Our favorite cheeses:
Boursin — Melt in your mouth creamy. Like melting heaven.
St. Andre — Boursinny in the center, brie-like in the edges… currently my favorite cheese.
Cheddar — The work-horse of cheeses– on burgers, Mexican food, turkey sandwiches… life just wouldn’t be right without cheddar. (#2 adds: the sharper, the better!)
Fresh Mozzarella — Nothing says summer like fresh crusty bread, aged or reduced balsamic vinegar, a touch of sharp Spanish olive oil, bright red tomatoes, fresh picked basil, and thick slabs of fresh buffalo mozzarella.
Parmesan/Romano — Sprinkled on top of many a pasta, this cheese gives it an extra dimension. We buy big chunks, process in the food processor, and stick in the freezer.
Brie– if you haven’t tried it melted over baked pear slices… well, you should.
Of course, we love smokey and nutty cheeses as well. #1 can’t stand goat cheese (it tastes like goat), but there’s so much wonderful deliciousness in the cheeses of the world that it really doesn’t matter.
#2, OTOH, would like to sing the praises of exquisite goat cheese. It even goes with dark chocolate! You can mix it with honey and put it on fruit. Or you can keep it plain and just eat it with crackers or whatever. Soooo delicious!
Feta goes deliciously in Greek food. I don’t mind paneer and I really like cream cheese. I can’t STAND queso fresco. Ick. Blue cheeses of any sort are disgusting as hell. Mizithra is only ok. (#1 noms all of the above! She used to hate blue cheese but has since come to appreciate its creamy bitterness.)
Also, let’s not forget the wonders of gouda, colby-jack, provolone, the occasional muenster, and — our very favorite — local artisan cheeses that you get in tiny bites at various ethnic restaurants. Made with sheep milk or I-don’t-even-know-what. Beyond awesome.
What are your favorite cheeses and why? How do you like them prepared?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
April 26, 2011 at 5:20 am
Oh, man! You have barely even scratched the surface of the world of cheese, mentioning almost solely the most hackneyed and overused cheeses thatte exist.
It’s as if you wrote a blogge post about the world’s most wonderful typefaces, and mentioned only Times Roman and Helvetica. They are very nice typefaces, but overused to the point of aesthetic irrelevance.
April 26, 2011 at 5:30 am
And yet, your comment adds no information on additional typefaces. Ironic.
April 26, 2011 at 5:39 am
My favorite typefaces are Adobe Garamond and Linotype Syntax.
April 26, 2011 at 5:56 am
Go back to sleep.
April 26, 2011 at 12:42 pm
First I’m gonna eat some special cheese that you’ve never ever heard of!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!
April 26, 2011 at 12:57 pm
We’ve decided that you’re an aging hipster. (Think about it– it totally fits– only obscure things are worth associating with, you wear Crocs ironically, live in New England, and so on.) We’d feel sorry for you but you seem pretty happy about your life. #2 hopes you don’t have heartburn today. #1 hopes you do.
April 26, 2011 at 1:02 pm
I wish we had more varieties of cheese here in Blighted Town. But I live in Blighted Town and I’ll take what I can get.
April 26, 2011 at 6:57 am
I am a complete idiot when it comes to fancy cheese. I love gouda on my bacon turkey bravo from Panera. I agree that Bleu cheese is horrific. I love my very basic mozzarella…
April 26, 2011 at 7:06 am
You don’t have to be a cheese snob to enjoy good cheese.
April 26, 2011 at 7:47 am
My favorites are white cheddar with dill and garlic and Stilton with fruit in it – lemon, blueberries, and apricots are all good. Stilton sans fruit is icky.
Bleu cheese is mostly icky, but is good crumbled on a steak salad.
April 26, 2011 at 8:01 am
For a little while when I was pregnant the only thing I could get down besides fruit was blueberry stilton melted on a (brown) rice cake. It was sad when that no longer stayed down.
April 26, 2011 at 7:50 am
I could not possibly pick just one favorite.
