Ah Le Pizy the cheese I always say wrong and my co workers make fun of me for it. This week we’re doing a cheese close to home all the way from St-Roch Ouest Québec. I enjoy this cheese for a variety of reasons.  The fun label, perfect for events, it cuts easy,spreads easy and most important it tastes lovely.

Now you should never judge a book by its cover but the Le Pizy fits perfectly in the palm of your hand and when you stare down. You see a big orange label with a yellow ring. When you stare into it reminds you of the raising sun hitting the field in the morning. A fun symbol is above  the Le Pizy  a symbol of cheese, bread, wheat and a bucket. The cheese is made by a Fromagerie La Suisse Normande a wife who makes the cheese and a husband who cares for the animals.

I think of this cheese as the perfect grab for parties, parents, in-laws and all kinds of events. At $12 dollars for 200 grams it’s a steal, you show up to the event open it up allow it to breath and warm up for 15 minutes and draw the people in. Have some bread ready cut a piece and smear it right on. Oh boy its good all on its own too a fruity white wine.

Now looking at this small disk with the pale yellow rind it doesn’t look like much but cut in and find golden treasure of a  pale yellow gooey yummy paste that flows out slowly. Lift up it to your nose let it remind you of sweet yogurt and simple times as it takes your nose for a sunny dance. As you place it on your tongue the creamy paste melts and you get, damn its so good I need a another taste to think on it ok once more. As it melts on your mouth it’s

Salt – Meduim

Sweet- meduim

Umami – englufs you at the front

Bitter- a little on the soft rind

Sour – none

A smooth dream of butter delight you’ll find yourself saying ” Fuck that’s good cheese”. I would suggest putting it on a warm bacon sandwich grabbing a book and let the day slip by.

Mondays have always been my day off so I have no hate for it but we are on week five of George Brown cooking class skills one, I had to make lasagna.

Now I really have no love of this dish. Part of the reason I find it be be rather heavy and overloading of just pasta, meat and cheese. I’ve also come to find if anyone who makes it has no since of engineering they build it with poor construction and it just falls apart. I also once nearly chocked on massive piece of cheese. I still love cheese I blame myself.

Now I arrived late to class due to my work finishing at 6 pm and the school is five minutes away getting dressing and running into the room. I only missed salt your water so it’s soft. I didn’t forget to salt the water because I saw my table partner do it I also know from years of my mother yelling at me to do this.

Now F was firing off at rapid pace as I took notes that a chicken would be insulted if I compared it’s writing to. F talked how to drop your pasta in slowly and how to slowly push it down into the water as it got soft. I think he enjoyed that more than he should have. Now something he did is open a massive can of tomatoes with one of those cool table can openers and then used his immersion blender and went to town on those tomatoes. Now If you don’t own a immersion blender I suggest getting one their great. I have one if you don’t know what one is it’s basically a hand held blender.

Now F decided today was a day to go on a whole topic about how ground beef needs to be cooked proper because of E. coli and how it can stick to  the meat of a cow at the slaughter house and we should be careful when cooking ground beef. Heat is your friend as it kills everything.

He showed us how to test our pasta by pulling it out and pressing down hard on it with the handle end of your paring knife. If it breaks it needs more cooking time if a white dot appears it’s good to go! I had hard time with this because it looked like both were happening at the same time. I stared at my pasta being like ” Just fling you on a wall and see if you stick”

Now making the sauce was where I went wrong, to much heat! Now cutting up all the veggies that was easy but now see we got our meat in a bag. F showed us a way by flatting our meat out so we could slide it out of the bag without touching it and having to wash our hands. I frankly struggled with getting the meat out, it slowly become one of many labors of myths that I would embark  upon in my culinary quest. You chuckle but it was not easy. I continued to trying to slide it out so it land in my pan flat with out splashing any oil. It fell out like a feather but flat no it had formed a bun shape.

