Raschera Cow’s milk from Italy.  $9.99 lb. at Central Market.  $2.70 for a big square.  It is semi-soft with holes, yellowish, and has a thick taleggio-looking rind.  Yuck!  This cheese is awful!  Initially, it tastes like rotten biscuit dough.  The aftertaste is like burnt garbage.  It makes my entire face pucker up.  I bought it because it is supposed to be a rare cheese in Italy.  It is from the area around Cuneo in northwestern Italy.  Supposedly, there are different versions of it depending on the time of year.  No wonder it’s rare in Italy.  It is really bad!  I can’t get the taste out of my mouth.  I’m gave this cheese to the cat.  He seemed to like it and even sniffed the carpet for more. I got this another time at Central Market and it was much better. It had a great creamy, lush flavor and was very pleasant and mild.

Reblochon  $12.99 lb. at Central Market.  Edible rind.  This cheese is really good, mild.  Washed rind, I think, but it is not strong at all.  It has a yellow cream colored paste, and the

Red Dragon  See Welsh Red Dragon

Red Hawk  $5 for a tiny wedge at Parallel Market. Organic cow's milk cheese. Pasteurized triple crème washed rind cheese. Made by the Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes, CA. It has won prizes. It comes in a small round and has a pungent, gritty, slightly orange rind with some powdered white mold on it. I can see marks from where this cheese has been on a rack. The paste is buttery and yellow. I can smell this cheese all the way across my desk. It sure is stinky for a little soft-ripened delicate thing. "Cowgirl Creamery captures the essence of West Marin with its Red Hawk, a triple-cream, washed-rind, fully-flavored cheese made from organic cow's milk from the Straus Family Dairy. Aged six weeks and washed with a brine solution that tints the rind a sunset red-orange, Red Hawk won Best-In-Show at the American Cheese Society's Annual Conference in 2003." Very nutty and woody. I am not wild about the rind. It is too rustic tasting. The taste is excellent -- creamy, tangy, earthy, but not boring or overly funky. This was good with a lightly oaked, rich California Chardonnay.
 

Red Square Tasmanian  $18.99 lb., 3.42 for a triangle at Whole Foods. This is obviously a washed rind cow's milk cheese. The paste is creamy and yellow, and the rind is indented with etchings of a mat, which gives it alternating orange and white stripes on the outside. The imprint almost looks like fossils of some sort of underwater plant stem. The cheese looks like it was cut from a big flat slab. It reminds me of a washed rind Robiola. At the store, it stunk all the way through the wrapper, so I had to buy it. It also had a very delicate feel and the rind wasn't too tough. The flavor is very mild, even though I'm tasting the rind along with it. It is wonderful -- creamy and luscious, and then bitter and spicy on the finish. It is well-rounded and doesn't jump up and assault your mouth at any point. Surprisingly smooth, especially after taking a whiff. From the website: "Red Square, a creamy washed rind cheese from Tasmanian Heritage, has been consistently named “Best Australian Washed Rind Cheese” in Australian cheese competitions. The cheese, which is washed in Australian red wine, has an earthy golden rind and a rich dense interior with a full aroma and distinctive flavor. “Red Square is a perfect example of what we’re finding with the cheeses from Australia,” notes Lieberman. “It’s got tremendous flavor and that characteristic rich creaminess.”

Reggianito, Argentine Parmesan  $18.99 lb. at Pomegranate, $5.89 for a thin wedge. This Parmesan most likely comes from the Magnasco firm of Argentina, a cheese company founded by Italian immigrants. Reggianito is a Spanish-ized hybrid name based on Reggiano, meaning "little Reggiano." It started out as a sort of imitation of the Italian Parmigiano Reggiano, but is now a cheese type in and of itself. The two cheese differ immensely, but appeal to the same cravings for hard grating cow's milk cheeses that have an intense nuttiness and bitey finish. The Italian Parmesan comes in 85 lb. wheels, whereas Reggianito weighs only 15 lbs. It is equally at home on the table with olives or fruit as it is grated fresh over pasta or pizza. It must be ripened for a minimum of six months. It has a granular texture, but not as crumbly as that of Parmigiano Reggiano, so it can slice or be cut into sticks French frie-style. It shreds and can melt, but it firms up as it cools off, so it is best as a condiment and not a melting cheese per se. I write this because so many customers ask me if it will melt. Yes, but no. So the answer is no. Kehilla Kashrus kosher, cholov yisroel at Pomegranate. OU, cholov yisroel when it comes in its Magnasco package. A lot of companies have put their private labels on this same cheese, so it's not uncommon to find an Argentine Parmesan that is kosher, sold in wedges, shreds, or grated. It is all the same cheese. I like to buy it from Pomegranate because it is cut fresh off the wheel there versus being prepackaged. Photo of Reggianito

