This week has been a hugely busy one in the shop, which is great but has meant I’m a few days late on my blogging…
Ali and I spent an evening presenting a French cheese tasting evening at one of our local schools. This was our first tasting event so it was a bit nerve racking but once we got started the cheeses spoke for themselves! We took 8 cheeses along and talked the A-Level French students through all 8. The Tomme de Savoie was by far the favourite, closely followed by the Camembert de Normandie and then the Sainte Maure de Touraine.
We’ve also had to make up and deliver 20 hampers to our local shooting school where a corporate event was taking place. The hampers were to be given to each of the guests at the end of the day. We chose 4 different mini cheeses for the hampers – a Cheshire truckle, a St Marcellin pot, a baby Capricorn and a Royal Bassett Blue – as well as a small packet of oatcakes to complement them all.
Finally we’ve been out on the road to collect cheeses from our newest local cheese makers. Norton and Yarrow (aka Fraser and Rachel) only started making their goats cheeses at the beginning of 2016 and already they’ve won awards at both the British Artisan Cheese Awards and the British Cheese Awards. Fraser and Rachel make their cheeses at the Nettlebed Creamery which is a mere 7 miles from our shop ? Fraser and Rachel’s goat herd is made up entirely of pure bred Anglo Nubian goats. These goats produce a milk with a high fat content and so the resulting cheese is deliciously creamy. Fraser and Rachel are the only cheesemakers in the UK who make cheese from an exclusively pure bred Anglo Nubian herd. We’ve tasted their two cheeses – Brightwell Barrow and Sinodun Hill – and can vouch for the creaminess and the amazing taste. In addition to these two fabulous goats cheeses we stock St Bartholomew cheese which is also made at the Nettlebed Creamery.