My son Michael is back in culinary class. It's an online course which means that I get to have a lot of hands-on experience as a culinary coach for Mike. I'm no chef, but I'm making a lot of progress toward becoming a sous chef in my next life.
This week's assignment: Cheese Platter with a variety of cheeses, all artfully arranged on a platter. Then we had to taste the cheeses and rate them according to taste, texture, smell, like and dislike. Don't even get me started on all the cheese jokes I've had to endure over the past couple of days.
Here's the final product in all its glory.
From top left, clockwise; Maytag Blue, Dutch Gouda, Spanish Manchego, French Brie, Greek Mizithra in the middle. Each cheese cost between $16.99 & $19.99 per pound. In fact, you're looking at $34.08 worth of cheese on the platter. We sliced up a Braeburn apple, Bartlett pear, scattered green grapes and fresh raspberries over all. Toasted up some crunchy crostini with olive oil and butter. My favorite cheese was the Gouda. @daninreallife loved the Manchego. Mike really liked the Brie. Steve cleaned up on the raspberries. Next time we will drizzle some honey on the Mizithra and sprinkle it with chopped walnuts. Actually, next time we will skip the Mizithra and go with a nice Taleggio or perhaps a high quality goat cheese rolled in fresh herbs or lavendar.