Reybier from France  Central Market $11.99 lb.  Again, expensive, but I was able to buy a nice wedge for only $2.28.  It is a soft, yellow-colored cheese, smoked, with a brown crust with indentions that made it look like it had been sitting on a grill.  The smoky flavor (and salt) is not overwhelming like that of a smoked gouda.  A very good party cheese and definitely a bargain for the flavor per oz.  Buy ¼ lb.for a party.  

Ribatria  From Portugal.   $7.99 at Central Market for a round the size of my palm covered in tons of black pepper.   I had to scrape off a lot of the pepper to eat it.  Goat’s milk, sweet, medium-aged, fruity, creamy taste.  It is cream-colored, dense, mildly crumbly, and tan towards the edges from the dense pepper coating.  Tangy, light goat flavor and very slightly olive-flavored.  It almost had a cheddar taste at times.  It would be great at a party if you cut it in half, scraped pepper off half of it for the faint of heart.  

Ribeaupierre  $10.99 at Whole Foods, $3.52 for a nice slab.  Stinky stinky stinky washed rind!  Firm paste, light colored, cow's milk monastery style from France.  It is semi-soft, light cream-colored, and encased in wax.  It looks a little like a squishy Gouda.  It is fruity, a little spicy, and has good mouthfeel.  It really coats the tongue.  This is a really nice little cheese.  It reminds me of Wynendale from Belgium that Whole Foods has not been carrying lately.  It melts in my hand.  Later, Candy and Darren brought this cheese to a party and it was not so mild. It was really super stinky and very spicy, but still good.  It wasn't such a nice little cheese anymore;  it had grown up!

Ricotta, Whole Milk with Jalapenos  Wateroak farms “A Dairy Goat Haven.”  $11.99 lb. at Grapevine,  $6.47 for a big round. This cheese comes from Bryan, Texas.  8187 Water Oaks Ln., Bryan, Texas 77808.  White with flecks of peppers in it.  The texture of this cheese is moist and crumbly, like a drained and pressed ricotta, but not as firm as the roasted ricotta.  It is a little salty, but has a really good sweet whole milk whey aftertaste.  The taste is rich without being heavy.  Ike at Grapevine said that they taste each goat’s milk before they make it into cheese to make sure that it is perfect.  It is very good.  I’d like to taste it without the peppers because they are distracting me.  I also tried this with herbs, but I liked the peppers better.  The students thought both were too mild.

Ricotta, fresh Ricotta from the Mozzarella Company in Dallas  $4.99 lb. at Central Market.  $3.84 for a big tub.  Cow's milk.  It is very dense and not gritty like a lot of the American Ricottas.  It is bright white.  Creamy, moist, light, sweet, and milky.  I love this.  It has a very subtle flavor, but it is hard to quit eating.  It is very high moisture.  Low sodium.  It clumps together.  It has a basket mark on the top from the mold.  This cheese doesn't come in its own tub, but rather gets scooped into a plastic container when it comes into the store.  Heated up, this is great.  It turns almost foamy, it is so soft and fluffy.  It gets a little stringy in places like Mozzarella.  It would need some salt added to it.

Ricotta, Organic Goat, Amaltheia Dairy in Montana  Super smooth, milky, lightly tangy, but not as tangy as the regular chèvre. When it comes to room temperature, it gets super fluffy and stays in place, all bouncy, like a cow ricotta. It doesn't have such large clumps, though. It is a little grainy, but it feels smoother and dryer--as in wine acidity dry--than the regular Almaltheia chèvre. I really love this, but you can only order six 4-oz. tubs on the internet for $34.99, and you need to get six of them. This is everything I imagined it would be--light, super delicate, fresh, bright. I love it. Life Thyme in NYC simply MUST start carrying this. I would buy at least one of these a week. The only thing that is odd that is if people really want to use this for a lasagna as someone mentioned on the website, then they would have to buy several tubs. It seems sort of a pain to do. As it is packaged, it seems more like it's meant to be eaten as a spread instead of for cooking. Photo of Amaltheia Goat Ricotta 

