Stichelton

It’s not quite as much a seasonal product as turkey, 90% of the annual national consumption of which is said to take place on Christmas day, but the holidays are also high season for the East Midlands producers of Stilton.

I had the opportunity to taste Stilton from one of the remaining artisanal producers, the 99-year old Colston Bassett Dairy, a few weeks back. It was mellow but deeply-flavoured, creamy-textured but not cloying—in every way a great cheese. But it was edged, as I’ve found to be the case on a number of head-to-head tastings, by an upstart from just down the road called Stichelton.

Stichelton is simply raw-milk Stilton, produced, bar a bit of technology, as this very old English cheese had been made for centuries before a listeria scare in 1989 led to mandatory pasteurisation. It’s said to have come out of a conversation at a Borough Market pub between Randall Hodgson, owner of Neals Yard Dairy and long-time champion of English artisanal cheese producers, and an American cheesemaker, Joe Schneider. They tracked down an ‘80s-era culture and convinced owners of a Holstein farm to partner with them with their quest to recreate the complex creaminess and sweetness of pre-pasteurisation Stilton.

To achieve this, Hodgson and Schneider have reintroduced traditional flavour-deepening methods, including the use of only minimal amounts of starter and rennet, hand-ladling the curds and allowing yeasts and bacteria to form a natural rind. The resulting cheese can’t be called Stilton, as EU regulations now prescribe both counties of production (Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire) and the use of pasteurised milk. (It takes its name instead from that given to Stilton village in the medieval Domesday Book.) And with far smaller production capacity, it can’t aspire to capture more than a tiny segment of even the top-end Stilton market. But it’s a real treat for those who are able to try it.

Stilcheton devotees describe the cheese as having a gentle nuttiness on both the nose and palate. The blueing is moderate and integrated, and the texture lush without becoming sloppy. I find it to be both quite savoury, almost meaty, and moreishly sweet. The finish can be fantastically long.

In London, Stilchelton can be bought at Neals Yard Dairy, La Fromagerie, the cheese counters at Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason, and several other independent shops. You can follow the cheesemakers on http://twitter.com/sticheltondairy.

Coulommiers

We’ve been eating mostly English cheeses recently, as the range and quality at our standard weekend shopping destinations (Borough and Maltby Street) are just fantastic. But a different itinerary yesterday brought me to La Fromagerie, probably the capital’s best source for perfectly-aged French cheeses. Somehow I managed to bring home only two: a small slab of St Nectaire that was escaping its rind but balanced mellow sweetness with a certain dirtiness, and a half of Coulommiers.

Even in Paris I didn’t often see Coulommiers, despite it being made in a town only 40 miles or so to the east. Here in London, I’ve found it only in a few high-end cheese shops. It may be that production is relatively small, or that it tends to get overlooked in favour of the not wholly dissimilar and far better known Brie and Camembert.

Depending on the version of the story, Coulommiers is either the progenitor of Brie or its descendant. Indeed Brie de Melun, the less popular of the two main Brie varieties, is produced just down the road in the town of the same name. Like Brie, Coulommiers is semi-soft, with a butter-coloured interior capable of becoming almost liquid when very ripe, and a bloomy white rind. It has the earthy, mushroomy tang of a good Brie, but alongside that there’s also a gentle nuttiness. Some find it a bit creamier and richer on the palate. It’s smaller than Brie too, with a whole cheese averaging just 500 grams.

Oddly, although it’s long-established and rooted in a particular town, Coulommiers hasn’t received AOC status. While this means that variation on the recipe is technically allowable, the only distinction seems to be between semi-industrial production, which uses pasteurised milk and ages for about a month, and artisal production, where the milk is raw and the maturation time doubled.

A final reason to seek it out? Even at the fancy-pants place where I bought it, a 250 gram piece was only £5. Given the prices of proper cheese (English or French), finding a tasty (relative) bargain is always a boon.

For Coulommiers in London, try La Fromagerie, Paxton & Whitfield or the financial district outpost of Parisian cheesemonger, Androuet.

Late spring salad

On our table, salad is usually nothing more than some nice leaves, simply dressed with a bit of olive oil and sherry vinegar and served following our main course and before or after cheese. If we’re feeling ambitious, there might be some nut oil (like this fantastic stuff we’ve been rationing since our last trip to Paris) or Dijon mustard mixed in, or maybe some chives from the window box.

