A Real Post: You say kaas and I say cheese.

Finally....time for a real post. It's been a while since I started this blog....and the bad reason for not posting any pictures or thoughts was because I never had a computer at home. Finally, now that I have a computer at my disposal once again .... I'm rearing to go. Well, I could have used two other computers at home but they weren't mine and it was hard to hog them.

Also - we finally bought ourselves a DSLR - a Nikon D90. So now, I definitely have no excuse.

So what pictures shall we start with first? The pictures of our trip to the Netherlands. All the pictures I took were of food that was made at home. For now, I am still learning so my ability to capture the beauty of food is still a work in progress.

Okay, so this wasn't really made at home but this truly is the quintessential Dutch item - Gouda. (ignore the moving child's hand)

 

Gouda is one of the best Dutch exports in my mind. Somehow they have managed to take one type of cheese and bring it to all levels of godliness. They throw items like cloves or cumin into it and it becomes something completely different ... or they age it to a point where there are tiny little salt crystals that form inside the cheese and it's a mixture of heaven with a salt crust.

The one pictured above was not very old but still - slightly dry, smooth and creamy - all rolled into one. Personally, I love oude kaas (old cheese) but really, any gouda will do (except for the clove one, which I think is horrid.)

Another type of gouda that I enjoy is the Bourenkaas - Farmer's cheese quite literally translated. It is more often than not, made with raw milk, and as with most cheeses made of raw milk, tastes sharper and more interesting.

I could go on about cheese forever.... but I suppose good old wikipedia will inform the curious ones:

Gouda.....