Cooking with Cheese

While I am definitely dealing with a bit of post-holiday depression (especially with this freezing cold weather - brrrr), the good thing about the holiday season being behind us is that I have more time to post on a regular basis! And as a result, I have been getting lovely notes from my friends sending me all things cheese-related. For this post, I have my friend Steph to thank :)

I have been thinking a bit about how while I thoroughly enjoy building my list of cheeses, I also want to learn more about how to cook with cheese. It is intimidating! Some of the flavors are so complex I wouldn't even know where to start, and I cringe at the thought of wasting a $10 hunk of deliciousness by misusing it. The most I have managed so far is this quiche I made for Christmas - with half-pound of Gruyere...

But it would seem that I am not alone! Steph sent me this article from the NYT, and it turns out even someone who works with fancy food for a living can be intimidated by the idea of cooking with cheese.

In the article, Suzanne Lenzer describes how she teamed up with her cheesemonger friend Liz Thorpe to tackle some inventive uses of cheese in familiar dishes. To learn the full details about their La Tur salad dressing and goat cheese tomato bisque, definitely check out the article.

The thing I am most excited about it this cheese chart Lenzer included, which represents Thorpe's "six families of cheese":

This will be an awesome a resource - and not only in my attempts at cooking with cheese - I think it does a great job organizing cheese into categories. As I progress through my sampling this will be very helpful in terms of keeping track of flavors, methods and textures. Stay tuned! I'll be sure to share any successes I have in cooking with cheese (and to hide any miserable failures :P).