Ibores

Ibores is a firm raw goat-milk cheese from the ruggedly beautiful region of Extremadura in the province of Cáceres in the southwest part of Spain.

Ibores cheese has a Denomination of Origin protection; it is made exclusively from whole, raw milk from goats of the Serrana, Verata, Retinta breeds and their crossbreeds. Ibores cheese is matured a minimum of 60 days, some wheels labeled 'Artisanal" are aged at least 100 days.

Ibores comes in a small 1.2 kg (2 lbs.) flat cylindrical wheel measuring 15 cm (6") across and approximately 9 cm (3.5") high. It has a striking orange-ochre colour rind that has been rubbed with pimentón (paprika) and a dense ivory colour paste with a few small crevices.

Ibores has a buttery and moist texture with a pleasant creamy taste on the palate. Ibores is slightly acidic and a moderately piquant flavour with a lovely goat-milk lingering tangy finish.

Ibores pairs nicely with an oaky flavoured Spanish red wine from Rioja.

http://www.quesoibores.org

Fromagerie La Station De Compton

It seems like I have been away for a long time. My apologies for the delay in updating my blog but it is gardening season and I can't help but take every free time I can to work outdoors and attend to my garden.

I've also been on a lovely road trip with my sister Pauline and my mom through very scenic regions of Quebec; the Centre du Quebec and the lovely Eastern Townships in the southeast of Quebec.

One of the most memorable stops of my holiday was a visit at one of Quebec's finest cheesemakers the Fromagerie La Station located in the quaint village of Compton near Lake Massawippi in Memphrémagog County.

Fromagerie La Station de Compton make excellent farmstead cheeses, all made of raw milk from a heard of dairy cows raised in an organic farming environment. The family farm and cheese factory is owned and operated by Pierre Bolduc and his wife Carole and their three sons; Simon-Pierre, Vincent and Martin who all play important roles in the management and fabrication of their award winning artisanal cheeses.

Driving up to the farm we are greeted by a herd of Holstein cows that seem very happy to be out grazing on the fresh green grass in this beautiful scenic countryside.

At the Fromagerie's cheese shop we are warmly greeted by co-proprietor Carole Routhier who graciously accepted to give us a wonderful guided tour of their family operation.

One of the first steps of cheese making; the warm morning organic cow milk is brought in and then coagulated and stirred.

The curded milk is then pumped out of the vat into cheesecloth where the whey can continue to drain before the cheese is placed into their molds.

Here the cheeses have been removed from their molds (forms) and are soaking in brine.

Spruce boards drying before heading to the salle d'affinage. It's the spruce boards that give the cheese that distinctive rustic woodsy aroma.

In the affinage room, the cheese wheels are brushed with salt and the wheels are turned.

The longest process of cheese-making is the affinage, where the wheels are left to age to achieve that specific distinctive flavour. The affinage time varies for each of the Fromagerie La Station cheeses; La Raclette de Compton and Comtomme take 90 days, Chemin Hatley is aged 3 months, Comtomme Signature is aged for 4 to 5 months and Alfred Le Fermier is aged 8 months and some wheels up to 24 months.

It's lunch time and at the Fromagerie La Station cheese shop people line up to feast on their delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.

If you are at all in the Eastern Townships region this summer I strongly recommend a trip to Compton to visit one of Quebec's finest cheesemakers the Fromagerie La Station.

Call ahead if you would like to book a guided tour.

Fromagerie La Station
440 Hatley Road (route 208)
Compton, QC J0B 1L0
Tél.: 819 835-5301

www.fromagerielastation.com

Le Chevrot

Le Chevrot is an exquisite goat-milk cheese made in France's Vallée de La Loire.

Le Chevrot is produced by Sèvre et Belle, a small co-op created and run by people in the village of Celles-sur-Belle in the Poitou-Charentes region in western France. Through the 100 years Sèvre et Belle have been making goat cheese, they has remained faithful to tradition while constantly adapting to advances in technology. 