Ricotta, Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in New York  Fresh Ricotta.  It is made with fresh sheep and cow's milk . $9.99 for a 16 oz. green tub at Central Market.  This is supposed to be made from an old world recipe.  Fresh whey.  Light with a fresh sweet flavor.  Much lower moisture.  No preservatives or stabilizers.  It is supposed to be good with fresh fruit and honey or in recipes.  This looks like mashed down cottage cheese.  The curds are large and rubbery.  It is packed in the container so that it is almost like it is getting to be a Ricotta Salata.  It is saltier than some Ricottas.  It definitely has a different flavor.  I suppose that is the sheep.  It tastes a little more animal-y and gamey than cow Ricottas and it has a little bit of a metallic aftertaste, and then sheep.  It reminds me of shrimp, the aftertaste  It is very interesting with the sheep flavor and the strange texture.  It looks like it would be hard to spread out in a lasagna dish since it is so clumped up.  This is a great snacking cheese, except that it has 110 calories for  1/4 cup.  770 calories for 16 oz and 7 g of fat per serving, but it also has 7 g of protein.  Wow.  This cheese is really really good heated up, though it is a little rubbery.  It would definitely not need any salt added for cooking.  I bought this Ricotta looking for something Sicilian-styled -- request from cheese fan.  Here is a Sicilian Ricotta site I found:  http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/jet/travel/ricotta.html

Ricotta, Sorrento Fresh Ricotta from California.  Precious, whole cow's milk, from the Sorrento company affiliated with Lactalis in France.  If you search Sorrento, they have a website in Fr/Eng.  They make a low-fat ricotta, but this high fat ricotta is really yummy.  It is way lower sodium than the American-style – 50 mg of sodium compared to about 180 mg.  I like it, though I don’t like it enough to buy it for a dish because I don’t think it would matter all that much in a big dish.  I would buy it for snacking, but I would get the low-fat.  It is more of an industrial cheese. 

Ricotta, Miceli’s Traditional Ricotta About $3.00+ for 15 oz. tub at Central Market (?)  25 mg of sodium, lower sodium.  Cow's milk.  This tasted kind of like flour to me.  The curds were really a lot smaller and less gritty than others.  It has some vinegar in it.  Miceli Dairy Products, Cleveland, Ohio.  It was good, very sweet since it didn’t have much salt in it.  It seemed kind of runny, like it would be good to eat with bread, but might be too soft and soupy to cook with.  I liked it, though.   

Ricotta Salata  From Italy  Central Market $6.99 lb.  Inexpensive, and I can usually get a good hunk for around $2-3.  It is similar to a feta, though less salty.  It is a white, semi-crumbly (well, not really crumbly, but dry-ish) cheese, 7 grams of fat per oz, salty.  No strong aftertaste, except for that of musky cheese.  Similar to a goat cheese in some ways.  Always a favorite of mine as far as cheap cheese go.  Good with red wine, though the combination is probably unconventional.

Ricotta Salata from Italy  $5.99 lb.  This is a soft sheep’s milk cheese.  It looks like a piece of bread.  I got a big slice for $3.  It is one of my favorites.  In fact, I like it so much, I opened it up and ate half of it already!  (before a party)  It is white on the inside with a lightly toasted-looking exterior.  It is not too salty.  Crumbly, but still spongy and moist, and a bit lower in fat than the others.

Roaring Forties Blue  $15.99 at Grape Vine, $3.84 for a small/medium slice.  This cheese is absolutely wonderful.  The etiquette said that it was sweet, and yes it was.  It is like eating ice cream.  Very luscious.  It is cream-colored, creamy, not too crumbly.  I’m assuming it was cow’s milk.  It comes encased in navy blue wax.  The blue mold is not too heavy, not really marbled all that much, but where it is, it is strong, though not too piccante.  The mold is crumbly, kind of crunchy, all different shades of blue, gray, green, and brown.  Nutty.  It is really really good.  I was very impressed with this cheese.  I guess, overall, it looks like a gorgonzola, but is milder, though not the type of mild that would bore someone.  It has a very deep taste, many layers.
We bought this again 3 months later for a BBQ at Grapevine.  Same price.  It is absolutely delicious.  There was one curd hole encrusted with grey crunchy mold that was about the size of a pea.  It was crazy.  It has so many layers of flavors – sweet, salty, moldy, creamy, tangy.  I almost don’t want to take this to the party because it may not be appreciated.

