Where do the days go?  It's been over three weeks since my last post...

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I've simply been a bit lazy.  On the other hand, I am back into the thick of teaching, and on top of that, a nasty cold has been pestering the Wilson-Waldvogel family.  Who wants a big hunk of cheese when their nose is stuffed up and their taste-buds don't work?

But as soon as we began to feel better, we purchased a few tasty wedges from The Bedford Cheese Shop: Cato Corner's Hooligan and Andante Creamery's Tomme Dolce.

We've wanted to try Hooligan ever since we read Thorpe's mouthwatering analysis of it in The Cheese Chronicles.  But Thorpe is just one of many experts in the field who have celebrated the brilliance of Hooligan.  Another master cheesemonger/purveyor, Patricia Michelson, has this to say about it in her epic, Cheese: The World's Best Artisan Cheeses:

Elizabeth MacAlister and her son Mark have been making cheese since 1997; they have 13 different styles, which are seen in cheese shops and restaurants on the East Coast...Hooligan is a salt-washed-ring cheese with a lovely rich, buttery texture to the pate and patches of white and gray molds on the rind.  The pungent aroma on the orange, slightly sticky rind gives way to the sweet and savory flavors...

She goes on to suggest pairing this raw cow's milk wonder with an Alsace-style wine.  We served it up with olives--

--and a light red, and it didn't disappoint, even in the wake of our colds.  A special thanks to our friend Lauren, who stopped in to Michelson's shop in London, La Fromagerie, and picked up a signed copy of Cheese for us.  Lauren, like all of Cato's Corner's cheeses, comes from the great state of Connecticut.

But cheeses from Andante Dairy come from the West Coast--Petaluma, California, to be exact.  There the master cheesemaker, Soyoung Scanlan, crafts a wide variety of artisan cheeses made from goat and cow's milk supplied by two neighboring dairies.  Scanlan is a rockstar of sorts in the cheesemaking world, and, if tomme dolce were the measuring stick, then rightfully so.

All of Andante's cheeses are named after musical terms or notations, something Scanlan does to pay homage to her past life as a musician.  "Dolce" is no exception, but its name also tell us something else about its production process, which is summed up nicely in this excerpt from an article by a San Francisco food critic:

Using brandy and a plum conserve ... she created a wash for her wheels... It's not uncommon to rub wheels periodically with brandy or grappa to help seal the rind and flavor the cheese, but fruit conserve?

Scanlan washed the wheels with her brandy-conserve mixture every other day at first, tapering off as the 9-pound wheels matured. Released at about 6 months old, the tomme has a thin, even, immaculate rind with some surface mold and a uniform ivory interior with many small openings...

On the tongue, Tomme Dolce is semi-firm and smooth, with a judicious balance of sweet and salt. The aroma suggests caramel, garlic and aged beef, and it just doesn't quit...

Spot on.  I highly recommend it.