Le Chevrot is a small 5 cm (2") high 200 g (7 oz) goat-milk cheese that is produced in both raw and pasteurised milk versions. This chèvre is a "living" cheese, meaning the cheese continues to ripen when it is kept refrigerated at a temperature of 4-6°C.  When Le Chevrot is young it is soft, creamy and mild then as the cheese matures it becomes dryer and firmer and the characteristic goat taste is increased to perfection. A younger Chevrot pairs nicely with white wine and a more mature Chevrot is well appreciated with a bolder red.

Sèvre et Belle dairy also produces award winning barrel-churned butter and other goat milk cheeses among them Cabridoux and Le Chèvre d'Or.

http://www.coop-sevrebelle.fr/

Grace Jones

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACE JONES!
This weekend Grace Jones will be celebrating her 65th birthday.

I've been a big fan of Grace Jones for many years. Grace's striking appearance, her unique look, her signature stylised vocals and her music are all reasons that to this day she remains my all-time favourite recording artist. READ MORE

Enjoy this video of one of my favourite tunes by Grace Jones; “I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”. 



Brendan O'Carroll - Mrs. Brown's Boys

Brendan O'Carroll is an Irish writer, producer, comedian, actor and director; he was born in Finglas, a suburb of Dublin. 

Brendan O'Carroll has been a popular comedian in Ireland since the early 1990's, he is best known for portraying the foul-mouthed Irish mother Agnes Brown in Mrs. Brown's Boys.
 

 

Mrs. Brown's Boys is an award winning BBC sitcom created by and starring Brendan O'Carroll. The show is based on O'Carroll's character he created for an Irish radio series he did in 1992 before using the character for his stage plays which were developed from books and straight to DVD films.

Mrs. Brown's Boys is about an 'Irish mammy' who refuses to cut the apron strings from her six grown-up children who are all adults but she treats them as if they are five. As well as having to deal with her children, she has her hands full dealing with her best friend Winnie, the elderly Grandad and various friends and family members.

Agnes Brown is an outspoken woman never at a loss for words. Here is an outrageously funny exert from Mrs. Brown's Boys staring Brendan O'Carroll as Mrs. Brown.

 

 

http://www.mrsbrownsboys.com
 

Viola

Viola Sororia

Viola sororia is a species of Violaceae, a genus of flowering plants belonging to the Violet family. 

Viola sororia, known as the Common Blue Violet, is a stem-less herbaceous hardy perennial plant that is native to eastern North America. It is known by a number of common names including; Common Meadow Violet, Purple Violet, Woolly Blue Violet, Hooded Violet and Wood Violet.

Violets grows easily in all types of soils and are a good choice for a shady or woodland garden or if you are looking for a quick natural look to a garden. Violets can be aggressive and easily invade lawns, but are an excellent choice for a ground cover. This is a very early flowering violet; it blooms from April to June.

Viola sororia have heart-shaped, scalloped dark green leaves and pretty blue violet flowers that droop from slender stems. The plant propagates on horizontal runners that root every 3 to 5 inches.

Violets are the host plants for Fritillary butterflies. Like many other butterflies, their caterpillars are very selective about what they eat. They do not go for milkweeds as do monarchs; they prefer violets instead. Without violets, there would be no more of those pretty orange and black speckled butterflies.

As well as being used as a common garden plant, Viola sororia has historically been used for food and folk medicine. The flowers picked in early spring when newly opened can be eaten raw in salads or crystallized and used to decorate cakes. The viola flowers can be taken fresh or dried in an infusion to help coughs and bronchitis and also used for soothing nerves, headaches and insomnia.  Herbalists claim that an infusion of dried leaves or dried roots of the viola can alleviate catarrh and bronchitis.

Pico

Pico is a lovely pasteurized goat-milk cheese manufactured and refined in Périgord in the Aquitaine region of south-west France.

