CurdNerds

Apologies for the noticeable dearth of posts lately. Things in my life have been busy and I haven't been able to give this blog proper attention. However, I continue to post a weekly cheese column called Serious Cheese over at SeriousEats.com. Be sure to check there every Tuesday if you're jonesing for cheese-related blog posts (this week my cheese post is hitting today). Thanks, and I look forward to getting back on track here soon!

In the meantime, take a look at this interesting history of cheese someone posted in the forums. (No sources are given, but anyway it makes for entertaining reading and is a somewhat plausible theory. They also link to an interesting-looking site that has videos of cheese-making and other wine & food related things.)

-Jamie

UPDATE: Just installed a widget at the right that lists my most recent posts over at Serious Eats. Check them out!

Head on over to Big Cheese Stories, the Murray's Cheese blog, for a little write-up they did on my recent visit to their underground caves. I had a great time and learned a lot about what sets them apart. It was a great pleasure to meet Murray's affineur Zoe, who showed me around and gave me the low-down on some of the different techniques they use for bringing out the best in the cheeses they sell. If you haven't done so already, leave a comment here for a chance to win two tickets to tour the Murray's caves! (Oh, and don't make fun of my hairnet. The caves have strict sanitary guidelines.)

To provide fair and equal chance of winning to all CurdNerds readers, the following are the official rules for all contests on CurdNerds.com.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE CHANCES OF WINNING.

All winners must be 18 years of age or older, unless otherwise stated and/or posted.

1. Entering Contests and Choosing and Contacting Winners
Winners of random email contests will be chosen at random from emails received.

Entrants must send entries using the correct contest entry email address, subject line, and any other specific entry information requested in the contest announcement. CurdNerds is not responsible for and will not consider incomplete or incorrect entries, or emails sent but not received by CurdNerds for any reason, as potential contest winners.

Winners of all contests will be contacted at the “sender” email address used to enter the contest, and the person receiving and replying to the winner announcement email will be considered the winner unless they specify another person within the reply email as the winner. CurdNerds will mail the contest prize to the address supplied by the recipient of the winner announcement email.

Only one entry per email address used to send the email will be considered for contest entry, unless multiple entries are specifically allowed in the contest posting. Unless otherwise specified in an individual contest post, no person may enter any contest more than once using multiple email addresses.

Claiming of prizes requires an email response to CurdNerds from the winning sender email address within 30 days of being notified of winning at the email address used to enter. Failure to respond shall mean that the winner forfeits the prize. CurdNerds is not required to award elsewhere any prizes forfeited by the chosen winner(s).

2. Submission of photo, text or other content for Contests
Entries selected for display and to win “best of” contests and any other contests requiring photo, text or other content from the entrants will be judged entirely at the discretion of CurdNerds.

By submitting any photo or information to CurdNerds, you hereby grant to CurdNerds and its affiliates, subsidiaries, licensees and assigns, an irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right to use, reproduce, edit, display, transmit, prepare derivative works of, modify, publish and otherwise make use of the submitted photo or other information in any and all media, whether now known or hereinafter created, throughout the world and for any purpose. In addition to other things, the rights granted to CurdNerds includes but is not limited to the right to resize, crop, censor, compress, edit, feature, caption, affix logos to, and to otherwise alter or make use of the submitted photo;

By submitting any photo or information to CurdNerds, you hereby represent and warrant that the submitted photo or information does not and shall not infringe on any copyright, any rights of privacy or publicity of any person, or any other right of any third party, and you have the right to grant any and all rights and licenses granted to CurdNerds herein, including but not limited to all necessary rights under copyright, free and clear of any claims or encumbrances;

You acknowledge and agree that CurdNerds shall have no obligation to post, display or otherwise make publicly available any photo or information submitted by you, and may, in its sole and unfettered discretion, remove, edit, modify or delete any photo or information that you submit to CurdNerds;

You understand and intend that any photo or information submitted by you to CurdNerds may be available for viewing, rating, review and comment on by the public, and understand that comments or ratings with which you disagree or are unhappy about may be published or otherwise become associated with any photo or information you submit to CurdNerds. By submitting any photo or information to CurdNerds, you hereby waive any privacy expectations that you may have with respect to any such photo or information submitted by you to CurdNerds.

You hereby agree to hold CurdNerds and its affiliates, subsidiaries, licensees sponsors and assigns harmless from and against, and hereby waive any right to pursue, any claims of any nature arising in connection with the inclusion in, publication via or display on any CurdNerds site, or any other use authorized under these Terms, of any photo or information submitted to CurdNerds by you;

Photos or information submitted by you to the Site shall be the property of CurdNerds, and CurdNerds shall have no obligation to preserve, return or otherwise make available to you or others any photos or information so submitted.

3. Awarding Prizes
Winners are solely responsible for all taxes and/or fees that may be incurred. All cash winners are required to verify proper and legal picture identification and Social Security number within 30 days of notification of winning the cash prize. Winner may forfeit any and all cash winnings if verification cannot or has not been made within 30 days. Upon proper verification, cash winnings will be awarded by check, and mailed to winner's mailing address within seven (7) business days.

Each prizewinner must supply CurdNerds with his/her legal name, mailing address, birth date, daytime and nighttime telephone numbers. In the case of a cash winner, winner must also supply social security number.

