illdothedisheslater

I’ve been terribly diligent guys.  I’m really putting in the time on this one, and today I did my homework, which involved a lot of driving (thanks, husband) and a lot of sniffing.

Today was cheese shopping day, which thus far has not been declared a federal holiday, but I may do one of those White House Petition thingies and see where it leads.  Up Nawth, just past Cincinnati is The Most Wonderful Store In The World, Jungle Jim’s – a FIVE ACRE grocery – and what a grocery!  You know how most stores have an “international” aisle, which consists of Barilla, Kikkoman, and Old El Paso?  JJ’s has an Italian department.  And a German one.  Japanese, Chinese, Thailand, Norway, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and on and on and on.  It’s got the biggest wine and beer department you’ve ever seen, dozens of varieties of butter, exotic meats, and the cheeses!  My stars, what a lot of cheeses!  But best of all, they have The Big Cheese:

You read that right – 773 pounds of amazing cheese.  They were supposed to have cracked into it, but sadly the replacement cheese broke during shipping, so they have to wait for a new one before they open and sell this big gorgeous hunk of hunk.  So I did not get to taste My Sun and Stars, but I had some fun anyway.

Here’s my haul:

(Admittedly I had a couple of these already, but I certainly put a dent in their inventory.  Here we have:

• Parmigiano Reggiano – the real stuff with the crystal crunch.
• Three blocks of whole-milk mozzarella (they have people there making fresh mozzarella onsite, which you can buy still warm, but the shelf-life is a bit limited.  This will last three weeks and taste a hundred times better than the part-skim, low-moisture Kraft stuff from the store.
• A lovely blue (or bleu), just because.
• Caciocavallo Silano – at a whopping $18/lb. I daren’t buy more than the weensy quarter-sphere.
• A lovely hunk of Provolone.
• A block of Provel – kind of a ghetto processed cheese food that I’ll need for St. Louis style pizza.
• Horseradish Cheddar and Garlic Herb Cheddar that they were handing out free samples of, and which I could not resist at two for $5.00.

So there you have it.  Let the games begin.