When the weather is warm-ish, we sometimes eat a substantial salad for a weekend lunch or supper, likely something involving tomatoes, olives and herbs, bulked out by bulgur, farro or stale bread cubes. There’s the ever-popular Nicoise, and on the rare occasions when we’re willing to bypass the tomatoes, something with rice noodles, herbs and a sour-sweet-funky dressing. But as for meal-opening salads, our repertoire is functionally limited to a much more wintery assemblage of ingredients like endive, blue cheese and walnuts, or one of a number of variations on roasted beetroot.

There was, however, a recent deviation from form. Inspiration came in the form of the freshest peas, broad beans, and asparagus, all bought that morning from just down the road (and picked the previous evening.) The peas were, for once, better than frozen, their sugars not yet turned to starch, and still small enough that they could be eaten raw. The broad beans were young and creamy enough to do the same once they were double-podded. Even the asparagus were left uncooked, instead shaved into long slivers. These were all bedded on some soft, slightly curly leaves, studded with thinly-sliced radishes and mint. Some blobs of a soft, tangy cheese (we used crowdie, a light Scottish cream cheese, but a rindless, spreadable goats cheese or sheeps' milk ricotta would also work well) added richness and creaminess, while a drizzle of lemon juice and some olive oil drew it all together. The result was not only beautiful to look at, but may have even outshone the new house favourite of duck confit which followed.

I’d happily eat this salad at least once a week for the next few months. But I suspect that it may have been, like the perfect restaurant found on the last day of a holiday, a one-time pleasure. When I’m next at the market (in this case not for another two weeks), the peas and broad beans will likely be larger and coarser, the former perhaps not worth the trouble and (relative) expense, the latter now better suited for a summer minestrone, or a dish of gnocchi and pesto. And the asparagus, which arrived weeks early due to an abnormally warm April, may no longer be at their prime.

There will be many compensations, of course: perhaps the first courgettes, tiny, with their flowers attached, at least a few more weeks of very good strawberries and, if the recent rain abates, some cherries. All will make for some very good eating. But the search for a salad continues.

Une Salade Betterave, Mâche, Noix et Fromage Bleu (A Salad of Beetroot, Lamb's Lettuce, Walnuts and Blue Cheese)

Though I’m only occasionally attentive to the language’s humorous quirks, I’ve lately found a number of delightful French turns-of-phrase. Sleet is a mélange of rain and snow, while a treadmill is known as a tapis roulant, or rolling carpet. Most entertaining is a variety of roasted beet known as crapaudine, a name likely bestowed because of the similarity between the beet’s rough, pock-marked skin and that of the crapeau, or toad.

While the lettuce here usually requires washing and spinning, and the best carrots are thoroughly encrusted with soil, beets come handily pre-boiled or roasted. The former are often vacuum-packed and sold in supermarkets. (While perfectly serviceable—and far superior to their vinegar-soaked British counterparts—they lack the earthy sweetness brought on by roasting.) The latter can easily be found at outdoor markets, where they are speared out of packing crates with long forks. Select vendors should have crapaudines.

A heritage variety thought to date back several centuries, crapaudines can immediately be distinguished from ordinary roasted beets by their shape: conical instead of spherical. A closer inspection reveals the distinguishing texture and, usually, a higher price tag.

I’ve used crapaudines to make a quick, extra-flavourful borscht. But most often, I settle for a composed salad. A classic plate begins with a bed of soft lettuce—I like the gentle grassiness of mâche, or lambs lettuce, though watercress or a mesclun mix are also suitable. Next, fresh-roasted walnuts or hazelnuts bring crunch, while echoing the earthiness of the beets. Finally, soft, crumbly cheese adds richness and lactic tang. A creamy, mild blue like Fourme d’Ambert is classic, though nubs of pure-white goats cheese (you could try a young crottin or Maconnais, both squidgy and rindless) make for a particularly attractive presentation. A nut oil dressing sharpened with red wine or sherry vinegar melds the ingredients.

Accompanied by good bread, this can stand alone for lunch. It would also make a visually striking starter before a monochrome main course such as roast chicken. Just two caveats. The beets and dressing make this a challenging match for wine. And the salad should be made just before serving, to avoid the beetroot bleeding onto the cheese.

