Castelmagno $31.54 lb. at Artisanal in NYC. $9.45 for a big, crumbly slice. It is a cow's milk blue cheese from Italy described as strong, distinct texture, yeasty aroma. This cheese is so crazy, it didn't even stay in the shape of a slice. It is like a very very dry Parmigiano-Reggiano, darker brown towards the edges and then light cream-colored on the inside. Towards the top (or bottom -- I can't tell) is a streak of blue. It reminds me of a sheep's milk cheese. It also has a mountain quality to it. It is extremely salty and a little nutty. The mold at the top is fairly mild. This cheese has a nice creamy milk flavor. It is such a crumbly, almost hard cheese, but when I eat it, instead of being chewy like a Parmigiano-Reggiano, it is pretty pliable. I have never had a cheese with this texture before. It is a little like if you poured water into some Kraft Parmesan dust and let it dry, but of course it is much better than that. It does crumble into something like grated Parmesan. It also has a little bit of a tangy vinegar flavor to it, which is nice. It is so crumbly, I can just grab a chunk in my hand, squeeze it, and it grates itself. We are going to use it on pasta. From the bacchuscellars.com website:  Referred to as the most important Piedmontese cheese, Castelmagno takes its name from the town of Castelmagno, where it has been produced since ancient times. Castelmagno is made of pasteurized, partially-skimmed cow's milk blended with a small amount of sheep's and goat's milk. It has a peculiar flavor that derives from a particular kind of grass (called "evax") that is native to the pastures of Cuneo, the sole province of its production. Castelmagno has a hard, brown rind cloaking a medium-hard interior of pearly white color. Often times, edible blue-green veins can be found in the cheese, giving those sections a sharper flavor. It is aged for up to 6 months in natural mountain grottos. Overall, its flavor is quite savory with a mouth-watering, gentle saltiness. A rare cheese indeed - only 6,000 wheels are produced each year and perhaps less than 200 of those are exported to the USA. The picture on the website does not have any blue mold in it. 

Chabichou from Poitou, AOC  $5.99 for a little tower at Grapevine.  It is cream-colored, moist, and crinkly on the outside.  It is about 4 inches tall, like a small tower  It's texture and paste are like that of a very young Crottin.  This cheese, however, is a little more moist.  It also has a more pronounced goaty, barnyardy flavor.  I definitely taste a barnyard.  It is good, though.  It is very exciting.  It just melts in your mouth.  Nice acidity.  Maybe less minerally than some goat cheese.

Chabiquet  $8.49 for a 5 oz. little drum. This is from Jacquin. It's made in Berry in the Loire valley in France. Aged for 1 week. It is bright white, fresh, yeasty, moist, crumbly, fluffy, lacy, and luscious. It tastes like lemons, nuts, and pastries (maybe that's the yeast flavor I read about), and has a little tart acidic aftertaste. I don't taste a pronounced goat flavor, but it definitely tastes like a goat cheese. It's good. It reminds me of the ashed Jacquin goat cheeses. In my mouth, it feels crumbly at first, and then just melts into a paste -- may sound gross, but it's good. I love the texture. It is not a big crazy wild goat cheese, but it sure is snackable. My husband thought this tasted like medicine.  

Chambertin See L'Ami du Chambertin

Chaubier  $7.40 lb. at Wheatsville, $1.48 for a slender, decent chunk.  It is half goat, half cow’s milk.  It smells a little like stinky foot.  It is light, semi-hard, and has a washed rind, I’m assuming, that is orange with flecks of white.  The rind is not edible.  Yum!  It is stinky foot, but with goat.  It is creamy, a little salty, but not too much, oilier than a goat cheese would normally be, but it has just enough of the washed rind flavor in it to make it interesting, but not all heavy.  I like this.  I don’t think I’ve had a cheese like this before.  According to http://www.pastaworks.com/htmls/cheeses.html.  I think it tastes sort of washed rind, but I guess it is going to be in the same category as Fontina, which also tastes a little stinky foot, even though it’s not washed rind.  I liked it a lot.  It was interesting, had good goat taste, but not overwhelmingly salty or tangy, but was also creamy.      

