ($8.99), the first book in a lighthearted new mystery series set around a Vermont grilled cheese restaurant. Official publication date is mid-January, but you can pre-order from your favorite independent book shop now and guarantee that your recipient is one of the very first readers. Author Linda Reilly—who has previously written a successful series of cat-themed mysteries—chronicles the amateur sleuthing of Carly Hale who grills witnesses as well as she does sandwiches. The series’ second volume, scheduled for later in 2022, is No Parm, No Foul.
There’s always at least one night between Christmas and New Year’s when all you want to do is huddle up by a fire alongside your nearest and dearest, remembering the past year’s touchstone events, anticipating new experiences to come but, most of all, letting time stand still and savoring a quiet, grateful hour or so with your closest companions. This year, you can make that night even more special with a unique pairing from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese and the GlenDronach Distillery. The complex, nutty flavor combination of The GlenDronach Original single malt scotch, aged for 12 years in Spanish sherry casks, with sharp-but-slightly sweet Point Reyes’ White Cheddar slowly blooms on the palate and welcomes the sort of slow contemplative, appreciation that can get lost amidst more hectic holiday activities. Take a deep breath, settle in and share this ideally matched scotch and cheese pairing ($105). Check out some further cheesy/boozy pairing ideas here.
Another seasonal inevitability is finding yourself rushing out to yet another holiday party without a gift handy to give your host. Fortunately, Whole Foods, Kroger and other major supermarkets carry Fromager d’Affinois (from $15/lb.), a sure-to-please cheese that adds a touch of French luxury to any gathering. While it looks like a slightly pudgy brie, it’s significantly creamier and easier to spread. Mild and buttery, Fromager d’Affinois is made with a process called ultrafiltration in which water is removed from the milk and fat is concentrated through the paste. To gild the lily—Hey, its holiday season!—choose the earthy truffle-flecked version and melt slices atop filet mignon.