Roasted Beetroot Salad with Mâche, Walnuts and Cheese
Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s The Cook and the Gardener
Serves 2
Total time: 20 minutes; Active time: 20 minutes

1 handful walnuts
2 handfuls mâche
1 medium-sized roasted beetroot
2 tablespoons walnut oil
1 heaping teaspoon sherry vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
80-100 grams Fourme d’Ambert

Place a heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. Add walnuts, turning occasionally, until browned in spots, 7-10 minutes. Remove from heat to cool.

While the nuts are toasting, pick through mâche, removing any wilted leaves or large stems. Wash thoroughly in cool water and dry in a salad spinner.

Remove any remaining skin from the beetroot and slice into half-moons.

Pour oil into a cruet or small bowl. Drip in vinegar, add mustard and season to taste. Whisk until well-emulsified.

Arrange mâche on a serving plate. Cover with slices of beetroot. Crumble walnuts over the vegetables. Cut the cheese into small chunks and scatter on top. Drizzle over dressing and serve.

Tomme Fleurette

Forget the picture of the sweet, flower-munching cow on the wrapping, the pale, innocuous rind and the fact that it’s Swiss. This is deeply sexy cheese, practically feral when left out of the fridge for an hour or two.

Hand-made with raw (unpasteurized) cow’s milk in Rougemount, a tiny town in Francophone Switzerland, Tomme Fleurette is a recent creation by the mustachioed darling of the Swiss cheesemaking world, Michel Beroud. His Fleurette is far softer and creamier than most other mountain cheeses (known as tommes). This is due to its short affinage, or ripening time—just ten days, as compared to 3 months or more for the popular Tomme de Savoie—and the use of damp, moisture-protecting caves. The resulting cheese has a soft, bloomy rind barely containing an unctuous, oozing paté. Its texture calls for good, plain bread, but it is not so stinky as to exclude the use of fingers, while the taste is surprisingly rounded for such a young cheese, milky but not bland, full-bodied though not aggressive. Writing in the popular magazine, l’Hebdo, Jean-Pierre Coffe commented that he could spend an entire afternoon with his eyes closed, just inhaling its aroma.

Coffe, I fear, is rather missing the point. Buy the cheese*, get some wine (a round, not too oaky white or a light red) and bread, and don’t tell me the rest.


Should you be unable to find Tomme Fleurette, try St Marcellin, St Felicien, or even Vacherin Mont D’or, all cow’s milk cheeses made in a similar style in the French-Swiss Alps.

Fourme d'Ambert

One of my food resolutions for the new year was to try new cheeses, as I’d fallen into a tasty, if predictable, habit of sticking with a few long-established favourites. Accordingly, on my first January visit to the fromagerie, I picked out two sheep’s milk cheeses at random. I was smugly gratified when they turned out to be so obscure that I could find no information about them on the internet. They were tasty enough, but apparently not so memorable, as I can no longer recall either their names or taste profiles.

So when purchasing for a small dinner party last Sunday, I returned to a reliable guest-pleaser that I’d be pleased to nibble at the rest of the week. Fourme d’Ambert is a blue cows’ milk cheese from the Auvergne, a rural region in south-central France. One of France’s oldest cheeses (some date its production back to the Roman period), Fourme d’Ambert takes its name from the old French word for cheese (derived from the Latin “forma”, meaning form or shape) and a town on the eastern plateau. Made in a tall cylindrical shape, usually with pasteurized milk, it is cellar-aged for a minimum of one month. During this time, it develops a thin, dry grey/white crust, and creamy-white coloured interior with even blue veining.

Described on its official website as le plus doux des fromages bleus (the sweetest blue cheese), Fourme d’Ambert has little of the aggressive tang or bitterness which characterizes other blue cheeses. (Certain specimens are even injected with vouvray moulleux, a white dessert wine, during ageing.) Its texture is dense, creamy, and slightly sticky at times, while the taste is round and nutty. It is likeable, moreish even, but neither insipid nor one-dimensional. I’d happily eat it alone for dessert or a snack, but it also pairs nicely with walnuts and hazelnuts, autumnal fruit and root vegetables. And the price, at least in France, is gentle, all the more reason—resolution be damned!—to keep it on the shortlist.