Chaudron from France.  $9.99 lb. at Grapevine.  $5.79 for a huge slab.  I bought this cheese because chaudron means caldron in French.  The wheel of it was huge and there was a picture of a man stirring up some curds in a caldron.  It is from the Haut-Jura.  You can tell is definitely a mountain cheese by the way it smells.  It is raw milk and has a cardboard-like brown rind.  The paste is yellowish cream-colored.  This is delicious, soft, creamy, a little tangy, and also a little mushroomy.  It has a great mouthfeel.  At first, it is creamy and lightly fruity, and then spicy in its finish.  It burns my tongue a little.  The first time I tasted it, I sneezed.  I don’t know if it was the cheese or not, but the skin has peeled off the roof of my mouth like a pizza burn.  It is like a strong Swiss, but it burns and makes my ears itch.  It was great with Bordeaux, though.  The Bordeaux took away all of the itching and really brought out the fruit, spice, and woody flavors in the cheese.

Chaumes  $2 for a tiny piece, $10.99 lb. At Central Market.  Washed rind cheese, but mild.  It is low fat!  This is a very palatable washed rind cheese.  It’s light butter colored with an orange rind.  It is a little bit rubbery.  It has a creamy taste to it.  It is good and easy to eat.  Barely a washed rind at all.  It is more like an American munster.  It’s good, but doesn’t have much depth to it. It is very mild compared to the nontraditional Chaumes we tried later.

Chaumes  Le crémier fromage crémeux from St. Antoine-de-Breuilh, Dordogne.  (Orange Marshmallow dessert).  $6.99 for a 300g round at Far West HEB.  Cheese Lady (Christine Bonney) told me that her cheese company had just put in those cheeses at HEB, so they were fresh, this and the Pié d’Angloys.  It says  “à servir dans sa boîte”  “à chambrer une heure avant la dégustation”  “à retirer de sa boîte pour un usage à chaud.”   50% m.g.  It came in a little brie-looking wooden box with the lid on the bottom and plastic over the top.    There is a picture of a guy digging in the fields on the box top.  Inside, the top of the cheese looks nasty.  Patrick thought it looked like an orange-flavored marshmallow dessert.  It is peach, fuzzy, with bits of white mold on it here and there, and it is all wrinkled up like the wrinkles in the bend of a shirt sleeve.  The guy at the counter was like, “What IS this?”  I told him it was cheese.  It is some sort of stinky foot/washed rind.  It has to be eaten in the box because it doesn’t have rind on the side really.  It smells lightly woody, a little stinky.  The interior is creamy and sticky, light cream colored.  It has a rind on the bottom, like they had aged it with a little cheesecake holder around it.  Along the sides, the orange stuff has drizzled down.  It’s bitter, creamy, and woody.  It has a good bit of bitterness in the aftertaste, but it’s good.  I don’t know how to serve it at a party because it is hard to eat inside of this box.  I keep digging out the cardboard and eating that instead.  It said on the box that you can eat it heated.  I heated some up and it is really good, loses some of the bitterness, and is really luscious.  It would be really good like that.

Cheddar, Australia  $15.99 lb. at Grapevine. I don't know much about this cheese yet. It looked like it came in a small drum, like an oversized P'tit Basque. It is yellow, semi-hard, and oily with a white rind. Upon closer inspection, one notices the traditional British bandage wrapping. This cheese is salty, tangy, and nutty with the "aged Gouda" flavored of burnt caramel. It reminded me of Amsterdam Reserve, but a Cheddar. It was good, but maybe a little saltier than I like.

Cheddar Ballycashel, from Ireland.  $6.39 lb. at Freshplus, $3.58 for a big chunk.  It was not too expensive for what I got and was good, but very pre-fab.  The chunks were pre-cut into a brick, wrapped heavily, and slapped with a Green company label.  It is sharp cheddar, but with pasteurized milk.  It is straw-colored.  It basically tastes like a sharp cheddar—tangy, salty, semi-hard, smooth, with a good cheddar aftertaste.  Great snacking cheese and not too expensive for parties. 

Cheddar Cabot reduced fat from Vermont  $7.49 lb. at Far West HEB, $4.87 for a big brick.  I bought this because it was both raw milk and 75% reduced fat.  60 calories per oz., 200 mg of sodium, and 2.5 g of fat.  I liked this cheese a lot for what it was.  It is still rubbery and gritty, but it is one of the better reduced fat cheeses I’ve tried.  It is straw-colored.  It tastes alright.  It is trying to have that cheddar flavor, but has a little bit of weird flavor.  The cheddar tastes dies pretty quickly.  The cheese is not so fun to eat because it isn’t as creamy as the fat ones.  Still, this is a really good alternative to the fat cheeses.  Only a little bit of flavor is lost compared to most grocery store versions.  I have eaten a lot of it because I can! 

