It’s All Hallow’s Eve today (that’s Halloween for most for us!). Thus named because it is the day before All Saint’s Day. This was established by Pope Gregory III as a day to honour all of the Saints that have gone to heaven. Nowadays Halloween is a day to celebrate all things spooky and the children of Pangbourne have been buzzing all day in anticipation of getting dressed up tonight to head out trick or treating.
But it is totally amazing how quickly this year is flying by. It seems like a couple of days ago that I was writing about our trip to Prague and then I realised that a month has passed! They say that time flies when you’re having fun and I have to agree wholeheartedly. Every day here in Pangbourne is a total joy, we have such lovely customers and my colleagues behind the counter are all so wonderful that coming to work feels like I’m hanging out with my mates. It’s great!
I’m off to judge at the World Cheese Awards in a couple of weeks. The awards are one of the highlights of my year and this year they are being held in the city of Viseu, Portugal. I googled Viseu and it is famous for being the birth place of Vasco Fernandes. I then googled Vasco and was quite disappointed that the top hit has a Portuguese footballer who wasn’t born in Viseu at all but a bit more scrolling led me to the Wiki entry for Grão Vasco (the Great Vasco) who was one of the best Renaissance artists. His work looks impressive and I’m keen to visit the Grão Vasco Museum whilst I’m there.
Excitingly we had some amazing news a couple of week’s ago that I wanted to share with everyone. Jack, who has worked with us for just over a year, entered the Young Cheesemonger of the Year Competition back in August. The Academy of Cheese recently announced that he (and 5 others) had made it through to the final. This competition is open to any young (under 30) cheesemonger worldwide, and the finalists consist of 2 mongers from Australia as well as 4 Brits. The finals are held at the World Cheese Awards so Jack is going to be coming to Viseu with me. We are all really proud of him and I’m looking forward to being able to watch him in action in Portugal.
Our other exciting news is that I am going to start teaching the Academy of Cheese’s Level One and Level Two courses in the New Year. The courses will be run here in Pangbourne (and possibly online in the future). It’s a new venture for us but I’m hoping that it will be a success. I love learning about cheese and I’m really looking forward to being able to share my passion with like-minded people.
But what else is going on here in Pangbourne…? Our cheese counter is looking lovely and full at the moment. We are about to put November’s guest cheeses into the mix – we have a really amazing Welsh Blue cheese called Môn Las Blue. This is a creamy blue cheese made by Menai Jones on the beautiful island of Anglesey. Menai runs a small herd of pedigree Holstein Friesian cows which she breed’s herself on the farm. As well as using their own fantastic milk, Menai also uses the locally produced Halen Môn Anglesey sea salt in her cheeses. It’s a really gorgeous cheese and I’m looking forward to see how well it goes down in Pangbourne!
In other news…. Our Christmas orders are now open – if you would like to pre-order your festive cheeseboard from us please do so before the 8th December. You can either order online, drop us an email or simply pop into the shop and fill in a form!