But I’ll mention one kind of odd ball one:
My husband is a New Zealander and has some sort of patriotic aversion to orange cheddar. So we buy New Zealand cheddar from Trader Joes, and it is wonderful. (It tastes a lot like the cheese they call “tasty cheese” in New Zealand. Yes, they have “mild”, “tasty”, and “very tasty” or something like that. It cracked me up the first time I saw it.)
April 26, 2011 at 8:06 am
Ah Trader Joe’s… how we miss you.
Tasty cheese sounds awesome.
April 26, 2011 at 8:11 am
Mannn why didn’t I think to put the thin-sliced Asiago we have on my steak sandwich for lunch today? Now I’m going to be craving cheese until I can get home.
April 26, 2011 at 9:26 am
Blue cheese is great on a nice rare filet of beef…other than that it’s icky.
And I can eat sharp cheddar cheese straight all day long (although I would suffer for my indulgence all night long).
April 26, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Mmmm cheddar. It may be mainstream, but that doesn’t keep it from being delicious. And there are so many wonderful varieties of cheddar.
April 26, 2011 at 9:36 am
For #2, have you tried goat cheese on pizza? I never thought about putting slices on pizza until I had it in Spain.
April 26, 2011 at 1:02 pm
DELICIOUS.
April 26, 2011 at 9:42 am
Talking about Spain, have either of you tried queso manchego? (Sorry for the double posts.)
April 26, 2011 at 9:51 am
Ayup! It is quite pleasant.
April 26, 2011 at 12:54 pm
(Other half chimes in: I hate it, it’s gross.)
April 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
It’s so inoffensive though, either in its fresco form or the hard form. Just a really mild pale cheese.
April 26, 2011 at 2:05 pm
I prefer the manchego viejo.
April 26, 2011 at 10:01 am
I love every kind of cheese. All of them. They are all amazing. When I had more disposable income, I used to make a cheese board every christmas. If you like brie, here’s an AMAZING way to eat it.
Buy one of the Pillsbury french bread in a can things. Place your brie wheel in the center of an ovenproof thing. Wrap the french bread from the can around the brie. Get a bottle of amaretto and pour all over everything. Bake according to the can. Enjoy.
April 26, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Trader Joe’s has baked bries in phyllo dough. Nom. I still like it best baked with pears.
April 26, 2011 at 11:08 am
Cheese is aweome. I live about 40 minutes from Wisconsin, and once you cross the border there are cheese shops that seem to pop up all of a sudden, including one built like a castle that I’ve visited for years – since childhood, actually. The display case is incredible, and you can sample pretty much anything, based on my experience in the past anyway.
I’m trying hard to eat far less cheese now, for health purposes. But even something as simple as a great sharp cheddar can be incredible. I’ve had some Spanish cheeses that have been really good. Made properly, paneer can be delicious too.
April 26, 2011 at 11:13 am
We <3 Wisconsin cheese. My dad brought us a big wheel from the Wisconsin state fair at Christmas. We ate it up in record time. It was amazing.
April 26, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I’ve been past the castle!
April 26, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I haven’t, but my father has brought us petit fours from the castle from his travels.
April 27, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Wisconsin cheese is yummy.
Homemade cheeses are also yummy. I like the easiest, labneh. Hm, I should go make some.
April 27, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Labneh is yummy! I want some!! Nom nom nom.
April 26, 2011 at 11:36 am
Velveeta. There’s no single cheese like it! ;-)
April 26, 2011 at 12:55 pm
ewwwwwwwwwww
April 26, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Now now, velveeta, though not technically actually cheese (“pasteurized cheese product”) has its place in queso when you’ve decided to go all out with a gooey completely unhealthy meal.
Ah, memories of government cheese…
April 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I love cheese, too, but I’m not supposed to eat cow dairy. Unlike #1, I have no aversion to chevre (the soft goat milk cheese most folks think of when they say goat cheese is called chevre in the cheese world), but there are so many more cheeses made from goat’s milk! My absolute favorite is Humboldt Fog by Cypress Grove http://www.cypressgrovechevre.com/
That is a true indulgence cheese, though, since it is quite pricey.