Cheddar, Cabot Private Stock Extra Sharp from Vermont $8.99 lb. at Central Market. $4.94 for a big block. I tasted this up against a Grafton. The Grafton had too much of a grassy taste for what I wanted the cheese for. White Cheddar. This is sharp, milky, and long-lasting. It also has a little flavor of grass, but not bad. It is very sharp. It is aged a minimum of 16 months. The finish has a faint taste of tire. 

Cheddar, Cabot, 5 peppercorn  $7.99 lb. at Central Market, $3.48 for a slender square.  This is a medium/sharp white cheddar with all sorts of pepper in it, even some big chunks.  It’s not overwhelming, though.  It has just the right amount of tang and the pepper doesn’t distract from the cheese like some of the garlic and herbs do.  Well-balanced.  This is a great snacking cheese from Vermont.  The only thing about it that I don’t like is that it is ugly.  It just looks like a block of cheese that you would slice up for sandwiches.  It won’t be so pretty on a party tray.  Read more about it at http://www.cabotcheese.com.    

Cheddar, Cabot Extra sharp organic Farm Families of New England, Vermont.  $7.99 lb. at Whole Foods, $3.76 for a decent chunk.  It was on sale for Earth Day.  Aged for 2 yrs.  It is almost a white cheese, very sharp, tangy, creamy.  Kind of sticky.  It sticks to the knife if I cut too thin of a slice.  It has little crystals in it.  It is really good.  It is so sharp that it makes it seem like there is a lot of salt in it, but there isn’t.  This would be a great party cheese, and also good on sandwiches, but why cover up the taste of cheese with meat and bread?  

Cheddar, Texas Jersey  $3.99 for an 8 oz. block at Central Market. This cheese is best known for its jalapeno version, especially the one that comes in the shape of Texas. Orange, basic American-style Cheddar. It's tangy, creamy-tasting, not super sharp. It even has a creamy texture once you start chewing it. This is made by the Texas Jersey Cheese Company in La Grange, Texas. It is made from the milk of only Jersey cows. The star cow is named Belle, and there are pictures of her on the website, http://www.texasjersey.com.

Cheshire, Neal’s Yard Farmhouse  $12.59 lb. at Whole foods.  Tastes mild.  Crumbly, light orange, medium rind that is edible.  This is a great cheese except that it crumbles everywhere.  Tangy.  It is pretty mild for how hard it is.  This is the cheese that they use in the Welsh rabbit/rarebit dish.  It comes from the county of Cheshire.

Cheshire, Neal's Yard Appleby Cheshire  $12.99 lb. at Central Market.  $5.72 for a huge wedge.  Raw milk cheese.  It has a lot of sharpness, but also tastes thin.  It is crumbly and light orange.  It is a light-tasting cheese, but with a lot of acidity. 

Chèvre de Bellay, French Goat Cheese.  $3.29 for 4 oz. little log at Grape Vine, prepackaged.  At least this wasn’t overpriced.  Unripened goat cheese.  It is rolled in ashes.  This is a good chevre.  It doesn’t have much of an aftertaste, though.  I’d say it is a little dull compared to the Caprin Coupe Jacquin that we had the other night.  It’s good, though.  It is very mild.  I made a big mess getting it out of the plastic wrapper, so definitely refrigerate it before taking it out of the plastic.  Then it will be firmer and will pop right out.  It looks kind of frightening, all crumbly and gray, but it is good.

Chèvre in Blue  “It’s mild!  It’s wild!”  it says on the label.  $9.49 lb. at Wheatsville, $1.99 for a nice slice.  It’s white with just a little bit of blue, not too creamy, but not too crumbly.  I had never had a blue goat cheese before.  It is strange because you taste the blue and then the goat aftertaste.  It’s not too crazy of a cheese.  It’s tasty, sharp, and interesting.  It’s got Roquefort penicillin in it.  I think it may be made in Texas.

Chèvre, Couturier French fresh goat cheese.  On sale at Whole Foods, a little log for $2.49.  The label looks kind of silly with French flags and a cartoon goat on the front.  It is a pepper cheese.  I bought it for Dave’s birthday party because he really enjoyed the Lonestar pepper cheese we had over here one time.  But alas, I lost control and ate his cheese.  It’s good, but doesn’t have a lot of depth to it.  It has a little bit of a weird taste because I think some of the peppers are red or green peppers, not just black peppers.  The red peppers make cheese taste weird, in my opinion.  It is very spreadable and creamy.  It’s good and ok for a party, but really more like Montrachet than anything.  It seems like it is manufactured.