Head over to Chez Loulou around the 15^th for her monthly round-up, Fête du Fromage. I’ll be there, along with other tasty options for raising your Vitamin D intake.

Sainte Maure du Touraine

Well before my cheese suppliers go on summer vacation, my purchases undergo a seasonal shift. Blue cheese is banished until the pears appear in late September, anything too oozy or with a washed rind takes a hiatus and even favourites like Comte only emerge to finish off a bottle of chunky, spicy red wine. On regular rotation are feta, which I mash into a chunky dip with yogurt, cucumber, dill and mint, mozzarella, which appears predictably with tomatoes, roasted peppers and pesto and lots of different types of goats cheese.

I’m happy to eat goats cheese year round, but there are a few reasons why it’s almost always in my fridge these days. Goats cheese tends to go well with summery wine, particularly rosé from Provence or the Loire and, classically, sauvignon blanc. It’s even a decent match with lighter-weight reds, particularly slightly-chilled cabernet franc, also from the Loire. Even with creamier styles, its characteristic “twang”, or acidity, makes goats cheese feel and taste a bit lighter. And it’s a natural match with seasonal produce—from peas and fava beans to tomatoes, courgettes and all sorts of salad greens. Fresh, un-aged goats cheese even makes a delicious dessert, either plain with peaches, berries and a bit of honey, or in a pannacotta or mousse. Finally, all but the most delicate varieties can withstand a few hours out of the fridge without melting, stinking or becoming greasy.

My regular cheesemonger sells upwards of fifty French goats cheeses. Among the most striking are the pyramidal, ash-coated Valencay and the Banon, dipped in eau-de-vie and aged in chestnut leaves. The Bouton d’Oc makes a bite sized appetizer, while servings of aged goats cheeses from either the Alps or Pyrenees* are sliced off a 3 kg wheel. Texture is dependent on style, aging and season, with the myriad of possibilities captured on the scale from moelleux (creamy, moist, also soft) to sec (dry, most likely also firm).

Though I try to experiment, I’ve developed some firm favourites, including Sainte Maure du Touraine. Taking its name from the ancient province of Touraine (now the departement of Indre-et-Loire) and a local martyr, Sainte Maure is made from raw goats cheese, formed into a 5 inch log and dipped into ground ash before being ripened from anywhere from 10 days to 6 weeks. Its texture is dense and almost fudgy, going creamy around the edges as it gets older. It is often described as having a mildly nutty aroma, a lemon-tinged lightness on the tongue, particularly when younger, and a mouth-filling, though not aggressively, “goaty” taste. Perhaps its most distinguishing physical feature is a narrow straw running inside the length of the cheese, once used to help aging but now purely decorative.

There’s certainly no reason why Sainte Maure couldn’t be used in a savoury tart or salad, though the ash-coating is less attractive when sliced and strewn. I serve it with nothing more than some good bread, sauvignon blanc and, if being fancy, a not-too-sweet jam, particularly one made with gooseberries, white figs or green tomato. With a plate of tomatoes to start and perhaps some raspberries or peaches to finish, it is supper enough on a hot, still evening like this one.


* French mountain cheeses are collectively referred to as tomme and can be made from cows, goats and/or sheeps milk.

Stilton et Lincolnshire Poacher

A few years ago, I had a work trial at Neals Yard Dairy, the renowned purveyor of artisanal British cheese. After a day of wearing wellies, cleaning floors and scrubbing counters, I was turned down. The stated reason? An inability to stretch plastic wrap neatly over the large cheese rounds.

I can’t claim discrimination by the shop’s managers—I was terrible at wrapping cheese, and probably not much better at describing its taste—but it did seem that a high proportion of the employees were male, with a propensity towards scruffy facial hair. This was also true of the gentleman who served us last weekend, though he was both generous in his tastings and eager to explain his cheeses.

As is so often the case at Neals Yard, we gravitated towards two highly-popular cheese types: blue and cheddar. The former is rightly dominated by Colston Bassett Stilton, a buttery, slightly crumbly cows milk cheese; an unpasteurised upstart, Stichelton, is more variable but at times stunning. On this occasion the Stilton won easily, showing the mellow yet almost savoury flavours which make it such a favourite.