Another idulgence cheese is Ossau Iraty, which is a sheep’s milk cheese http://www.artisanalcheese.com/prodinfo.asp?number=10074
And I’m a big fan of manchego, too, since most of the imported versions are made with sheep’s milk.
If I need cheddar or mozzarella, I can usually buy that in a version made from goat’s milk. I do break the rules when it comes to parmegiano reggiano, though. I only buy the good stuff, which is made with cow’s milk. Parmesan is typically used in smallish quantities, though, so I figure I’m OK.
April 26, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I read somewhere on the internet that goat cheese tasting nasty is genetic or chemical like those PTC strips. (Blech!) Goat milk also tastes nasty to me. I always felt really sorry for kids with cow milk allergies who had to drink it, but I don’t think it tastes so overwhelmingly like GOAT to most people.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/473078 shows I’m not alone.
Can you have buffalo cheese?
April 28, 2011 at 7:35 pm
I wasn’t tested for sensitivity to buffalo dairy so I’m not sure. That chowhound link was an interesting thread.
While I didn’t try chevre until I was in my 20s I’ve *loved* cajeta since I first tried it as a child!
April 28, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Had to look that up on wikipedia! I’ve had the cowsmilk version– dulce de leche. Which is fun because you can make it by boiling a can of condensed milk in water for long periods of time.
April 26, 2011 at 4:37 pm
I’ve never worn crocs in my life!
April 26, 2011 at 5:02 pm
So that’s not a picture of your feet on your blog?
April 26, 2011 at 6:39 pm
There is not a single picture of crocs on my blogge.
April 26, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Not anymore, anyhow.
April 26, 2011 at 7:13 pm
You grumpy rumbling f*ckers are deranged!
April 26, 2011 at 7:16 pm
At least we don’t wear Crocs. You know, ironically.
April 26, 2011 at 6:11 pm
king island stormy washed rind! or king island blue brie, nom nom. i took the latter camping this easter long weekend, and it was delightful both with fresh pear, or on crackers with kalamata olive dip. cheese is one of the highlights of life. although i am totally with the kiwi husband above who is deeply suspicious of orange cheddar, sometimes you north americans take perfectly good food and make it weird.
April 26, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Coloring cheese orange with annatto has been going on for centuries, is far from unique to north america, and is completely unobjectionable. For example, French mimolette is an absolutely wonderful cheese, and is almost always colored with annatto.
http://www.cheesesupply.com/product_info.php/products_id/72
April 26, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Cheese IS one of the highlights of life.
April 26, 2011 at 7:56 pm
TRUE DAT!
April 27, 2011 at 12:31 am
What a friend we have in Cheeses.
April 27, 2011 at 4:21 am
HALLELUJAH!
April 29, 2011 at 8:35 am
Cheese and bread are my two most favorite foods. I don’t know what I’d do if I became lactose intolerant. I even took cheese making classes.
I’m so excited that artisan cheese and bread is making a huge comeback. I know it’s a boring cheese but we always have a hung of smoked gouda in our house. I also grew to love gloucester when I lived in the UK but it’s hard to find around here. I love all the soft + stinky cheeses, but no one else in my family eats them, so they aren’t in my fridge that often unless we have a party or something.
April 29, 2011 at 8:44 am
My father is really big into Limburger.
May 5, 2011 at 6:18 am
Ive sampled many other varieties since my first childhood encounters with cheddar and monterey jack and have to say Ive never met a cheese I didnt like! ….Goat cheeses however take the best of show awards in my book for overall taste texture and nutrition. Though the same varieties of cheese can be made with goat milk as with cows or sheeps milk the distinctive properties of goat milk lend a unique appearance flavor and texture to goat cheeses that are lacking in the others.The biggest factor for influencing the properties of goatcheese compared to other cheese is related to the fat composition of goat milk.The fat globules in goat milk are significantly smaller than those in cows milk.
November 27, 2012 at 1:58 am
[…] #1: and I’m sure CPP will say that our tastes in nuts are plebeian […]