Chèvre, Les Roves des Garrigues Goat cheese from France.  $3.99 for a tiny round at Grapevine.  It comes in a tiny cupcake holder and is bright white, fresh, and crumbly.  It is a very young goat cheese, tart, and tangy.  Lemony with a really good goat aftertaste.  It is saltier than the other chevres I usually have.  It is definitely more of a fermier type of cheese than industriel.  The cheese coats your mouth and the flavor lasts a long time.   

Chèvre in oil, Lone Star, Black Peppercorn  $6.99 for a small log at Central Market.  It came in a jar of oil with a bunch of pepper and peppercorns floating in it.  I had never seen it before, so I got it.  It’s really good.  It may be a little mild for my tastes, but that’s ok.  The pepper and oil are yummy.  We put it in the basket thinking it was only $4, but then got up to the counter and it was $7.  I guess it was so expensive because it had all the oil (which we will cook with since we bought it) and the pretty jar.  The cheese is covered in pepper.  I don’t taste the oil too much when I eat the cheese, and I wish I did.  Still, it’s good.  The oil made it creamier and less crumbly, and also a little bit darker colored. 

Chèvre, Laura Chenel This is was good!  It is only $3.39 for 3 oz. at Whole Foods  (which looks more like 5 oz.)  It comes in a big crottin round that, when opened, looks a lot like an old brie.  It has a traditional soft-ripened crust.  The crust is nice and firm, not too thick.  The cheese is goaty, very salty, medium old, light cream/white paste, flaky, but moist.  It is flaky in the middle.  It could be a little creamier, like the young crottin.  It is very musky.  This is a good cheese.  It reminds me a little of the Pico, even though it’s not as strong.  It has a picture of the daintiest goat I’ve ever seen on the label.  It came wrapped in white paper.  This cheese really tastes French.  The milk is pasteurized.  It’s from Sonoma, CA.  The woman who started this company spent time in France on farms to learn how to make this cheese.  I think it’s kind of rare to find this cheese, so I was lucky. 

Chèvre, Pure Luck red pepper  Dripping Springs, TX.  It is a little round in plastic with red pizza peppers sprinkled on the outside.  It is $15.99 lb., $5.28 for a medium round.  This cheese was way way too hot.  It looked so good, but I couldn’t eat it.  I took it to Pam’s BBQ.  I ended up scraping the peppers off of it so people could have some.  Some people didn’t think it was too much, but the problem was that you couldn’t taste the goat cheese at all.  It might as well have been a piece of bread.  And it was expensive for having the goat taste so covered up.  It also tasted too salty and pickled from the peppers.  I love all the other Pure Luck products.  The people that make them have about 80 goats, and usually are milking 40 of them at any given time.  Their stuff is expensive, but it is worth it. 

I tried this again later, and the peppers were mild with not too salt to overpower the cheese. Then I tried it 6 months later and the peppers were on fire. I bring this regularly to parties now and it hasn't seemed too hot at all. 

Chèvre 3 Peppercorn, Redwood Hill Farm $6.49 for a 4 oz. tub, from Sonoma County, CA. I met these people at the Fancy Food Show. Their cheeses were delicious. They gave me a goat cheese baseball cap and a goat calendar. They raise several breeds of goats and enter them in goat shows. Excellent cheese. It is made with three types of peppercorn -- black, green, and pink. It is very creamy and spreadable. Tangy, a little bitter, and very acidic. When at room temperature, the texture is almost frothy. Spicy, but not hot. It has a sharp, slightly bitter flavor.    

Chihuahua  $4.99 lb. At Central Market, $1.50 for a nice big slice. I was fascinated by this cheese because of the price and because in the ingredients it listed Chihuahua. I got all excited thinking I was going to have dog cheese. Then I realized that the price was too low. If somebody had to milk tiny, temperamental dogs to make this cheese, it would cost a fortune. It is yellow, buttery, firm, very salty—maybe even a little too salty. I like the texture a lot because it is so mellow, and the mild cream taste, but the salt…I think it would be better on a sandwich or in a dish.  240 mg of salt, but low fat. I ended up making a black bean and corn quesadilla with this cheese, plus some cilantro and salsa.  It was excellent as a melting cheese and can be used for queso dip.  

Chevrion $2.99 for 5.5 oz. at Whole Foods. Oooey, gooey French goat cheese. It comes in a little butter style dish and it's "à tartiner" (spreadable.) The label shoes a cartoon goat sitting sideways like a wolf howling at the moon. The cheese is bright white, a little runny, not crumbly like some goat cheeses. It has a very mild, sour flavor and looks almost like thick sour cream. It's not the fanciest cheese in the world, but I ate it all in two days. I had already eaten half of it in the truck on the way home.

