Of course, it is nice driving to that countryside of green rolling hills, but when you return late on a Sunday afternoon, you have to go through Pakenham which is five kilometres of car lots and plant hire yards and fast food outlets and furniture barns, punctuated by twenty sets of traffic lights timed to stop you every four hundred metres. That’s nuts. The ‘government’ is spending $242 million to build a bypass around Pakenham. Why not just take out all the traffic lights?
Those green hills (thank you, Jane Osmond) are hiding more and more of the kinds of small batch cheese makers that are often called ‘artisanal’ food producers, but I just call them artisans because I don’t agree that artisanal should even be a word. There are signs scattered through the district pointing to the existence of a gourmet food trail through the rolling hills and lush forests; which sounds like Hansel and Gretel following bits of ripe blue cheese and grissini sticks and the corks from bottles of Bass Philip chardonnay to a gingerbread house made by D. Chirico in a clearing, with plenty of parking out the front for Range Rovers.
Cheese is big around here. There’s a cheese maker over every hill and there are plenty of hills. Tarago River Cheeses (whose cheeses are a lot better than its website) points out to cheese neophytes that, despite today’s disposable age culture, the government-regulated use-by sticker on your piece of soft cheese does not necessarily mean that you toss it in the trash on that day:
"When sold, the cheeses in our cellar will keep well past their Use By date, usually becoming stronger after this age. ... We normally consider our cheeses will be at their peak at or around the Use By date displayed on the packaging."
Well said. In fact, the cheeses might even continue to improve. So much for government regulations. Yes, I know government regulation has a role in food safety, but so do noses and common sense.
Speaking of use-by dates on cheese, my local supermarket stocks a wide range of soft cheeses and marks them down heavily a few days before the expiry date. You can pick up an $8.99 Roaring Forties Blue for $4.50 or an $8 Stormy Washed Rind for $4 and enjoy the perfect meal of a well-ripened soft cheese on your favourite bread, with a bottle of red decanting in a jug within easy reach. Heaven. Somehow it tastes even better if you only paid half price.
Those green hills (thank you, Jane Osmond) are hiding more and more of the kinds of small batch cheese makers that are often called ‘artisanal’ food producers, but I just call them artisans because I don’t agree that artisanal should even be a word. There are signs scattered through the district pointing to the existence of a gourmet food trail through the rolling hills and lush forests; which sounds like Hansel and Gretel following bits of ripe blue cheese and grissini sticks and the corks from bottles of Bass Philip chardonnay to a gingerbread house made by D. Chirico in a clearing, with plenty of parking out the front for Range Rovers.
Cheese is big around here. There’s a cheese maker over every hill and there are plenty of hills. Tarago River Cheeses (whose cheeses are a lot better than its website) points out to cheese neophytes that, despite today’s disposable age culture, the government-regulated use-by sticker on your piece of soft cheese does not necessarily mean that you toss it in the trash on that day:
"When sold, the cheeses in our cellar will keep well past their Use By date, usually becoming stronger after this age. ... We normally consider our cheeses will be at their peak at or around the Use By date displayed on the packaging."
Well said. In fact, the cheeses might even continue to improve. So much for government regulations. Yes, I know government regulation has a role in food safety, but so do noses and common sense.
Speaking of use-by dates on cheese, my local supermarket stocks a wide range of soft cheeses and marks them down heavily a few days before the expiry date. You can pick up an $8.99 Roaring Forties Blue for $4.50 or an $8 Stormy Washed Rind for $4 and enjoy the perfect meal of a well-ripened soft cheese on your favourite bread, with a bottle of red decanting in a jug within easy reach. Heaven. Somehow it tastes even better if you only paid half price.
Absolutely. The recipe for a great night - a chunk of good cheese, and a carafe of fine red wine. Bliss.
ReplyDeleteIf you drive through Cranbourne it's exactly the same! I must have driven from Melbourne to South Gippsland about seven trillion times in my life... I worked on the local newspapers in Leongatha and Yarram for several years but spent every weekend living it up in the city!
ReplyDeleteI have seen on some other Australian food sites the amazing cheeses you have and I am incredibly jealous! I hope to make it to Australia at least once in my life, and if I do I'll have to bring big pants.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the bread, Anna.
ReplyDeleteKimbofo, Cranbourne is just Pakenham with an extra bend in the road. I used to think they were one and the same place.
Sara, you better get here soon before I eat them all.