My First Cheese Plate

Last weekend I built my first cheese plate.

Yes, I've been eating cheese for a long time. Indeed, I've been a legit member of the cheese industry for more than a year. True, sometimes I've had an impromptu cheese party or tasting with friends and loved ones at home. But until now, everything has been a casual affair, often involving randomly selected cheeses from the sale bin. At best, my cheese consumption has involved cramming a bunch of cheeses onto a round dinner plate next to a box of water crackers. At worst, it's feasting on chunks and slices over the sink. The beautiful black cheese slate I bought for plating cheeses has been seeing great use as an oversized coaster for my coffee mugs.

I've never had to put together an honest to god cheese plate for a bonafide social gathering -- for which the cheeses needed to be curated and selected with a purpose, paired with thoughtful accompaniments, and plated in an aesthetically pleasing manner. My roommate and buddy, Ambyr, gave me that chance when she hosted a baby shower for our friend at our apartment last Friday night. My attempt to be helpful involved putting together a pre-dinner cheese partay.

Curating cheeses involves several variables: size of party, format, venue, and taste sensibilities of your crowd.

First and foremost, being that the guest of honor was with child, I selected three pasteurized milk cheeses. Whether to eat raw milk cheese during pregnancy is a matter of personal choice and cultural influence -- and in some circles a controversial matter at that. Opinions vary on whether raw milk cheeses pose a risk to the fetus by harboring certain harmful bacteria. Even soft pasteurized cheeses like blue cheeses and feta may be discouraged because of the fear that said bacteria are more likely to thrive in a high moisture environment. Given that (in our health system) the medical advice commonly given to pregnant women is, at the very least, to stay away from raw milk cheeses, I suggest erring on the side of caution when selecting and/or labeling cheeses for such an occasion. If you do select raw milk cheeses and you know some people in the crowd may be pregnant, always clearly label or announce which cheeses are raw. I eliminated any uncertainty by avoiding raw milk cheeses altogether for the shower. Besides, there are PLENTY of delicious pasteurized cheeses to choose from.

Pregnancy can also cause sensitivity to smells. So I also didn't select any super strong or stinky cheeses for fear of assaulting the guest of honor's gag reflex. I love me a good mnemonic, and someone once gave me this great adage for picking cheese varieties for a party: "Something old, something new, something stinky, something blue."  If you're only going with three cheeses, you can pick between the stinky and the blue. For quantities, it's best to go with three or four cheeses. Any more would be sensory overload. And as an appetizer course, one ounce of each cheese per person is usually more than enough.

Knowing that I was dealing with ten to fifteen laid back, fun people, who wouldn't taunt me with cheese snobbery or comment on the pedestrian nature of this or that cheese, I picked three fairly well-known (at least in the artisanal cheese/foodie set), crowd-pleasing 3/4- to 1-pound pieces.

My something old (i.e. hard) was Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. My something new (i.e. soft) was Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog. And my tamer version of "stinky or blue" was Beecher's Marco Polo Reserve (actually an aged hard cheese with peppercorns).

I paired the cheeses with some dried fig bread, a fruit and nut crostini, caramelized pecans, and honey hazelnut crackers -- all phenomenal with the sweet, fruity, sharpness of the Cabot, and also good to tame the mild kick from the Marco Polo's peppercorns. If I had a little more room on the plate I would have added a dried tart fruit to give the Humboldt Fog's acidity a better friend. I did some fancy cubing, slicing and design work with the hard cheeses and SHAZAM! Cheese plate. Even my new cheese slate was given a chance to dress up and make an appearance.

Save for a few chunks of rind and leftover fig bread, the cheese plate was pretty much devoured by the end of the night. I heard phrases such as "this cheddar is amazing" or "this soft cheese is really something special" or "these candied pecans are like crack" bandied about. So I can only assume people were genuinely pleased with my first attempt at a bonafide classy cheese plate. And not a single person had to eat it over the sink. I count that as a success.

In my excitement, I forgot to take pictures.
I stole this from a friend, but I should have gotten an aerial shot.