Bel Chimay, lait cru, Belgium, $11.99 lb., $5.88 for a big chunk at Grape Vine. Light yellow, washed rind, made by trappist monks, supposed to be drunk with the Chimay ale.  Very supple, some curd holes, orange, slightly moldy rind.  This is mild for a washed rind cheese.  Buttery, ever so slightly bitter, tangy, interesting.  Raw milk.  It is sort of like a German butter cheese, but with lots more flavor.  I would definitely buy this for a party.  It is really good, and the chunk I got at Grape Vine was really really fresh.  This cheese is so good.  I bought it again for a party, same price, about 3 months later.  It is so creamy, nutty, a little bit bitter, and has a salty after-taste.  I’m supposed to take this to a BBQ tonight, but I think I may eat the entire thing beforehand.

Chimay beer cheese  $9.99 lb. at Central Market, $4.00 for a medium/small slice.  It looks like the other trappist cheeses with the weird orange rind and semi-soft butter-colored paste.  It has a couple of curd holes.  It smells a little bit stinky and also sort of smoky, though it is not smoked.  It has a picture of Chimay beer on the label.  This is very mild and has almost a smoked flavor.  It is salty tasting, a little bit sharp.  I’m not tasting much stinkiness.  It tastes like eating beef jerky or something.  It is very much a cheese to eat with beer.  It tastes rustic.  I have never tasted anything quite like it.  It would also be good with dark rye bread.

Cibo Smoked Jalapeño Soft Flavored Cheese 7 oz. tub for $4.99 at Grapevine. http://www.cibonaturals.com out of Seattle, WA. This is delicious. I pretend not to like flavored spreads, but this one is really good. All of the samples they had were good, but I loved this smoked one with the peppers. It is the consistency of whipped cream cheese. It is a light pink/orange color with some flecks and chunks of green and red peppers. Cow's milk. Tangy, sweet, milky, with a smoky finish. At the end, I really taste the peppers. This is such a good snacking cheese. It's kind of high fat -- 13g for 130 calories (30g). It has a fun peppery smoky flavor and great texture without being like a processed cheese (though it does have some gums in it). It also has roasted red peppers, green onions, vinegar, garlic, and chipotle chilies. I can't stop eating it. This would be good on a bagel or spread on a sandwich. The label says "Delicious served with warm crusty breads. For quick quesadillas, spread onto soft flour tortillas and cook until lightly browned. Stuff inside poblano chilies and grill or broil until skins are lightly charred." I could just eat spoonfuls of it. It makes me want some beer. 

Clarines  Fromager des Clarines Jean Perrin from Franche-Comté up in the northeast of France.  $9.99 for a box of it at Grapevine.  This comes in a chipwood box and says that you can cook it in the oven and serve it in the box.  The top is beige, furry, and wrinkly.  Inside it is creamy and runny, and kind of stinks.  I bought this again and it was really mild, a little stinky.  It tasted like a triple crème Camembert.  It went well with a Burgundy.

Classic Blue Capri, Westfield Farms Goat's milk cheese from Massachusetts. It was $7 at Artisanal in NYC. This is also sold in Austin, I see, by Capri/Westfield farms. The one I tasted in Austin didn't have a s dark of rind, though. It is a tangy goat log coated in blue mold for presentation. This doesn't look like a blue cheese since there is no blue marbling. It came in a very small log. Oh what a pretty cheese! It is dark, nearly black, and a little wrinkled on the outside. The interior is dark beige towards the rind and then chalky and crumbly inside. This cheese has a definite strong blue and white mold flavor. It is described by Artisanal as silky, tangy, and mild. The goat flavor is outstanding. It is nice and tangy and really coats the tongue, in spite of being so crumbly. It is very mild, but the rind is pretty potent with the rind, which imparts a bitterness and spicy aftertaste. It also tastes a little herby and nutty. Boy is this good. The texture is excellent. It is so light. I think I like this either in very thin slices with the rind, or in bigger chunks, but without the rind. 

Coach Farm Aged Heart Yikes, what a frightful name! $9.99 for an 8 oz. heart at Whole Foods. This cheeses is from New York. It is supposed to be a little like their goat cones, but it feels much softer. This was being promoted for Valentine's. It has a great texture. It is soft and firm to the touch. The heart is perfectly formed with soft white mold on the outside. Around the edges, it is a little brown. Yum! This is delicious! It is also beautiful on the inside. The mold seems thick, but is not overpowering. When I bite into it, the mold just sits firmly under my teeth and then gives way, almost like a soft rubber. It is a nice, slightly chewy, squeaky mold. The inside of the cheese is beautiful. It is slightly darker and runny towards the edges, but the core is light, fluffy, and flaky. The flavor is also good, though I might like less salt. I lose some of the edgy goat aftertaste in this cheese. Still, this is a nice little cheese.