Robiola la Rossa AKA "the cheese that made me cry." A little cow's milk cheese soaked in macerated cherry leaves. It was February 2003. I kept the cheese chilled in the New Yorker hotel by leaning it next to the window. I remember sitting there in the window watching the snow, looking at the big buildings, and eating this beautiful cheese, and I shed a tear or two! I am pretty sure I bought this at Artisanal Fromagerie, though it is no longer available in the U.S. that I can find. It is made by Cora, I believe possibly only with raw milk. Photo of Robiola la Rossa

Robiola di Capra in foglia di castagno by La Casera $19.99 lb. at Murray's in NYC. It is only sold in whole pieces, each weighing between .3 and .4 kg, so around 10 to 12 ounces. My piece weighed around 12. I had seen this in the shop a week or so before and they told me it was at a perfect age. I didn't buy it, but thought about it daily. Finally, I went back to get it and it was gone! Luckily, they had one in the cave. It is wrapped in a couple of layers of chestnut leaves and then tied with raffia. There is a little tag hanging from the raffia that says La Casera and formaggidieros.it plus symbols of a cow, sheep, and goat. The back lists the ingredients (in Italian) as goat's milk, salt, and rennet. It is made and aged by  La Casera di Eros Buratti, Via Baiettini, 18 - 28921 Verbania-Intra (VB) Italia. This cheese is from Piedmont up in northwestern Italy near Lago Maggiore. It was very exciting cutting the raffia and then unwrapping the layers of leaves to discover what was inside--a wrinkly, aromatic (also stinky) Camembert-shaped cheese. I had had it out of the fridge for about 30 minutes. It had come to a very good temperature. The inside is white and a little chalky, but very spreadable. Towards the rind, it is extremely runny and gooey, so that the rind even separates some from the cheese in places. The rind itself is wrinkly with big, thick, soft wrinkles, like a big puffy comforter on an unmade bed. The valleys of the wrinkles are filled sometimes with with light brown and tan colorings from the leaves where the leaves have tinged them, and sometimes with tufts of white mold. The runny part towards the rind really has the flavor of the leaves in it, which is a little spicy and nutty. The producers say that it tastes like moss near the rind. Spicy and tingly on the finish. This cheese is an excellent party cheese. It spreads so well and it makes such a dramatic presentation with the raffia and layers of leaves unfolding. It is aged about 20 days and is made year round. Photo of Robiola di Capra  

Roc of Goat (Dolmen)  $14.99 lb. at Central Market, $6.10 for a big wedge.  It looks like a big runny, aged Bucheron.  It seems to have come in a log form.  It is wrinkly, white, and brown on the edges because it is aged, and on the inside the center looks white and crumbly like a fresh goat cheese, and towards the edges, it is straw-colored and runny.  This cheese is excellent!  It is salty, goaty, musty, and much fuller-flavored than bucheron.  It reminds me a lot of Humboldt Fog, but more robust.  

Rocamadour Fermier AOC goat cheese from France.  $4.99 for two tiny little medallions that come in a chipwood carriage at Whole Foods.  Vince told me this was a little bit bitter, and that it’s eaten usually even more aged and dried up.  It looks totally foul.  It is caramel-colored on the outside, flat, and all dried up with a little bit of blue mold on it.  On the inside, it’s squishy like Brie and deep straw-colored.  The outside is chewy.  This cheese is weird.  It does taste a little bitter and sharp in a weird goat cheese way.  It definitely needs some bread with it.  It tastes a little bit like a tire.  It’s also barnyardy, and has a bitter biting sting to it.  I gave some to my cat (who eats everything) and he spit it out on the floor.  That’s not a good sign.  http://www.artofcheese.com/chdes/roca.htm  Rocamadour quotes – Dorie:  “It looks like a bugger.”  Dave:  It smells like cheese, but it’s leaking out of the middle.”

