#34 - Fairy Tale Farm - Barbegazi

If you have been following week-to-week, you may have started to notice a pattern: This will be the third Vermont cheese I have posted in a row! I decided that my plan going forward will be to focus on one region for a few posts and then move on. So expect to see a few more cheeses from Vermont here before I move on to a new region! I'm thinking California, but I'll see how I feel when the time comes.

I had the good fortune to share this cocoa-dusted, alpine-style aged cheese with a few girlfriends at a recent game night. I was even more fortunate that one of our number is a lovely photographer and helped me take two of these three photos (thank you, Lin!) Can you tell which are which? YEP -- me too :)

This cheese --Barbegazi from Fairy Tale Farm -- was a great way to start our meal. On their website, Fairy Tale Farm explains that a barbegazi is "A Swiss mountain gnome, usually disguised as a rock." That is a perfect name for this cheese! I can imagine the whole wheel, dusted in cocoa, looking like a little rock that might secretly be a gnome :) This cheese is nutty and a bit sweet, and it crumbles slightly when you cut it. The cocoa is subtle, but it's a nice thing to get a whiff of while you take a bite and definitely adds some good flavor.

If you ever come across a wedge of this cheese, don't let the little gnome on the label scare you off! Great cheese lies inside.