Deciding amongst the cheddar-style cheeses (so called because of the process of “cheddaring” curds into uniform blocks) was considerably harder. Our usual choice is the blue-ribbon standard, Montgomery’s, one of just three cheese-makers recognized by the Cheddar Presidium for continuing artisanal practices in a small corner of England’s West Country. Aged for upwards of a year, Montgomery’s is nutty, a bit dry, and riddled with the same kind of caramelised, sweet-salty crystals that can be found in a good Parmesan. The Keens, which we tried next, had more of the characteristic cheddar tanginess, along with a slightly moister texture. But after some further tasting, we went home with a sizable chunk of Lincolnshire Poacher, a cheese from England’s Northeast which on that day combined the complexity of the Montgomery’s with the slightly smoother mouthfeel and refreshing sharpness of the Keen’s.

Most good Paris cheesemongers have le cheddar anglais and even occasionally a small wheel of stilton hidden away in a corner of their display cases. And, for a price, it is even possible to buy Neals Yard cheese from a few of the most upmarket fromageries. But while I do have late-night urges for a hunk of sharp, almost meaty cheddar, piled on top of an oatcake smeared with chutney, this—and so many other things—are best indulged on a superficially similar but far more stylish red couch that lives on the other side of the English Channel.

Iranganis’ Date Chutney
Vegetarian Cooking School, Bath

While you search for proper cheddar, make this chutney, which will only improve with age. Another dried fruit—perhaps abricot—could be easily substituted. If it will be kept in the fridge, the jar doesn’t need to be sterilized.

200 ml rice vinegar
200 ml water
2 garlic cloves
thumb-sized piece of ginger
½ cinnamon stick
4 cardamon pods
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp salt
250g pitted dates
4 tbsp brown sugar

Heat the vinegar and water. Finely slice the garlic and ginger, lightly crush the cardamom pods, and add, along with the other spices and salt, to the liquid. Simmer covered for 5 minutes. Chop half the dates coarsely. Add the chopped and whole dates and sugar to the vinegar mixture and simmer gently, uncovered, until the dates are very soft, about 20 minutes. Let the mixture cool completely then decant into jars and refrigerate.

See this again, along with lots of other cheese, at the next Fete du Fromage round-up, available here later this week.

Le Prochain "Grand Fromage" (The Next Big Cheese)

Although it's been nearly 10 years since I lived in New York City, I continue to make a weekly ritual out of reading the restaurant reviews in the New York Times. I have little practical need to know what's new in the city's food scene (I visit at most once a year), yet I persist, cataloguing the data next to mental lists of good London pubs (I rarely drink beer) and out-of-the-way French country bistros (I don't drive here). Travel destinations and clothing purveyors get similar files; should I ever wish to vacation in Buenos Aires or buy an exquisite pair of stilettos, I'll have the inside track on where to go.

Mine is a kind of expertise that's well-researched, but often derivative. I take some pride in knowing which of Paris' neo-bistros are getting plaudits these days, but I haven't eaten in more than a few. The same is true for cookbooks; based on what I seem to know about new publications, you'd imagine I actually had some of them on my shelf.

So when I tell you that I've found the next sensation in the world of cheese, you might guess that I've merely been trolling the web again. But for what my palate is worth, I've tasted this stuff nearly half a dozen times now, and it deserves any amount of purple prose.

The cheese in question is Brin D’Amour (literally, and unfortunately, "spot of love"), made in Corsica from unpasteurized sheep’s milk and aged in a coating of rosemary, thyme and juniper berries. I like it best when it’s relatively young—perhaps a month old—and still delicately sour and springy. But because of the herbs and its slight saltiness, it epitomizes the Mediterranean at any age, conjuring up a sense of place, that is only enhanced by the accompaniments of tomatoes, olives, rustic bread and tumblers of wine.

After brocciu, the fresh, ricotta-like cheese similarly used in pastas and desserts, Brin D’Amour might be the most well-known of Corsica’s cheeses. But the others I’ve eaten—made, like the vast majority of the island’s dairy products, from sheep’s milk—have been stunners as well. To me, the most distinctive are also slightly soft and creamy, like the lightly tangy, washed-rind U Pecurino. Even the dryer Corsican cheeses are rounded and nutty, less sharp and saline than their Greek and Turkish counterparts and lacking the slight greasiness that sometimes plagues Spanish varieties.