Rocchetta  From Alta Langa in Piedmont, Italy  $16.99 lb. at Central Market. $5.44 for a half a round. It looks a little like a Brie. It is a very fresh, minimally aged cheese -- the curd is only ripened for 8-10 days. It is a mixture of sheep, goat, and cow's milk. Supposedly, Italians invented these fresh cheeses before the French and the French soldiers introduced the style to France. The milk is pasteurized, but at very low temperatures to keep the flavor from the bacterial flora. It is delicate and creamy with a rippled surface. It's flavor is very mild and lightly tangy. The one I had had a barnyardy aftertaste, possibly because it had aged longer coming to the States. It definitely has an animal aftertaste. The skin is beige and almost pink in places. It is wrinkled up and looks like toadskin. It seems to be soft-ripened, or at least has soft white mold on the outside like a Brie. It is delicious. The paste is firm, yet soft. It can also be a little crumbly. At first, I taste thick cream and salt, but when I breathe out, there is a very fresh goaty flavor. The people at the party loved this cheese.

Roche Baron Bleu Cow’s milk cheese from France It is $13.99 lb. at Grapevine, $1.96 for a small slice.  It was cheap enough that I could buy a bottle of Cotes du Rhone to go with it.  It kind of reminded me of the Cambozola, but stronger.  It is creamy inside with just a little bit of blue, so it has a paste kind of like a brie, but with bigger chunks like  blue cheese would have.  The rind is really hard and kind of thick for a soft cheese.  It is grey, blue, and greenish.  It tastes really strong.  I don’t know if I’m supposed to be eating it or not.  I don’t really like the rind.      

Rocinate Cabra $8.99 lb., $3.33 for a nice chunk at Central Market.  Like a ricotta salata, goat cheese, salty, medium hard, tangy, white.  Very good – would go along way at a party for only $3.33.  Aged 6 months, but tastes like it was aged a little longer.  

Rocinante Cabra  From Spain  $8.99 lb. at Central Market, $2.97 for a good slice.  Creamy, salty, herby, and tangy goat cheese with a lingering light goat aftertaste.  A little bitterness.  It really coats the tongue well.  I like it, but it tastes a little vomity at times, so I’d probably not crave it.  It’s still good.  It is very mild.  It’s semi-soft with curd holes, white, and rindless.  It is supposed to be from La Mancha.  http://www.igourmet.com/newsletter/sep98.asp.  This cheese is also the same thing as Queso al Pimenton, but without the paprika.  

Rogue Anniversary Blue, Crater Lake $15.49 at Whole Foods, $2.01 for a tiny slice. I can't remember what the story is on this, but it is the 25th anniversary cheese from Rogue Creamery in Oregon. Raw (and sustainable) whole milk with penicillium roqueforti. This cheese is super creamy, tart, tangy, grassy, nutty, and green tasting, but then with a cheddary sharpness on the finish, and some metallic flavors. It reminds me of Great Hills in some ways, but creamier. There is not a lot of blue, but you can taste it. The blue/green veins are supposed to be named for a river in Oregon. According to the Whole Foods website, it is "a robust flavored, contemporary and complex blend of Danish and Rogue Creamery molds. The vibrant blue-green color of Crater Lake is mirrored in the veins of this bold blue. Excellent on a cheese platter married with Claret or Syrah and pairs with both ruby and tawny ports."

Rogue River Blue, Raw Milk $38.99 lb. at Whole Foods in NYC, $10.53 for a smallish slice. This is one of the best blues I have ever had, and darn it, it's not only expensive; it's also hard to come by. It is made of raw cow's milk by Rogue Creamery in Oregon and penicillium roqueforti blue. The leaves that cover and moisturize it on the outside are macerated grape leaves. Right at the edge, in the center of the cheese, it's all crumbly with larger holes of blue and grey, but then towards the rind, there are stripes of a kind of yellow/green interspersed with some crunchy crystallized amino acids. As if that weren't enough texture and flavor contrast, the cheese tapers off into a very "cheesy" chunky and creamy (not crumbly and creamy) edge with minimal blue, but still a lot of blue flavor. Right at the edge where the rind meets the leaves, the cheese starts to get sweet, woody and fruity. It is a crazy cheese. There is so much going on in every bite, and every bite is different to me. I don't know if you can eat the leaves. I didn't, but you can taste where they have been. http://www.roguecreamery.com/pilot.asp?pg=RogueRiverBlue