My heat was on to high because I was cooking small bits to fast and they we’re sticking to the pan. I lowered my heat and played a tug and war match with my dial. Soon adding my veggies slow adding my pasta and tomatoes. I turned it to what I thought was simmer and ran around doing my dishes. When I came back I head reduced to much of my sauce and would not have enough to fill the layers between my noodles.

I stared at my pan and began to think,  what a good lesson to learn how now I can better understand the importants of watching your sauce but how I had poorly manged my time how I played it safe. If I had tried to juggle more than one task  at once maybe I wouldn’t have let my sauce get low. I become to focus on doing my dishes and looking after my noodles I didn’t split my time wisely. Red said it still looked good and she looked forward to trying it.

The plus side my knife skills are coming along I’m chopping faster and thinner which is a plus!

All and all I might leave this dish all for Red to eat but I will give it a try and see if I change my mind. See you next week!

Welcome back to another fun installment of cheese. Our guest this week is the goat surprise from the Swiss Kaltbach caves. Thank you for joining us tonight Kaltbach Le Chevre but I will be doing all the talking because your a delightful cheese and can’t talk or write!

I often tell people when I give them this cheese it’s a goat surprise to which they give me a weird look but once they pop a piece of this white as snow cheese in their mouth pop goes their eyes! They can’t believe a goat cheese could have such a tapestry of flavor, what gives it such a flavor.  First it’s selected from the only best of the best of cheese wheels and then wheeled on down into the cave where it is aged in climate that has a consent temperature and humidity.

I love Swiss cheese and I love goat cheese and yeah I love this cheese.

This semi-hard cheese cheese has a rich fresh air smell when when you bite into it breaks apart melting in your mouth leaving you with primary flavors of.

Salt: Medium

Sweet: Little

Bitter: Slight closer to the rind

Sour: None

Umami: Finishing high note leaving your mouth wanting more.

The secondary flavor reminds me of honey this slight taste of honey as you smell it straight out from the jar. Not the sweetness of honey but the honey when you take a whiff from the jar and you feel yourself relax. This goat cheese brings a relaxing feeling to your mouth that is to be desired on any cheese board. If you’re a goat lover like myself and you try to convince your friends goat cheese is great bring this cheese in. It’s your ace in the hole your trump card if you will. Summon it up at a family event and watch their faces turn from unsure to utter surprise.

 

No you didn’t miss a post or two or three I hadn’t decided to do this blog until the fourth class of my skills level culinary arts at George Brown but lets do a quick recap of each weak.

Week one: This is where we met our straight shooting forward teacher, he knows lots he’s been around the block. He loves his own jokes and no time for yours but lets you asking all questions. Nothing like being in a room full of strangers who will all have knives and hot pans make you wanna go out and buy those steel toe shoes that you have to buy anyways. F who is are teacher, F taught us how to make stock our first class and what tools we would need. F explained how you didn’t need fancy over priced tools and if anyone tries to sell you onion googles for your eyes it’s a rip off . It’s the smell going up your nose that stings your tear ducts. How a five dollar paring knife is perfect. I also found a new deep sense of respect for stock because it takes at-least 10 hours to make a good one. Fueled with desire I might make a stock one day but for now store bought!

Week Two: This week was fun we got to learn how to make a Tuscan bean salad, I also thought I would hate wearing those chef hats that I can only assume we’re designed like whiskers so you don’t bash your head into everything. Our teacher had use slices our peppers up thinner because he said we’re making a salad for a cafe not a cafeteria. Frankly I wouldn’t know the difference because as a former vegetarian I made a firm rule to never order a salad, why you ask because I feel salads are rip offs at any eating establishments and after I learned how easy it was to make this Tuscan bean salad I feel my point is right. Make a salad some time you’re going to kick yourself. F doesn’t want us to use measuring cups in our class or from our books the school gave us. Cooking is art and we should cook from the heart, now this is a lovely idea but his my science, ocd brain went into full panic mode because I need those measurements for dear life! I may have had a minor melt down in my head but I also tend to be a tad over dramatic, during the fish week I got stressed about folding some paper. I think what I enjoyed most was learning how to make a spice bag. Simply take some cheese clothing make it into square fill with some spices tie with butcher twine and toss it into your pot where your boiling your beans or your stock. I got over the lack of measuring units when I saw it wasn’t as hard as I thought it be. I tried to be like water as Bruce Lee said and flow with my taste buds. It worked because I brought the salad home and Red approved.

