You’ve bought cheese at your local grocery store and now that’s it home, how do you care for it best to keep it fresh and “happy?
Here are a few tips to help you extend the life of your cheese.
Storing and Serving Cheese at Home:
- When convenient, buy smaller pieces, more often.
- Remove from plastic stretch wrap when you get it home. Wrap cheese in cheese paper, waxy or parchment paper and store separately in zip bags, leaving a small part of the zip open to allow the cheese to breathe. Cheese is alive; do not wrap in plastic at home.
- Store in a warmer part of the refrigerator such as the produce bin at the bottom or in door.
- Surface-ripened or blue cheese should be stored in a separate plastic container away from other cheeses.
- If a surface develops mold, trim the mold off and eat the rest of the cheese within two days. If the mold is coal-black or pink, throw it away or return to retailer if still within “Use by” date code.
- Always serve cheese at room temperature. Let it sit out for an hour before serving. Like ice cream that tastes better when soft, cheese’s flavors blossom as it reaches room temperature.
- When creating a cheese board, serve an odd number of cheeses because they present better. Have different knives for each cheese and accompanying condiment.
- The recommended serving size is one half-ounce to one ounce per cheese per person.
I recommend using Formaticum Cheese Paper of Bags for storing your cheeses at home. While you should buy smaller pieces, more often; Formaticum products extend the life of your cheese at home. The pictures on this page are pictures of their products.
Mark the date: October is American Cheese Month and to celebrate I am teaming again with Blue Haven Bee Company on Saturday, October 20th by creating an Artisan Cheese Grazing Table with the wonderful Award-Winning cheeses of Beecher’s Handmade Cheeses, Beehive Cheeses, Cabot Cheese Cooperative, Sartori Cheese, Cypress Grove Chevre, Jasper Hill Farm, Schuman Cheese, Rogue Creamery, Emmi Roth Cheese, Swiss American Cheeses, Clock Shadow Creamery, Olli Salumeria, BelGioioso Cheese , LaClare Family Creamery, Saxon Creamery and from Germany the cheeses of Champignon. In addition to these wonderful artisan cheeses, Gourmet Foods International is sponsoring the accoutrements that pair well with cheese from chocolate to hummus to peppadews to olives, Kelly’s Jelly is contributing her small-batch, Award-Winning jellies and preserves, 34 Degrees Crisps are sharing their Award-winning crisps and Olli Salumeria and Creminelli Fine Meats are contributing a selection of their Handmade Italian Artisan Meats and Salumis. Our thanks to all for helping with this event. My compensation for the event will be donated to the American Cheese Education Foundation, earmarked for the Cheese Study Group 2019 Scholarship Fund.
$40 per person; must be 21 and make your reservations at bluehavenbee@gmail.com or 760 245 6586. Tickets will be limited. Tickets will also be sold for a raffle of some terrific “cheesy” bling.
In addition to being an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional, I am a Certified ServSafe Food Production Manager with certifications that also include ServSafe Certified Instructor and Proctor. I am available for cheese events, cheese program development, cheese training, food safety training and 3rd party food safety auditing. See my About Me and Resume pages for more details or call me at 360 921 9908 to discuss availability.
Pardon our dust… we’re remodeling the website and over the next few weeks, you will see old files moved to new places and some old files may be gone. If you can’t find something you need, just send me an email and I’ll locate it and send you a link… the new site should be complete by end of September to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the website. (Marcellathecheesemonger at gmail.com)
Latest updates and additions include: Updated About Me page, a new Availability page, Cheese Menu, Cheese Education Index, Cheese Index, Recipe Index pages. (All of these pages are still “under construction” and will be completed in the coming days.)
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