Coach Farm Natural Goat’s Milk Cheese No Rennet. Pepper.  “A soft-ripened farmstead cheese made from cultured pasteurized goat’s millk.”  Pine Plains, New York.  $3.04 at Central Market for a button that maybe weighed 4 oz.  We got the pepper variety.  It was good, but the cheese was actually pretty bland.  It would still be good at a party and wasn’t too expensive.  It was lightly tangy, not citrusy at all.  I liked it ok, but I wanted a little bit more flavor.  Had it not had pepper in it, it would have been about as strong as cream cheese.  I think people would like it, though.  The people at Central Market said they liked to marinate it in oils and spices and serve it that way.

Le Coeur d'Alvignac Hand made goat's cheese in the shape of a heart. $5.99 for 2 ounces at Whole Foods (but it looks more like 3-4 oz.) This is from the Les Gariottes company in Alvignac, France. It is the same cheese that has a little picture of a hutch with goats around it on the label. I think it is similar to Le Lingo du Quercy. Where the label was, the cheeses has a little too much blue mold for its type, in my opinion. It is a soft-ripened type of cheese. The rind is not downy white, but rather a more rustic cream color with some white mottling here and there. To the touch, it is a little sticky on the rind. The inside is dark cream colored near the edge and then lighter and flakier in the middle. However, it is not flaky. The entire cheese is a little sticky. It is good, though, and I like the way it coats all the tastebuds. It is nice and salty, super tangy, nutty, and very goaty with a burning, earthy finish. It tastes very French. 

Comté Gruyère style cheese from the Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. $10.99 lb. at Grapevine. Raw milk! It is a light beige, almost greenish-yellowish color with a bark-like rind. It smells mild. At room temperature, the flavor really comes out. It is mild, yet has a distinct nutty, lightly fruity flavor. The finish is long and reminiscent of heavy cream. This cheese is delicious. I usually don't like cheese with crackers, but I ate this with some pumpkin seed crackers and it was excellent. It is a perfect cheese. It is smoother and more flavorful than the Swiss Antique Gruyère. Even though it is mild, it is still very interesting. I need to bring this more often to parties. It seems like it would do well with wines in general where Gruyères have some trouble. This was great with Pinot Noir.

Corsu Vecchiu  $13.99 lb. at Central Market.  $3.92 for a pretty small chunk.  Sheep’s milk cheese from Corsica.  Patrick likes it a lot.  Buttery, creamy.  I can actually taste butter in it, but it is not overpowering like mascarpone.  Salty.  It’s good.  Not such a hard sheep cheese like some of the stuff at Phoenicia Bakery.  It’s pretty soft – semi-soft.  It is cream-colored with a bark-looking rind on it.  The rind looks inedible.  I ate a little bit and it seemed too thick.  The rind is really brown/gray, wrinkled, and with powdery white mold.  It looks like it comes in small rounds.  It is not listed in the cheese book, though I found some cheese called Corsica that looks similar, but with red mold.  

Crater Lakes (see Rogue Anniversary Blue)

Cravanzina by Alta Langa.  $16.99 lb., $7.82 for a round.  This cheese's label has an adorable picture of cows and goats grazing.  It comes in a flat round.  It is from Piedmont and is made form both cow and goat milk.  The rind is very thin compared to a Brie rind, but it looks like a little, misshapen Brie type.  The interior is very white and creamy.  It smells like mushrooms and sour milk.  It is delicious!  Salty, tangy, milky, and mild, but with a slightly bitter aftertaste.  A nice alternative to Brie.  The taste is much milder than the smell.  It is aged for 15 days before selling.  I read the website and I didn't see anything about it being soft-ripened, so I am assuming the mold on its rind is ambient. 

Cream Cheese, Smithfield Amish  $3.99 lb. at Grapevine, $1.36 for a big chunk.  Looks like cream cheese.   It has guar gum and such in it, so it may not be that out of the ordinary.  It has a little bit of a minty, herby taste to it, and it doesn’t seem so salty and sticky as grocery store cream cheese.  Otherwise, I don’t know that I’d know the difference.  It came in a big long brick like we used to get when I worked at the bakery.

