Please look after this cheese...!!
Sheena Whyatt
Helping business owners cut through the overwhelm with practical coaching that brings clarity, focus, and results.
So. Having revealed my past in my last article, here comes the next bit. Looking after your cheese investment.
Yes, investment.
The key to a good cheese experience is to buy the best cheese you can afford. As I mentioned in my first article, you can find good cheese in the supermarket - and there are some really lovely ones available at this time of year - Belton Fox, if you can find it, is a lovely mature & nutty Red Leicester, Old Amsterdam, a wonderfully caramelly, salty matured Gouda, Stinking Bishop (not as bad as it sounds, honest!) is a fabulous English washed brie - although you would definitely need a coolbox/lidded storage for it to stop your whole fridge becoming, um, stinky.
Which leads me to my point.
Storing your cheese.
The best & worst thing you can do for your cheese is to keep it in the fridge. At this time of year, when your fridge is full to bursting of pigs in blankets, brie & cranberry parcels, stuffing, etc etc, you also need to think about making some room! Although keeping your cheese in the fridge is a great way to extend the life of your cheese, it is nearly always too cold. And if you haven't wrapped your cheese properly, this can also dry it out.
Lets talk about the 'where' first. If you have an unheated conservatory, garage or shed, this is ideal (as long as you can keep your cheese from being an unexpected Christmas present for local mice), you can also, if you don't have any of these, keep your cheese in the boot of a car, or in an unused cool spare room. The key is that it must be cool.
Then you need to think about the 'how'. Wrapping your cheese is important - and I don't mean smothering it in cling film. If you do, then your cheese will sweat, which is just icky no matter how you think about that.
The best thing to wrap hard cheese in is greaseproof paper. Cut a generous bit and smooth it onto the cut surfaces of your cheese before wrapping the whole slice. Then, if you want to, wrap it in foil.
For soft cheese, waxed paper is good (peeling a ripe brie off greaseproof paper can be a bit faffy, and slightly challenging if you've already indulged in a festive sherbert or two), failing that, then cling film is good here, just remember to unwrap it before you bring it up to room temperature. If it is a stinky soft cheese, then I would also recommend wrapping it in foil to enclose the, ahem, aroma.
So - there you have it - buy the best you can afford, and then look after it well over Christmas to enjoy your cheese at it's best.
What do you do with the leftovers? I'll tell you next time.......