 

Pico is a small 100 g (3.5 oz) chèvre that comes in its own cute little round wooden box. It is an uncooked, unpressed soft cheese with an elegant creased natural rind that smells of fresh hay. The soft paste and rind are cream coloured with slight golden streaks. 

Pico has a fine and smooth texture, a rich creamy buttery nutty flavour with a subtle goat tang. Pico pairs nicely with a fruity champagne or a sparkling wine.

Pico is produced by Fromagerie la Picandine in Saint-Astier. Picandine have been making fresh and refined goat-milk cheeses since 1990, among them the famous Cabécou du Périgord.

Chemin Hatley

Chemin Hatley is a firm organic cheese made by Fromagerie La Station de Compton located in Québec's Eastern Townships.

Chemin Hatley is named after the road that stagecoaches used to travel on between Québec and Boston. La Station's farm and cheese factory are located along this Hatley Road located in Compton in Southeastern Québec.

This farmstead cheese comes in a 4 KG wheel which is ripened for 3 months and made with organic thermised cow-milk. The pressed semi-cooked paste is cream-coloured with a rather smooth elastic texture that features small crevices. Chemin Hatley has an orangey coloured rind and a distinct floral aroma.

Chemin Hatley has a creamy buttery texture with a moderate fruity aftertaste. Chemin Hatley pairs well with a fresh aromatic white wine from Bordeaux.

 

Fromagerie La Station de Compton is operated by Pierre Bolduc with his wife Carole and their sons. Their certified organic farm produces award winning farmstead cheeses such as Alfred Le Fermier, one of my favourite Quebec raw milk firm cheese, their popular Raclette de Compton as well as Comtomme.

http://www.fromagerielastation.com/

Der Dritte Raum - Swing Bop (Acid Pauli Remix)

 

Der Dritte Raum is a techno group from Göttingen, Germany consisting of Andreas Krüger and Ralf Uhrlandt. Since 1994, when Der Dritte Raum released their first album, the group's sound has changed without ever losing their uniqueness. From Techno, to Trance, to Tech House, to Jazz the group's style has developed into a very progressive club sound.

Swing Bop is a track from Der Dritte Raum's album entitled Rosa Rausch released on Save To Disc Recordings. This funky version is the Acid Pauli's Remix, which appears on the maxi single Swing Bop Remixes released in 2011.

I love the video that was put together for this track. It reminds me of Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Fort Erie, Ontario where we used to go in the summer time when I was growing up. Who could forget those stomach churning rides on The Comet, the famous wooden rolling coaster.

Swing Bop will make you want to get up, kick off your shoes and dance.

Electronics musician Andreas Krueger, the brain child behind Der Dritte Raum also records under Dr. DNA.

http://www.der-dritte-raum.de/

http://www.myspace.com/derdritteraum

Don Heliodoro

Don Heliodoro is a unique ewe´s milk cheese produced by Central Quesera Montesinos located in Jumilla in the Region of Murcia in the southeast of Spain. Montesinos has been a leading Spanish manufacturer of specialty cheeses since 1978.

Don Heliodoro is a delightful firm sheep-milk cheese that is covered with rosemary. It is produced in both pasteurised and raw milk versions and also without rosemary. The cheese is bathed in virgin olive oil every 15 days during the first months of affinage and then it is covered with rosemary and left to mature anywhere from 6 to 14 months depending on the type.

Don Heliodoro comes in a 3 kg wheel measuring 19 cm (7 1/2") in diameter and 10 cm (4") high. Don Heliodoro has that pleasant Pecorino aroma, characteristic to sheep's milk cheeses. Don Heliodoro is firm with a pale yellow paste that is dense yet still crumbly in texture. The cheese has a pleasant acidity, a bit spicy with rich olive oil and nutty flavours. Don Heliodoro is a real delight for all fine cheese lovers.

Don Heliodoro pairs nicely with a thick body red like a Sangiovese wine such as a Chianti Classico or a Spanish Malbec.

http://www.montesinos.es/