Cream Cheese, Triple Creme Cheese from the Dallas Mozzarella Company $10.99 lb. at Grapevine. $6.04 for a tub. This cheese has been cultured, but not aged. It comes in a little tub. It looks just like cream cheese, but fluffier and smoother. It doesn't need to come to room temperature to spread. It is much more sour. It almost reminds me of cream cheese with yogurt. It has a great milky flavor, nice mouthfeel (not gummy and sticky like other cream cheeses), and nice acidity on the tongue. 

Cream Cheese, Grapevine Market Homemade Triple Cream Cheese  $10.99 lb. at Grapevine. $6.59 for a tub. Mary at Grapevine Market makes this cheese. She takes heavy cream and heats it up. Then, when it cools down to about 90 degrees, she adds the culture. The cheese sits for about 45 minutes and then the animal rennet goes in. The recipe calls for vegetable rennet, but she felt the animal rennet gave the cheese more complexity. The cheese then sits for 24 to 28 hours. Once it has firmed up, she puts it in a cheese cloth and lets it drain in the cooler for another 18 to 24 hours. The final step of the process is the addition of salt. The cheese has a texture and flavor in between regular cream cheese and butter. It is extremely rich, fluffy, and white.

Crema de Cabra  See Little Friar

Crescenza, Buona di Latte by Defendi $3.49 at Grapevine Market, special order. I was lucky enough to happen upon the cheese counter the day that this cheese came through the store. It is a Lombardian (Italian) fresh, factory (not artisanal), cow's milk cheese. I have never seen Crescenza in these parts, and actually never outside of Italy. This cheese came in a little 1/2 lb. brick in a plastic casket. It was wrapped in more plastic with explanations in Italian of how proud the company is of this cheese. It is, in fact, a very simple, unassuming cheese. It doesn't look exactly like the picture of Crescenza in my Italian cheese book; their Crescenza is more in a pavé shape. The cheese takes its name from the Latin word carsenza, which meant "flat bread." If this cheese is kept in a warm place, it will ferment and swell up just like bread. This cheese belongs to the Stracchino family. Stracchino cheeses were typically made in the autumn from cows who were tired ("stracca") from their long journey back down from the mountains to the pastures. This cheese is mild, sticky, white, creamy, and gooey, all at once. It is a fresh cheese, so I expected it to be more curdy, but instead, it is sticky. When I put it between my fingers, it stretches like Silly Putty. The texture reminds me most of the inside of a really ripe Brie, or even Cravanzina or Robiola. It has a beautiful white ivory color and tastes very milky and bitter, like hazelnuts. It is low calorie (70 g an ounce) and low fat (6 g), but still satisfies that desire for creamy cheese without being boring or too fatty. This cheese brags that it has no heavy cream added. This cheese would be great for snacking or breakfast with some fruit and tea.

Crotonese, Fresh $9.99 lb. at Central Market. Sheep's milk cheese from Lazio, the region where Rome is located in Italy. This cheese is a basket-style cheese, meaning the curds have been drained in a basket. It is a bone white color with a greens tint. It is semi-hard. I hear that it can be used for grating, but this is better as a snacking cheese. It needs to be aged longer to be used as a grating cheese, but as a table cheese, it has more flavor than other fresh Pecorinos. It has a very fresh, tangy flavor, but with an animal aftertaste. It is made between January and June when sheep's milk cheese is the best and most abundant. 

le Crottin Champignou, Berry, Jacquin, La Vernelle.  45% m.g.  $3.39 for 60g at Whole Foods.  It is like the Crottin de Chavignol.  I guess this is the Crottin de Chavignol knock-off that I read about, but that is supposed to be good.  It came in a little plastic container.  It is also creamy and has a good, real goat taste to it.  It is a delicate little goat.  I don’t know if it is as good as the Crottin de Chavignol.  It probably is.  When I tried the AOC version, I had not had it in so long that I was overwhelmed.  This tastes really similar and looks similar.  I tore into it with my fingernails in the parking lot of Whole Foods after my hair appointment.  I could eat this entire thing in one sitting.