Week Three. I missed week three because I was sick, we made mushroom soup and minestrone soup.

Week Four: We are making rainbow trout vin blanc, now I don’t enjoy fish and nor does Red. I love sushi and fish and chips and tuna salad (hashtag not a salad) but most other fish I can pass on. I’m not going to lie the part where he said we got to skin the fish I was so in for it. Chef knives are works of art and finally being able to use a knife to it’s fullest function is great. Watching F skin the fish I thought no problem, all you gotta do make a small cut at the tail don’t cut all the way through then lay your knife flat and wiggly it along while holding onto it’s tail in a game of tug of war with fish and knife easy. The first side I did was a mess, I didn’t lay the knife flat enough it went up and I grabbed the meat of the fish not the skin and it began to fall apart I thought it was the end. I grabbed the other side relaxed, quieted  my mind become like water and felt it out. When I pulled the skin out the not one drop of meat was on it. Never give up. The rest was easy as F said it would be remember that snow flake assignment we would do in school. That’s how we folded the paper what is the paper for you ask. It was so we could make a paper circle to sit in the top of the pan acting as lid, we want some steam but we don’t want the amount a metal lid would give us of. Now we chopped up some grapes and shallots tossed in a pot with the fish and some fish stock add pepper and salt to taste and bring to simmer oh and don’t forget the wine. Fish doesn’t take long as it is delicate, don’t forget to butter the bottom of your pan like I did or you may lose a few brave souls! Never worry because me making the sauce in the same pan. Now I actually enjoyed the fish sauce but then again I added heavy cream and butter with some all purpose flour whats not to love. Take a cooking class, it will change your life but don’t make jokes.

So begins the weekly posts of my food class journey. Come along for this ride.

Walking into Aroma Fine Indian Cuisine looking for my siblings and Red who are all late but I forgave them because I’m 15 minutes early to everything, I’m lame. I enjoy getting to a restaurant a little early so I can sit and read the whole menu. You can learn a lot from a menu, I had no idea chicken vindaloo was Goa and I had no idea Goa is a state in western Indian along the coast line, so I learn two new things.

The staff  at Armoa appear at just the right time as if they could read your mind. Just as I was finished reading the menu and started reading again I was thinking ” God I’m board of this water I wish” Poof  asking me if I like something to drank.

I got myself a mango lassi now lets make something clear I love mango. This was the kind of lassi you enjoyed forgetting  it isn’t bottomless I stopped sipping wanting to savr it. Now Red had arrived and started downing half my lassi saying ” Oh this is great I want one”. I nearly considered ordering a second but I’m watching my figure. Not really though.

Everyone had arrived I informed them they all failed me for being late, no one cared! After the order had been placed and a round of veggie pakoras had filled the air with their crispy fried delight. I reached for one with my hand seeing my older brother who I shall from this point on refer to as Thor because he looks like Thor and is often swinging a hammer. I got to watch Thor cut a pakora up with a knife and fork, I spat out  “it’s finger food” he stuck his nose up at me ” never eaten it before”. This lunched a silly fight where are little sister Pepper burst out laughing.

Now I ordered the goat masaledar and I was filled with child level. My excitement was due to never having goat due being a vegetarian the last ten years. I stared at the rich buttery naan filling my head with deep thoughts and hope of it’s flavor. When it arrived I scooped some of the gravy feeling the day melt away from me as it warmed my heart, now for the goat. Tender my name is goat, I wouldn’t have needed teeth to eat it. I devoured my food cleaning my plate with the naan not wasting one bit of  it.

