Danish Blue $5.99 lb. at Wheatsville, $1.26 for a nice chunk at Wheatsville.  White, a little bit crumbly, but also creamy, dark blue/black mold, well-dispersed, but the curd holes aren’t too big.  It is sharper, a little bit bitter, overall very mild, though.  It has a little bit of a sweet taste.  It is sort of a shallow taste.  My friend Peggy likes it, but doesn’t like the Australian blue.  It is good, and really cheap.  The mold burns a little bit.  Even though this is a good cheese, we ended up not gobbling it away like we did the Australian blue. 

Danish Marquis Triple Crème  Smells like pungent farts and cat spray.  It ekes up into your sinuses.  A strange experience.  Patrick says, “How can they even call this a crème?  It smells like cat piss!”  Flavor is odd, rich, interesting turn.  In spite of the stench , Patrick likes it.  It’s a manly cheese – makes you want to go pee on a bush.

Dansk Blue  $8.99 lb. at Murray's, $2.25 for a nice wedge. This is a cow's milk cheese from Denmark, firm, with moderate blue veining that is dark, and in some places even looks black, grey, or purple. The paste is straw-colored, and the rind is natural, but with some nubby little pressings on the top and a craggy edge that even has some white dust on it. It smells earthy and sweet. There are long lines from the piercings, and you can see the little holes on the top and maybe also the side from where the needles went in. This cheese reminds me of Roaring Forties Blue in that "ice cream" way. It is dense, fatty, full of cream, and parts of it taste sweet. There is a low, savory burn and something that reminds me of caramel or butterscotch. It feels slippery and greasy like buffalo milk does. It's also nutty, and the blue is crunchy, but it is not too strong; it's more earthy and tingly than sharp. It makes a nice contrast for all the butter flavors. The aftertaste is of water and sweet vanilla ice cream. Photo of Dansk Blue

Da Vinci About $10 lb. at Grapevine. This is a Gouda from Uniekaas (I believe) that has olives, herbs, and garlic flecks in it. It makes a great snacking cheese, even though the flavorings distract from the actual cheese a good bit. I especially liked it melted on a sandwich. They also sell it at Central Market. The guy in the check-out line told me that he loved the cheese, but that out of everybody he had talked to, only men had been into it. Not women. Maybe it's the garlic.

Délice de Bourgogne  $11.99 lb. at Central Market.  Cow’s milk from France.  Triple crème brie that is tangy, salty, and complex in flavor.  It is buttery and rich.  This cheese is always a crowd-pleaser!  I like this cheese a lot.  When Central Market demos this cheese, people go crazy over it.  The flavor really grabs you.  Sometimes I wish it were less salty, though.   

Delico Baby Swiss  $5.99 lb. at HEB Far West, $1.14 for a thin slice.  Light colored Swiss, very very mild, pretty hard for how light it is.  Not a very deep flavor, though.  Salty, creamy, good.  It would be ok at a party.  Has a little bit of aftertaste to it, but it is so mild you don’t notice it.  It is tangier than most older, sturdier Swisses.  Not many holes.  In fact, the only holes I could see looked like curd holes.  It doesn’t taste cooked.  It tastes like grocery store, Americanized cheese.  It is ok, though it doesn’t taste Swiss, and doesn’t taste like the other Baby Swiss we got from Wheatsville.

Deep Ellum Blue  $9.99 lb. at Grapevine, $3.40 for a big chunk.  Bitter, white, some blue mold flavor, sharp.  It has a very bitter aftertaste.  It’s supposed to be a mild blue, but in some ways it seems sharper.  I think this cheese was made by the Mozzarella Cheese Company in Dallas.  Somebody told me at Kim’s party that Deep Ellum was a neighborhood in Dallas.

Dolomitenkönig  Swiss-looking (but not tasting) Dolomitenkönig mountain cheese from the Alto Adige. A delicious cheese that looks mild, like it's going to taste like a baby Swiss, but has a much more complex flavor similar to that of a light Gruyère and hints of animal in it. It's a good cheese. There is a fairy tale attached to this cheese of a dwarf king who ruled the Dolomiti mountains in Italy. He fell in love with a princess who didn't love him and in anger, he turned her rose garden into stone--which turned out to be the pink-tinged Dolomiti mountains. 

Don Enrique Romero rosemary coated shepherd’s cheese  $7.99 lb. at Wheatsville, $.96 for a small slice.  Pasteurized manchego sheep’s milk, cave aged from Spain and quite like Manchego.  It does look like an older manchego, pretty flaky, it has a little bit of a moldy, crumbly, rosemary taste, esp. when you get to the outer edges.  I liked it.  It was really interesting, tangy, salty, good goat taste, but I don’t quite see how to eat it at a party. 