Crottin de Chavignol Jacquin  $3.99 for a button at Whole Foods.  The piece I got was .16 lbs.  I tore into it with my fingernails on the way home from Whole Foods and nearly had a wreck in the truck.  This is one of my favorite cheese of all time, and also one of the first goats I’ve ever tasted.  I don’t even know what to say about it, it is so good.  I wish they made chewing gum that tasted like this so that I could experience it non-stop.  This batch is pretty young, crumbly, white with a little bit of cream color on the edge.  It is just perfect.  It makes all the other stupid Montrachet type of goats taste like processed cheese.  It is creamy for a goat cheese, fresh and clean tasting.  It comes in a tiny round.  It would be difficult to have at a party because it is just a little nugget of cheese.  It is so good, I don’t want to wash away the taste with any drink at all.  I have had older crottins.  I have also seen it served toasted on a tiny piece of bread and a leaf of fancy European lettuce, maybe with a tad of olive oil and spices on it.  This cheese was so good, I even licked the wrapper that it came in.  It was not wrapped up in plastic when I bought it.  It was sitting in a wooden box with a bunch of other goat cheese, and the box was covered in plastic, so it was extra fresh.   The bit I got was raw milk, so it was aged a bit.  It is authentic.  It is made by Selection Jacquin, and then Fleuriet, Santranges-sur-Chere.  It is an AOC cheese.  It was 60 g, so I guess about 2 ½ oz.

Crottin de Chavignol Denizot  $27.92 lb.  $3.49 for a little piece (60 g) at Central Market.  Affiné par denizot-cher.  AOC cheese.  It came with a little green label, and then wrapped up in a Martha Stewart style plastic cheese wrap with holes, a little straw bow tied around the top.  Harder, darker rind goat cheese with some blue mold on it.  This is excellent, though a little salty since it is aged.  Once again, my fingers are sticking to the keyboard here due to all this cheese tasting.  Can’t keep my hands off it.  This is a great cheese.  I’d love to have it toasted with salad.  It is what I remember best from France.

Crottin de Chèvre, Capriati $3.99 at Grapevine for a small cylinder that looks like a "Tomme" style. It comes in clear cellophane and has a darling outline of a prancing goat on the front. Right out of the fridge, it is very hard, but after 30 min. or so on my desk, it becomes much more pliable and crumbly. It is bright white and smells kind of like sour milk and rotten flowers. The smell reminds me of Italian fresh goat cheeses. This is from the Fromagerie Tournevent in Chesterville, Quebec, in Canada. It definitely has a fresh, sour, lemony taste. It is crumbly, but melts in your mouth and gets a little pasty and sticks to the roof of your mouth. Very citrusy with a thick milk flavor. It tastes a lot like drinking fresh goat's milk -- very goaty. It doesn't really taste like French Crottins, but it's good in its own way. It is aged for 3 months and has an unripened, natural rind. It comes in plain or marinated in oil. It won 2nd place at the American Cheese Society in 2001. It is good, but I don't know how to eat it. It is hard to put on bread, given its texture. I am eating it with my fingers. It might be good melted or on a salad. 
 

Crottin Frais $2.99 for a big cylinder at Central Market. Creamy, like a Chèvre, goaty, and earthy-tasting. It definitely tastes like you are on a farm. Not very refined. Great mouthfeel and more interesting than fresh Chèvre.

Crowley's Full Cream Colby $10.99 at Whole Foods, $4.29 for a chunky cube. Hard, raw cow's milk with low acidity. White cheese. This is the oldest cheesery in the western hemisphere, from Vermont. This cheese was in a demo at Whole Foods. It is buttery, nutty, rich, full, moist, milky, tangy, and very snackable. I can't stop eating it. It is technically a Colby, but was made decades before Colby was created. http://www.crowleycheese-vermont.com I don't see much about this cheese in particular. Colby cheese originated in Colby, Wisconsin. It has a mild flavor and small holes. This is not a Colby, but apparently tastes like one. It is delicious and very mild. It would be great with pears and apples on a cheese board.  

Cuajada Fresca “con el sabor de El Salvador”  $4.79 for a tray of 10 egg-shaped little fresh cheeses.  It’s by “La Vaquita,” Castro Cheese Co. in Houston.  It’s supposed to be in the “rancho” style.  I bought this because it looked like elongated eggs.  Patrick was scared of it.  The eggs were salty and slightly spongy, but firmer than fresh mozzarella.  It tasted a lot like all the other fresh Mexican cheeses.  They molded a little too quickly.  We cooked a little with them, but mostly just snacked on them.

Cypress Grove Purple Haze Chèvre  $4.99 for 5 oz. at Grapevine.  This cheese is very soft and also low fat – 6 g per serving and only 70 calories.  I bought it because it has lavender and Fennel pollen in it.  9 mg of sodium.  The goat cheese is really good, but I’m not wild about the fennel taste in it.  It tastes too much like liquorice.  It’s a very flower, herby tasting cheese.  I like it better on the bread, but it still has a strong aftertaste of fennel.   

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