Corsica has all the ingredients--dramatic landscape, beautiful produce and an aura of rustic authenticity--to make it the next big thing amongst food lovers. But while I'd be amused to see roasted kid served up in fashionable restaurants, I'm hoping that its cheese somehow eludes mass popularity. Because while I'd love, for once, to be a trend-spotter, that could mean less for me.

St Felicien

Until about 5 years ago, I didn’t really eat cheese. I sometimes left in on my pizza, instead of ordering without or pulling it off in a single, greasy layer. And I occasionally enjoyed creamy, mild goat’s cheese, the kind that came in a clear, button-shaped tub at the supermarket. But on the whole, no cheese.

Five years, I also don’t remember having any cellulite. Go figure.

I was reflecting on the cellulite yesterday because I spent most of the afternoon naked, and a portion of that time having my thighs scrubbed raw by a woman who I wouldn’t want to meet in a back alley. But I took a quick look around the hamman (Turkish steam bath). The French woman, even the skinny ones, have it too. Must be the cheese.

But let me tell you about a cheese that, unless you are regularly photographed for Hello, you should be eating now.

Jerome, my local fromagier, is currently selling St. Felicien. Also known as Tentation de St. Felicien, this is a lightly-aged, raw-milk cows’ cheese from France’s Rhone region. Approximately the size and shape of a large hockey puck, St. Felicien has soft, bloomy crust and a creamy, even molten interior, the result of using caille doux, or sweet curds, in the production. The flavour is mild and ever so slightly sour, the texture gloriously smooth and unctuous but not cloying. You could warm it in the oven until it was totally liquid, but it works quite well at room temperature, scooped up with a spoon. As well as being delicious, it’s probably the sexiest cheese I’ve ever encountered.

To say any more would be incedent. Anyway, unless you see me beach-side, something that hasn't happened for a good number of years, you won't be catching a glimpse of that cellulite anyway.

Au Courant

It should come as no surprise that I've been eating lots of (French) cheese lately. In the last week or two, there have been soft, slightly oozy goats cheese buttons (sometimes with a jammy compote of white figs and myrtle) a slab of tomme du savoie, a rubbery, medium-soft cows milk cheese whose rind smells like a cave of dirty socks, and some montbriac, mellow, ash-coated and interlaced with blue-green veins. But today at the market, I headed directly to the Italian stall, purveyors of the all-important trio of pasta (De Cecco, bien sur), parmesan and pancetta. This time, though, I wanted some ricotta, preferably the extra-flavourful sheep's milk variety. Lunch was to be a simple cheese-accented tomato sauce and strawberries--perhaps with some more of the cheese.

While catching up on some blog and virtual newspaper reading over my aforementioned meal, I was amused to discover that the homely ricotta is getting some good press. Some days back, the Wednesday Chef capped off an ode to her Italian family with a NYT recipe for pasta with greens and sheep's milk ricotta. And in this weekend's NYT, no less, Amanda Hesser (who has previously married ricotta with pancakes, cheese balls, a bevy of toasts and zucchini) heralded ricotta as a worthy representative of the plain-food movement.

It's nice to be fashionable. Particularly considering that my wardrobe is oh-so 2002.

On cheese and a certain cheese-lover

Some buy flowers, chocolate, a trinket, perhaps. I show my love with cheese.

It was not always this way. Indeed, the rubbery, insipid stuff consumed during my 1980s suburban childhood, and the low-fat abomination I favoured during my calorie-conscious college years, would have been as pathetic a token of affection as the free plastic mugs sometimes on offer at 7-11.

There were missteps as well, most notably the palate-burning (pavement-eating?) hockey puck of goats milk--aka the cheese of mass destruction--which I proudly brought home from Borough for our first holidays together. The problems of odiferousness have not been entirely overcome, though I have found that expensive hand wash does much to counter the smell of barn.

But it could only have been love that induced me to share my astounding cheese course at Gordon Ramsay. And while I've never had lobster or caviar, I can't imagine anything more perfectly decadent (or romantic, excepting the stinky fingers) than a midnight feast for two of Munster, duck terrine and late-harvest Alsace gewurtztramminer.

So, to the man with an unerring palate, who changed my life in more ways than one when he stood with me in front of the glass counter at the Oxford Cheese Company, happy birthday. I hope that my adventures in the land of 246 cheeses always bring me back to you. I won't arrive empty-handed.