Cheese, New York Times and the Arbitrageur

Dating from his days in Bermuda and working in the US, Adam has enjoyed reading the New York Times. Now he enjoys the New York Times on line, especially as they have put so much content on line.

Thinking he would revisit, although only in print, some old haunts Adam was browsing when he found this Times Topic page on cheese.

Janet Durrans for The New York Times

As one item starts:-

Charles de Gaulle once commented on the impossibility of governing a country that had 246 cheeses. He probably underestimated the number of French cheeses by at least 100.

The world’s cheese inventory keeps growing, as new cheesemakers, especially in the United States (where no goat cheeses were made before 1981 and where now there are more than 200), keep dreaming up new ones.

The basic process is pretty easy. It probably started by accident thousands of years ago, when milk that had spoiled under the right conditions did not taste terrible.

From tiny buttons of goat cheese to massive, 220-pound wheels of Emmenthaler, from delicate fresh ricotta to rugged aged Gouda, cheese is basically a highly concentrated form of milk.

Adam is a cheese lover, so this page was a great find. In addition given the price of cheese right now it is the only way he is going to be able to sample many of these cheeses.

It has articles, links, recipes, etc etc. A great resource to keep dipping into.

That brings Adam to another point, having a drink the other evening at Arbitrageur, in Featherston Street, Wellington, a lovely eating and drinking place by the way, Adam ordered a couple of snacks – one was some ham, the other was cheese. He knows cheese is now quite expensive, but the portion was disproportionately small compared to the ham. The wines though were excellent as was the company.