Dorothea Potato Chip Cheese See Potato Chip cheese.

Dorothea Marigold Cheese See Marigold cheese.

Double Gloucester, Appleby’s from Neal’s Yard  $12.99 lb. at Central Market, $4.28 for a nice-sized wedge.  It is bright orange with a white/gray cheesecloth rind.  The cheese has a sort of marbled look to the curd, darker orange towards the rind.  Here and there I see some blue veining.  This cheese tastes very fruity, almost like apples.  It has a very light salty cheddar aftertaste to it and a nice fermented finish.  It has a sharper taste to it than the other double Gloucester.  

Double Gloucester $6.99 lb. at Central Market, $2.03 for a slender slab.  It is bright orange and you can see where the curd was all pressed together.  It almost looks marbled in some places.  It is tangy, very very mild cheddar taste, almost like a Colby, with some fruitiness to it.  It kind of tastes like flour.  It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, but has a nice dry texture.  It is a good snacking cheese and would be good with fruit.  It has something in it that makes up for it’s lack of flavor, but we’re not sure what that something is.  It has a good mouth feel, very soothing, milky aftertaste that is not too short-lived.  It is good with the Grenache noir, but not outstanding.  The Grenache noir seems like it could take something sharper.  Still, it doesn’t change the taste of the wine, so that’s good.  It makes the white wine taste like water, so it’s kind of dull with white.   

Doux de Montagne Pressed uncooked cheese from France.  HEB, $9.99 lb., $4.50 for nice big chunk.  This is the infamous “dude…” cheese.  We call it “dude of the mountains,” and sure enough, it has a picture on the label of a strange Harlequin-type of guy up in the mountains juggling.  He is wearing a mask.  I don’t know what mountains he is from.  I am assuming this is a cow cheese.  It tastes salty, but is only 170 mg per oz.  This is a good cheese, it is supple, firm, light yellow, creamy-tasting, with some good sharp-ish aftertaste to it.  It would be a good party cheese.  “I really like that dude of the mountain,” Patrick says.  Delicious, creamy cheddar, salty.  Sometimes it reminds me of munster. 

Dry Jack, Vella Sonoma Dry Jack, Sonoma County, CA.  $12.99 lb., $3.77 for a slender chunk at Grape Vine.  Light yellow, the color of parmesan, but younger.  A little bit bitter, but not really much at all.  It is buttery, edible rind, kind of sharp.  The rind is washed in cocoa, the sign said.  Rind is bitter like the cocoa.  Bear Flag brand.

Dutch Goat cheese from the Phoenicia Bakery, $8.95 lb. And $5.10 for a decent slice.  Very mild, sweet, firm like cheddar, but dryer than cheddar.

Damiette or Dymiati cheese from a city called Dymiat in Northern Egypt. I bought this at the Mashala Market in Austin, Texas. $3.59 for a huge chunk of white cow's milk cheese that looks like Feta. It is made in Norway by a company called Nordex. In the Middle East, it is usually made from goat's milk or sheep's milk, but if they run out of sheep and goat milk, then they use water buffalo milk. This is made from cow's milk, probably because it is from Norway. It is a salty cheese that is supposed to be good with a contrasting sweet flavor. It is eaten for breakfast or dinner since those are the lightest meals in the middle east. It's good with fruits, grapes, figs, olive oil, thyme, and watermelon. For breakfast, it's not uncommon to have this cheese with olives and olive oil. This cheese comes in a plastic coffee-ground shaped little bag. It is red-checkered with dark black Arabic lettering on the front. The nutrition is given in Arabic and in English. It says on the package that it is a Danish Feta cheese, though the guys at the shop, who are from Palestine, say it's not a Feta cheese. This is also imported by Kradjian in Glendale, CA. It is slicker than Feta. The moisture in it makes me think it's more like a cross between Feta and fresh Mozzarella. It is a little sticky on the tongue. Salty, but not like the Akawi cheese. It is like a very high-moisture Feta. It has a very mild, milky flavor and lots of salt. I can see this being a good snacking cheese since the salt is not too overwhelming. I can still taste a nice, thick milk. It tastes full fat.

Dunbarton Blue Free sample at Murray's in NYC. This is like a Cheddar, but with blue! It is very cheddary with lots of caramel and butterscotch flavors. It is a hard cheese, very yellow, and with a natural, rather lumpy rind. I love this. The blue is very faint. There is a decent amount of salt, but it is not overpowering. It is basically just fun to eat. It is just chewy enough, and then every so often, you hit a vein of blue to jab through all the thick buttery cheese flavors. This is made by the Swiss Roelli family in Wisconsin. Photo of Dunbarton Blue