Rogue Smoky Blue $21.99 lb. at Kashkaval Cheese Market in NYC, $2.20 for a tiny piece. This piece is only .19 lb! I have never seen a cheese counter cut cheese into such small pieces, but this was great because I had so much cheese at home, I wouldn't have otherwise even bought anything. I bought this and an equally tiny Stilton. Rogue Creamery cold smokes this blue over hazelnuts from the Pacific Northwest for 16 hours. The paste is ivory-colored with moderate blue-grey veining. The pockets of blue are small. The rind, which is really not a rind at all, is tan and smells very faintly of smoke. Creamy, dense, fudgy texture, caramel and bacon blue that blends in perfectly with the nutty puff of smoke that emerges on the tail end of this whole experience. This is great, especially after I just ate some of my own horrible homemade mascarpone. It isn't a biting blue at all. It tastes even zingy or tingly. There is something like a low electric buzz, like it's vibrating. If you can imagine when a tens unit first turns on and it is sort of pleasant, but with the potential to be dangerous or pushing comfort limits--that's what this cheese feels like. Is it going to careen out of control--smoke and blue together? Sounds crazy. No, it is going to stay on this low frequency wavelength that will keep a rat pushing that lever for the next pellet. Photo of Rogue Smoky Blue   

Romao $13.99 lb. at Whole Foods, $3.36 for a small wedge. Raw sheep's milk cheese. This cheese gets its complex flavor from being made with rosemary and being rubbed with olive oil. One website says that it is a distant relative of parmesan. Made from sheep’s milk and a distant relative of parmesan, this cheese matures for 8 months before it is ready for sale. Its fat content is 27%. It is ivory white on the inside with a creamy, yet firm, texture. The rosemary is not too strong, and I get a faint hint of olive oil on the finish that blends well with the natural olive flavors in sheep's milk. The herbs on the outside look daunting at first, but they are easy on the tongue. Overall, it's a very oily cheese, even on the inside. This cheese is fabulous, and great with Pinot Grigio.

Romano, Di Giorno From Randall's, made in Wisconsin. This is a Romano made from cow's milk instead of sheep's, which is probably why they can't call it Pecorino Romano. It reminds me of a Parmesan (American-style) more than anything. Somebody brought this cheese over and it smelled up the entire living room -- like an Italian restaurant. It is light yellow colored, hard, but still pasty enough to slice. It has a very strong Parmesan flavor. It is nutty, sweet, and not too salty. It has a vomit taste. You can slice it, but it is overpowering to just snack on. I think it will melt well and go well grated on foods.

Romi cheese from Egypt  Egyptian corner store in Bayonne, NJ. I bought the weirdest cheese I could find and it also...well, it's one of my least favorite cheeses so far. The lady called it Romi cheese. Apparently it is the main cheese of Egypt. The label says "al Bacara Al Haloub Sliced Romi Cheese). It's from Egypt and imported by Al-Haloub MFG Corp in Newark, NJ. Unusually long shelf life. It comes in a clear plastic tray with a thick vacuum-pack wrap on top. The cheese itself looks exactly like small strips of half-cooked, dried out lasagna. The edges of the strips have zig zags. On the center of each one, there seems to be a peppercorn placed for no apparent reason. It says this is buffalo, but there is a picture of a cow on the front. The shop lady said this is used in sandwiches with cucumbers and tomatoes. Not necessarily on pita, but just on a roll. I bought the super salty version (even though she warned me several times about the salt), but there is also a sweet version that is just as popular. The nutrion doesn't include salt. It also doesn't say if it's Halal or not. It's a rennet cheese. Lots of Arabic writing that I can't read. Some people who commented on my blog said that it is known for being dry and tasty, and is like a cross between parmesan and mozzarella. You can heat it up on sandwiches with black olives or shred it on a pizza to give it "another flavor."

Roncal $12.99 lb. at Grapevine.  Raw sheep's milk.  It comes from the northern part of Spain near the Basque country.  Medium yellow, definitely grassy.  It has an aftertaste of baking flour.  Dense and hard.  Much more interesting than Manchego.  It has more flavor.  The mouthfeel is not so great -- a little gritty.  Long finish.  It is aged for at least 3 months.  Rich, olivey, nutty flavor.  Spaniards have been making this cheese for 3,000 years.  I tasted this again and got the same response -- grassy, flour, herby, and grainy.  I tried it with a Navarra wine.  It was ok, but not great.  

Roquefort Société  $15.99 lb. at Central Market.  $3.52 for a slab of it.  It is white, salty (448 mg per oz.) sheep’s milk from France.  This is the second most famous cheese in France, and probably the most famous blue cheese ever.  The mold is blue/gray, and at times green.  The curd holes are big.  Smooth cheese, not too crumbly.  The salt is so overpowering that I can hardly taste the sheep in it.  The mold is excellent – crunchy, sharp, and very blue-tasting.  The mold isn’t spread out all over the cheese like some blues.  It seems to be confined to the inoculation channels and the curd holes.  It’s really good.  We got this for the party to go with a fruity, sweet red – Late Harvest Red Zinfandel. 

