July 2008:
Enriching Summer Salads

With the heat of summer getting into full gear, we’ve taken the liberty of selecting some of our favorite salad cheeses for this month’s offering. While feta is a classic salad cheese, we particularly love Gad Dairy’s. It’s also wonderful to marinate in olive oil with herbs, delivering an extra kick of flavor. Fontina may be a great melting cheese, but we love this pungent cheese sliced to ribbons and scattered over summer beets and grilled radicchio salads. And if you’re having a picnic, small cubes of English Cheddar with Caramelized Onions are a delightful surprise in any potato salad! Bulgarian Style Feta by Gad Dairy Israel's dairy industry is well respected in the Middle East for producing a wide range of artisanal cheeses, including Feta, Kashkaval, Edam, Gouda, Swiss, Cheddar, and Blue. The dairy industry is one of Israel's agricultural pillars and the country's farming system of Kibbutz collective farms and Moshav family cooperatives enable Israeli dairies to create great cheeses at reasonable prices. One of Israel's most accomplished dairies, Zuriel, makes wonderful Feta, now available on the export market. Made from 100% cow's milk, this Feta is great on salads, but is also excellent served before the meal drizzled with Extra Virgin olive oil. Fontina Val d'Aosta Fontina is the symbol of agriculture in Italy's tiny, French speaking Aosta Valley region. The cows that produce the milk for Fontina Val d'Aosta graze on high-altitude Alpine pastures dotted with wildflowers and native herbs. Fontina is a great cooking cheese, as it melts evenly without losing any flavor. Extremely aromatic (some might say "stinky"), Fontina is best noted for its value as a savory and fruity table cheese. Its slightly grassy flavor embodies the taste of a true raw milk cheese. English Cheddar with Caramelized Onions From the historic Wensleydale Creamery in England, this latest creation quickly made waves at the New York Fancy Food Show last summer. Creamy, buttery cheddar is perfectly blended with tangy, caramelized onions to produce a new English favorite. As versatile as it is addictive, this new cheddar has livened up everything from simple sandwiches to hot dogs and grilled portabellas in the igourmet kitchen. Click HERE to subscribe to the Cheese of the Month Club

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