"cheese recipes" news and stories

Happy National Cheese Lover's Day!

Described by poet Clifton Fadiman as "milk's leap toward immortality," cheese makes everything better -- but we imagine we're preaching to the choir. There are hundreds of varieties around the world, dating back from about 7,000 B.C., when people first began to raise farm animals. The products range from mild, buttery and nutty, to sharp, tangy and pungent, and there's a cheese for just about every occasion.

We could wax poetic about an infinite list of our favorite brands, but instead we'll supply you with some of our unexpectedly cheese-oriented recipes for you to experiment with:

• Cheese Balls Three Ways
• Cheese Straws
• Ricotta Muffins
• Grilled Halloumi Cheese
• Belgian Leek Tart with Aged Goat Cheese
• Vegetable Cheese Chowder
• Agnolotti with Sweet Peas and Goat Cheese
• White Chocolate Ricotta Cheesecake
• Strawberry Mascarpone Tart with Port Wine Glaze

The web is a wonderful place, filled with news, information, how-to guides, games, and pornography. It also happens to be a place where you can find a ton of books...for free! At the Project Gutenberg site, I found this one: The Complete Book of Cheese, a 1955 book by Bob Brown.

This isn't just some small article-extended-to-book-length thing -- it's quite an extensive history of cheese, along with illustrations, personal observations, and recipes. Chapters include "I Remember Cheese," "Foreign Greats," "Native Americans," and "The Fondue." There's even an A to Z of cheese you might want to print out.

There's also a section titled "Fit For Drink," which tells you what drink to pair with what cheese. As the quote says, "A country without a fit drink for cheese has no cheese fit for drink."