Super Bowl XLV Winner

Congratulations to John S of Little River, SC for winning our Super Bowl XLV contest. John Guessed Packers win 31-20 coming just 5 points from the actual score 31-25. Thanks for all those who participated in this years contest! We hope to hear from you again soon! Enjoy!

How to Choose the Best Cheese

When it comes to choosing a cheese, there are many different kinds out there that you can try out. When you are trying to pick the best cheese, you will find that generally it is situational, in one setting you may want one cheese and in another setting another cheese may be what you need. Know when you want what cheese and when another kind is what you are going to want to pick out.

A lot of people choose cheese by their taste preference, some people want cheese that is mellow and others want something that has a bite, what you want is really going to depend on you and what you like. There are certain drinks and foods where you will want one type of cheese over another, but if your taste buds like it you may as well buy it. If there is something that you prefer over another style, just get it.

One place where people are really picky about their cheese is with their wine. There are certain kinds of wine where you will want to have one cheese over another. For example, a merlot goes well with a sharp cheese like cheddar or brie. For a white wine like a Sauvignon Blanc, you will want a cheese like a gruyere or something that is a little milder in taste. There are all kinds of cheese and wine parings that you can make though.

Another key factor to choosing a cheese is that you make sure that it has aged. Good cheese, just like good wine has generally aged. When you look at cheddar, there are all kinds of different variations of it. The general difference between the cheddar cheese variations is how long they age before they are packaged and shipped off. So, extra sharp cheddar ages generally a year to a year and a half while sharp cheddar only ages for six to eight months. The longer it ages, the sharper the cheese gets.

There are situations where you will want to choose the best cheese and there are other situations where you will simply let your taste buds get the best of you. It doesn’t matter sometimes what cheese you pick, they are all delicious. But, in some cases, you are going to want to pair your cheese with the food or drink that you are having it with. Be sure you have the best cheese for the situation.

-Written by Viktoira Carella

Golden Age Cheese Mozzarella Stretching Curd Featured in Food Network Magazine!

If you haven't picked up the latest issue of Food Network Magazine (March 2011) yet, you definitely should! There is a wonderful article about stretching Mozzarella at home. In the article Chef Tyler Florence shows how to stretch fresh Mozzarella each step at a time, like we do here. In the article they also give Golden Age Cheese a big shout out stating "Order it online (GoldenAgeCheese.com)". We are so thrilled and honored to have been mentioned by Tyler Florence in Food Network magazine we just had to share it on the Cheesy Times!

To Order Fresh Mozzarella Curd Now Click Here

(click image to enlarge)

How Many Ways Are There To Make A Grilled Cheese Sandwich?

How Many Ways Are There To Make A Grilled Cheese Sandwich?

The grilled cheese sandwich. It’s one of America’s staples and one of the perfect comfort foods for any occasion. You eat it with soup, another comfort food. It goes well with a wide variety of sides and there’s a wide variety of ways that you can take this simple little sandwich and turn it into a gourmet masterpiece.

First of all, you can make grilled cheese out of anything—even American cheese. If you want to take it up a notch, one way is to simply switch your filling. Opt for Swiss instead of American or Meunster instead of Swiss. Keep in mind when you switch your filling that softer cheeses will melt faster than hard ones and that if you decide to mix them, you may want to heat up the harder one first and then proceed to add the soft cheeses after a minute or two once the harder kind melts more.

Then, you can add various meats to your sandwich. Prosciutto is a nice, light addition as long as you don’t add too much. You can even heat it before you put it on the sandwich so that any fat or grease is off. You can also do the same with large slices of pepperoni. Keep in mind that the more flavorful your meat is, the plainer your cheese should be. For example, provolone goes well with pepperoni because of how delicate its flavor is. The pepperoni doesn’t exactly overpower it, but is complemented. However, if you added gorgonzola or feta to the sandwich, it would be way too much.

You can also add condiments to your sandwich. If you want a very creamy, very delicious sandwich, you can add a tidbit of mayonnaise to it in order to add just a tiny bit of zing and to also make it soft and gooey. This works well with harder cheese and adds a little something-something flavor-wise also.

You can also add a bit of mustard and mayonnaise to your sandwich for even more zing—but keep in mind that it can over power it if you add too much. Try to add ¼ mustard and ¾ mayonnaise and see how it turns out.

You can also use different breads. White bread is normally pretty nice, but you have a variety of other interesting and nice bread choices. And you can even make a croque-monsieur! What’s this? A grilled cheese and prosciutto sandwich with bread that has been cooked the same way as French toast, except without any sugar. It’s France’s answer to grilled cheese!

How Many Different Cheese Products Are There?

When you try to break down the number of cheese products that are on the market, basically the number is endless and is probably one that cannot be quantified. However, what you can do instead is break it down into categories, cheese products come in a variety of products to please all of their customers and cheese lovers. You may enjoy specialty cheeses, mass produced cheese, pasteurized cheese products, or cheese curds.

Specialty Cheeses

Your specialty cheeses are the ones that you generally can’t find at the corner store or in the grocery store. They are the ones that aren't mass produced and generally go through a much more personalized process where they are generally handmade and put in a cellar to age. These cheeses are made with love and have very distinct flavors to them.

Mass Produced Cheeses

The mass produced cheeses are the ones that most of us eat every day. These are the cheeses that are made on large dairy farms, where they are making large quantities of cheese at a time. There are all kinds of cheeses that are mass produced. You have your cheddars which come in a big variety; you have your Swiss cheeses, mozzarellas, Colby, Monterey jack, and many others. These are the cheeses that we put on our sandwiches daily, that we cook with, that we cube up and eat, there are all kinds of these.

Processed Cheeses

There are some people that despise processed cheese products and others that eat them up. There are a large variety of processed cheese products on the market today. The most common are the ones that people buy that are pre-sliced and individually wrapped, they come in all flavor varieties, Swiss, cheddar, white cheddar, American, and many more. These cheeses use certain manufactured ingredients to give them a very creamy texture.

Cheese Curds

Cheese curds are their own cheese product. These are more of a delicacy that people really enjoy but that may not be available all over the United States. Cheese curds are made before the cheese is formed into a block and because it has not aged, it is generally squeaky. There are many different things that people will do with cheese curds, some will just eat them as is, others will flavor them, and some will batter or bread them and fry them. However you enjoy your cheese curds, there are many different ways to eat them.

-Written by Viktoira Carella