Of all the hard cheeses we exhibited at the party, it was Stephanie’s young Manchego, made with a mix of 2/3 cow milk and 1/3 goat milk, that really looked like cheese. Here’s a good shot showing the little air pockets that formed between the curds.

Those are Ralph Giacomini’s marvelous eggs from Point Reyes Station, scrambled with cream, along with our homemade farmhouse cheddar and some browned Niman Ranch ham, all sitting atop a toasted La Brea whole wheat baguette.

Last night Stephanie and I hosted our latest in a long line of food-themed parties, this one to unveil the cheese we’ve been making lately. All told we had seven different kinds of cheese, made from a variety of types of milk.

An hour before people arrived we were actually making some fresh cheese. Stephanie whipped up a whole milk Ricotta, and I made Mozzarella with milk from Straus Family Creamery. It’s amazing how much Ricotta a gallon of whole milk generates. It was a surprising cheese for most people, as fresh ricotta is so light and fluffy, it almost has the consistency and richness of whipped cream. We have a lot left—I see homemade ravioli in our future. Stephanie told me a lot of folks were really blown away by the mozzarella. Good milk = good cheese. The Straus whole milk was so rich and creamy that the mozzarella had a noticeable yellow tint. The cheese had just the right consistency, with a little bit of bounce, and a lot of creaminess.

This past week Stephanie made 2 batches of chevre (goat cheese). One she made early in the week with the intention of it being a little firmer and riper for chevre chaud, and one batch towards the end of the week, which she seasoned with herbs de provence. It’s one of the easiest cheeses to make—thanks to Trader Joe’s carrying Summerhill Dairy goat milk. Everyone who likes goat cheese seemed to really dig it, as it was gone in a flash.

Stephanie put grillmaster Kyle in charge of cooking up the brine-aged Halloumi on the raclette. Having never grilled it ourselves we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but eventually the slices of cheese had perfect grill marks. It’s a strange cheese in that it doesn’t melt when heat is applied, it just browns, almost like chicken or tofu. We served it warm with a leaf of fresh mint (as recommended by Wikipedia) and it came out perfectly! It had a great rubbery bite with an addictive saltiness. It’s one of my new favorite cheeses.

Finally it was time for the harder cheeses. It was strange to cut into these wheels of cheese that we’d been so patiently aging in our cheese cave. Considering that the Cheddar and the Gouda were encased in wax—we had no idea what they’d look like on the inside. I cut the rounds in half and passed them around so everyone could get a good look and a smell. The Manchego was not waxed (Stephanie had simply rubbed it with olive oil after a week of drying) so it looked the most like what you’d see in a nice cheese shop. It had a hard rind, and a pungent smell (even before we cut it open). Both the Gouda and the Cheddar were surprisingly white and moist on the inside, and they pretty much smelled the same. Both were made with homogenized whole milk, and we’ve since learned that unhomogenized milk (aka cream-top) results in a much firmer curd, which we’ve since been using exclusively.

How was the taste? Could we even tell them apart? I tried the two month old Cheddar first, and it tasted young, with a slight acidity. I thought it’d be more like store-bought mild cheddar, because I’d read that the sharpness develops with age, but no, our farmhouse Cheddar definitely had a sharp kick. Then I tried the Gouda, a washed curd cheese, which had a milder taste. It was very smooth, which I think most people preferred to the Cheddar. We’re definitely going to be making more of that. Finally the young cow-goat Manchego, a softer version of the traditionally hard sheep milk style, had a very subtle flavor, almost like Swiss, with a slight tang from the goat milk.

After 4 weeks of dry curing in kosher salt, check out how they look now! Talk about a transformation.

As for taste, they are very, very salty. But the texture is right. So to soften the flavor (I hope!), I’m further curing half of them in olive oil, and the other half in a mixture of red wine vinegar and water.

I don’t know what made us sign up for this particular Cheese School class back in January. The description certainly didn’t let on to its awesomeness. Yet tonight we were taken on an entertaining tour of some of the best cheeses you could imagine, led by Wil Edwards and Melissa Schilling. There were those you may have heard of, like Emmentaler, Appenzeller, Comté, Gruyère, and Vacherin, and others maybe not, like Le Maréchal, Le Chartreux, Bettlemat, Grès de Vosges, and Forsterkase. All paired with wines from the Alsace region. I want to make fondue!