Winners may not request substitutions of prize winnings. All winners are solely responsible for any and all taxes and/or fees, and all such additional costs that may be incurred.

Neither CurdNerds, CurdNerds sponsors, nor employees of CurdNerds or sponsors may be held liable for any warranty, costs, damage, injury, or any other claims incurred as a result of usage of any winners of a prize once winner has taken possession of the product. CurdNerds is not liable for any loss arising out of or in connection with or resulting from any contest promoted by CurdNerds.

If the specified prize becomes unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, CurdNerds may substitute a prize of like or equal value.

Management, employees and families of CurdNerds are prohibited from winning any prizes awarded by CurdNerds

CurdNerds reserves the right to alter any rules of any contest at anytime. If you have any questions or complaints about a CurdNerds contest, please contact info AT curdnerds.com.

Congratulations to Ms. Deborah Szajngarten who won our prize of a $100 gift certificate for Artisanal Cheese. This year's event raised an incredible $91,188 for the U.N. World Food Program. Thank you to Pim Techamuanvivit (Chez Pim) for organizing everything, to everyone who participated and bought raffles, and of course to Artisanal for donating the wonderful prize! Enjoy your cheese, Deborah! Visit Chez Pim for a list of all the winners.

Reminder that the Menu for Hope campaign ends tomorrow, so make sure you get over to the FirstGiving donation site and purchase some raffle tickets for prize code UE20.

UPDATE: The FirstGiving site seems to still be accepting donations, so if you haven't yet given, now's the time!  read more »

Every year at this time Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim organizes the Menu for Hope campaign, a charity event where food bloggers everywhere help to raise money for the UN World Food Programme. Last year's effort raised a whopping $60,925.12 for the charity, which is dedicated to feeding the world's hungry.

Food bloggers from around the world are offering prizes to be granted via an online raffle. Each $10 donation gives you one virtual raffle ticket, to be allocated towards any prize of your choosing (and there are many). For our part, Curdnerds.com has teamed up with Artisanal Premium Cheese to offer one lucky raffle winner a $100 gift certificate toward purchases at ArtisanalCheese.com. To enter right away for this incredible prize, go to the FirstGiving donation site The prize code is UE20). For more details, keep reading...

$100 Gift Certificate for Artisanal Premium Cheese

What sets Artisanal Premium Cheese apart is the art of affinage -- an ancient practice by which passionate cheese professionals complete the cheese maker's labor of love, patiently nurturing each cheese to optimal ripeness and peak flavor. Founded by Chef Terrance Brennan, who revolutionized cheese appreciation in the United States at his New York City restaurants Picholine and Artisanal Fromagerie & Bistro, Artisanal Premium Cheese makes the world's finest cheeses available nationwide as never before. The gift certificate may be used online at ArtisanalCheese.com towards the purchase of any of their products, including cheeses, cheese gift baskets, and cheese accessories. Residents of and visitors to the New York area can even use it to purchase tickets to cheese classes and tastings. Once again, to enter go to the FirstGiving donation site and use prize code UE20

For a list of all the prizes in the Northeast U.S., visit the Menu for Hope page at Serious Eats. For other regions, see Chez Pim. More details on how to enter available after the jump.  read more »

For the past couple of weeks, I've had a few cheeseworthy articles published on Serious Eats, a fantastic food website started at the beginning of this year. The column will be fairly regular, with posts usually coming out every week on Tuesday. Here are links to the three that have already been published:

Lactivism - a brief look at the lactose intolerance spectrum
Cheese Prices Increase 55 Percent Over Last Year - this title is pretty self-explanatory
Grilled Cheese - an article about Halloumi cheese, which is suitable for grilling because it doesn't melt when cooked

We recently upgraded the software that runs Curdnerds.com, and everything seems to be running smoothly so far there are still some minor kinks to iron out. If you discover any further problems, or you don't like how any of the new stuff works, please contact us!

Thank you to Culinate.com for featuring us in your Blog Feed section! For those of you who don't know, Culinate.com is a fantastic new food site based in Portland, Oregon that "features articles and essays that address the multitude of intersections between food and the rest of our lives." They have lots of great content, and you should definitely check out the whole site if you've never been.

I have been a member of the Artisan Cheesemakers Yahoo Group for a while now, and I just received the following email in my inbox:

From today, January 1, 2007, Artisan_Cheesemakers list will be on permanent hiatus. Messages will no longer be posted, and new members will not be added, but the Archives will remain open for the moment, while I figure out if there's any way (or reason) to save them.

This decision is final. Please don't write me. All good things come to an end, and its always best to move on when they do. Best wishes to those who followed me through this adventure. Good luck to all with your cheesemaking,
Julia Farmer
Listowner

I've always felt that this was one of more informative, active mailing lists out there, and it's a shame that it's gone. In response, though, we are bringing back the discussion forums to Curdnerds.com. These bulletin boards were up (in a somewhat different form) when we first launched the site, but we took them down due to lack of interest. However, now that the Artisan Cheesemakers list is gone, we thought maybe there would be a place for forums like this. Obviously forums are different than a mailing list, but our hunch is that most people prefer checking discussions online rather than getting a slew of emails in their inbox every day.

So, please go check out the forums, post a topic or two, and definitely let us know if you have any problems, questions or suggestions!