I’m sure the others had a lovely meal as well I mean I know they all told me it was a good choice for our once a month get together.

I finished off the evening  by splitting a carrot pudding with Thor’s partner BookWorm. Red didn’t want any but I gave her a try and too which she asked ” Another spoonful please”. I often feel dessert ends on a low note taking the evening down but this putting pushed it right up!

 

Aroma Fine Indian Cuisine is located at  287 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1J5

Phone number:  (647) 361-5782

 

Lets get this first post a rolling with our first tiny wheel of cheese! For this post tonight we have a cheddar from Somerset it’s located in the south west of England. It’s a cheese I could spread on my toast while  enjoying a lovely Sunday breakfast.

When you first see this cheese it’s sealed in a black wax and fits in the palm of your head. The label for me is what catches my attention it has a look that screams ” HEY I’M A GREAT GIFT”. The cheese is made by the at the Wyke farm by the Clothier family and they been doing it for over 150 using their grandmother Ivy’s recipe.

I will always go through the primary flavors when talking about cheese, Salt, Sweet, Sour, Bitter and Umami. It’s important before you eat your cheese to let it warm up and before you take a bite of your cheese to smell it and let it fill your lungs. When I smell this cheese it reminds me of bread but not warm bread room temperature bread the stuff that is sliced and ready for  sandwiches and that’s why it’s pleasant because it reminds me of peanut butter and jam sandwiches or egg sandwiches.

After I smell it I take a bite and it’s salty is what I first notice with a little bit of sour a slight sweetness and umami but not bitter. If I were to write this down in my cheese journal it look like this…. Yes I have a cheese journal a lot of people do. Don’t judge.

Salt-Medium

Sour- Slight finishes

Sweet- Little and comes later

Umami- Little

Bitter- None

I would than talk about this whiskey cheddar secondary flavors how it reminds me of butter on bread you didn’t want to transform into toast because you were in such a rush you slapped butter on your bread only to forget your all out of peanut butter and jam. The mouth feel of the cheese is it spreads easy on your tongue and has a pasta like texture that fills the back of your mouth more like it engulfs the back of your mouth almost as if your chocking. I bet your asking does it taste like whiskey and it slightly does at the end it finishes in this sourness that reminds you of the first whiskey of the night.

This cheese coasts $5 Canadian for 100g, I think it’s a nice gift or perfect for something to bring to party or to enjoy at breakfast with some bread and fatty sausages.

Bye for now and have a lovely evening oh and here are some photos.

 

 

 

Let this Lord of the Rings bite size journey of food begin, as I try to get one step closer to understanding the world through food one bite at a time.

I’m going to be posting a variety of posts because variety is the spice of life after all.

One kind of post will be about any cooking classes I’m taking, what I learned, what I messed up and if I enjoy my own food and if Red my partner in crime also enjoyed my food as well.

I will post once a week about cheese, why cheese you may ask why not it was used as offerings for gods and surely belongs here. Serious though I work in a cheese shop and wanna share my quest into becoming a cheese monger. The history of cheese is vast and loaded with so many facts it could give you a headache.

Once a week I will crack out one of many cook books I own, that I bought in a fevered dream of cooking from and actually cook something. To be honest I always shied away from doing this because I was didn’t want to fail but now that’s change. I’m going full steam ahead and I shall conquer that stacks of book. Also please say a pray for Red as she will be one of the main testers.

Any restaurant I eat at will end up on this blog, I enjoy eating out with my wild siblings and Red. I also enjoy going out to lunch with friends and chatting up over a bowl of something hot or cold I mean will it even have a bowl.

This blog will be a lot of my own thoughts and experiences but it will also have research moments mainly with cheese because that stuff can get all mad science sometimes.

I look forward to sharing this journey with you.