Ali and I have just been over in Dublin for the weekend. We’d offered last summer to take my mum to Dublin and we have finally managed to fulfil our promise, and of course whilst we were there we couldn’t resist exploring some of Ireland’s cheeses. We already stock a few Irish cheeses in the shop – Cashel & Crozier blue (made from cows’ and sheep’s milk respectively) as well as a washed rind cheese called Gubbeen & its Smoked version. We’ve also had Coolea in the past as well as Coolea with cumin but we figured that Ireland had a lot more to offer.
Our first port of call was the cheese counter in Fallon & Bryne where we met the fantastic Bobby. Us cheesemongers are a friendly bunch on the whole and we always love the opportunity to be able to talk cheeses with a fellow enthusiast. Bobby guided us through a tasting of his favourite Irish cheeses with a rather fab goats’ Gouda from Killeen being his top choice. A lot of the Irish Goudas are made by Dutch families to traditional recipes and the Killeen is no exception. We felt very welcomed and have even secured an invite back to go out and about around Ireland on a magical mystery cheese tasting tour. We just need to find another clear weekend in order to be able to take Bobby up on his offer!
Our next stop was Sheridans. Kevin and Seamus Sheridan are responsible for re-igniting artisan cheese making in Ireland. They’ve made it their mission to bring great farmhouse cheeses to the general public. Their shop in Dublin is small but perfectly formed. They use a mixture of fridges and a temperature controlled shop to allow them to have some cheeses permanently which makes it easier for their customers to be able to appreciate their fine selection. It is a lovely way to display cheese and I know that there are several shops that adopt a similar layout. However much I’d love to turn our shop into a large cold room I don’t think the building is really designed for it and so we’ll be keeping hold of our serve over fridges for the foreseeable future.
We then headed for Temple Bar open air food market and came across a cheese maker from Corleggy Cheeses showcasing his wares. It’s fabulous to be able to talk to a cheese maker about his cheeses and get first hand knowledge, it’s definitely a great perk of our job!
So from a cheese point of view our trip to Dublin was hugely informative, and it didn’t stop with the cheese. It was also fascinating to look around the Guinness Brewery even though neither of us took up the offer of a free pint of the black stuff! We looked around numerous churches, popped into Dublin Castle and even managed an open top bus tour 🙂
Dublin is a lovely city, the people were all very friendly and we had a great time. But back in the friendly land of Pangbourne and we are gearing up to Vaccherin day… this fabulous cheese is only available from October through to March as the summer milk is being used to make Comte. But the cows are down from roaming the mountains of the Jura and so the soft, creamy, delicious cheese is ready to be shipped across from the continent. It comes bound by a piece of spruce bark, the essence of which slowly permeates into the cheese giving it it’s fabulous flavour. We’ve waited a couple of extra weeks to make sure that it’s completely ready to go and so will have it in the shop in the next week or so. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to know when it hits our counter…