Roquefort Vernières  $3 for a thin sliver, $14.99 lb. At Central Market.  This is one strong blue cheese.  It is sheep’s milk and has penicillium roqueforti in it for the blue.  The holds are a lot larger than for gorgonzola, and it is more pungent.  The blue is pretty gritty, really blue/black/green.  The cheese is white.  I think the sheep’s milk makes it seem extra salty and biting.  I think I prefer the gorgonzola.  Maybe I’m a wimp.  I’m not so wild about the parts of it with a ton of blue.  I like the edge best. Nevertheless, it is a good, memorable cheese.  “This one looks like it’s from Mars.”  Crater cheese.  Powerful cheese with serious mold.  Twist in there somewhere.  “My palate is tingling.”  Burns your palate.  Crumbly on the outside, really creamy where the mold is, but really sharp where mold is, too.

Royal Blue by Fair Oaks Farms  A blue-blooded cheese from the Heartland. Royal Blue hails from Fair Oaks Farms in Northwest Indiana just outside of Chicago. Fair Oaks is a family-owned dairy—one of the largest in the U.S. They make mostly semi-hard or semi-soft cheeses, but also offer soft cheeses such as this Royal Blue. It comes in a wedge wrapped in glistening blue foil. When it’s cold, you can crumble it, but once it warms up, it cuts like butter that is just beginning to come to room temperature. It has moderate green-blue veining and a deep cream color. The mold gives it a sharpness on the finish, but up front, it has a sweet cow’s milk taste. There is a bitter undercurrent that reminds me of walnuts. I melted this cheese on French bread rounds and it was to die for! The nut flavor really shines through, and since the veins are not scattered everywhere, the cheese isn’t gritty when melted. It looks like a baked brie—all hot, gooey, and stringy. This would be a great cheese for Panini or bruschetta with some sweet figs or apples, and maybe some prosciutto or chicken. As a table cheese, serve it with a sweet dessert wine such as oloroso Sherry. Royal Blue photo. 

Russian Fresh Cheese This cheese is just like a bunch of curds, like cottage cheese, but dryer and more crumbly.  It has that watery, milky taste to it, and has a little bit of a bitter aftertaste like a mozzarella.  Just salty enough.  It isn’t stringy and rubbery like mozzarella, and it has a lot more taste.  We sat down and ate about ½ lb. of it right after we bought it.  It is a wet cheese.  Later I tried some Russian cheese from a Russian deli and it was so bad I couldn't eat it.  It had turned a light pink color and reeked.   

Rustico with Peppercorns Sheep’s milk with peppercorns at Central Market.  Light white colored, semi-firm, buttery, peppercorns here and there, but not enough.  Tangy, sheep’s cheese, tasted a little like olives.  Really good and not too crumbly or gritty.  People weren’t into it until after I told them it wasn’t stinky.  It was sitting next to the Livarot, so I guess they were scared of it.  

Rustico with Red Peppers Sheep’s milk with spicy red peppers.  $ lb. at Whole Foods.  $3.33 for a big chunk.  It looked like it was going to be really good, but then nobody who tasted it liked it.  It had a weird aftertaste and I think it was the fault of the peppers.  It ended up tasting kind of like mayonnaise or vomit to me.  It is a hard cheese, white, typical sheep.  I feel sorry for it because it is still sitting in the fridge.  We are going to try toasting it on a sandwich and see if we can use it up.  I got a huge chunk of it.  No, I take that back.  I just ate some toasted on bread and it stinks up the apartment.  On top of that, the peppers get really hot when they are heated and they are burning my mouth.  I don’t think we are going to want to eat this cheese and I feel sorry for it because it is so pretty.  Those little sheep went to a lot of trouble to make it. I tasted this cheese at Central Market later and I loved it.  It didn’t have any of that vomit taste.  It was sheepy and very creamy.  The peppers were still too hot for me, but the cheese was good.  

Rustico with Black Pepper  Italian sheep cheese.  Buttery, light white, semi-firm with peppercorns.  It is tangy, really good, and not too gritty.  People at the wedding weren’t into this cheese until after I told them that it wasn’t stinky.  

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