CurdNerds

Every year, one of the vendors I work with uses his connection with a cheese monger at Dean & Deluca to bring our office an incredible cheese platter. He did not disappoint this year, bringing an array of cheeses, grapes, crusty baguettes, sopressata and pâte. Even better was the fact that it arrived on Tuesday, the first day of the transit strike, so those of us who actually showed up for work were rewarded with larger-than-normal portions of fromage.

The cheeses on the platter displayed a nice variety of textures and tastes, as well as ages and milk-types. There was the famous pyrimidal Valençay, a soft French goat cheese; Crottin de Chavignol, another French goat but flakier than Valençay; Pyrenées Brebis, a Basque sheep cheese; Pecorino Marzolino, a Tuscan sheep cheese that is rubbed with tomatoes during aging; and, finally, Fromage d'Affinois, the Cheese of the Week.

Fromage d'Affinois is similar to Brie but is made using a process known as "ultra-filtration." Apparently this process is somewhat similar to homogenization and serves to distribute the milkfat evenly throughout the paste. This imparts a taste like a triple-creme, although the fat content is closer to a double-creme. A wonderfully luscious pasteurized Cow's milk cheese, it pairs well with white wines, dry or sparkling.