It’s Monday!  What are you reading? (thanks to J. Kaye for what’s fast becoming my favorite weekly meme!)

Several years ago I attended a dinner party, the highlight of which was a beer and wine pairing that came at the end.  The host worked for an imported beer distributor.  The cheese had come from a local cheese maker.  The results were truly amazing.  I still have to wipe away a bit of drool when thinking about it.

I only wish I’d had a copy of the book I’m currently reading, The Cheese Chronicles:  A Journey Through the Making & Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table by Liz Thorpe.  A friend recommended it and I’m hoping to have the review up in the next few days.  So far it’s been a fascinating read – through her work at a prestigious NYC cheese shop the author got in at the ground floor of artisanal cheesemaking in America.  Simply put, Liz Thorpe knows cheese.  Plus she writes well, which means her book is entertaining as well as educational.  If only it didn’t make me so hungry!

Here’s a little teaser to whet your appetites:

…The sheep are milked from May until the end of September or beginning of October, and the cheeses age in the Falks’ open-air cave.  There are eight lakes within two miles of the farm, and the unusually high atmospheric moisture creates a phenomenon known as “toolie fog.”  From the marshes with their abundant cattails comes a low fog that hangs just above your feet.  It’s ground fog, slow and creeping, and though the pastures are clear through hot days and cold nights, the toolie fog seeps off the ponds and lakes, permeating LoveTree’s caves and carrying the aromatics of the region.  Mary accentuates this terroir by layering her cheese with cedar boughs and sumac, nestling and wrapping the various cheese in leaves that stew in the cool, damp wafts of toolie fog.

That’s the cheese I’d expect to be served at the Brontë ‘s table.

If you’re up in Hardwick, Vermont, Ms. Thorpe will be speaking at The Galaxy Bookshop this Tuesday, August 25^th between 7-8PM.

And please watch this space for my full review later in the week.