Pat McCarthy, owner of DeLaurenti Specialty Food and Wine [0] in Pike Place Market, says it is entirely possible to eat 250 different kinds of cheese in one day. To test his theory, mark your calendar for the fourth annual Seattle Cheese Festival [0], which will bring artisan cheese makers from all over the world to Pike Place Market, offering the perfect opportunity to hone your cheese-tasting chops.
Does it have a hint of grass, grapefruit, edelweiss or old leather? Tasting cheese is as nuanced as tasting wine, says McCarthy, who first brought the festival to Seattle four years ago. In a cheese's milky depths, one can detect hints about what kind of animal it came from, what that animal was fed and how long the cheese aged in a delicious mold bath.
"Terroir [1]" is the theme of this year's festival, because, as it does with wine, geography affects a cheese's characteristics. You can spend an entire day admiring, sniffing and nibbling the nuances of more than 200 varieties, but please, says McCarthy, "no spitting of cheese."
A few classes and seminars will be held Friday, May 16, but the real event kick-off is the Truckle Roll at 10 a.m. May 17. Three of Seattle's culinary superstars (Jason McClure of Sazerac, Jason Wilson of Crush and Kurt Dammeier of Beecher's Handmade Cheese [1]) and three media personalities (Kelley Moore of KING 5/Seattle Magazine, Jim Denver of "Evening Magazine" and Corrine McKenzie of Star 101.5) will race in teams to push an 18-pound wheel of cheese from one end of the market to the other.
From that point on, expect cheese to be pushed at you from every direction. A few of McCarthy's favorites this year: Mt. Townsend Creamery, a local cheese maker that puts interesting spins on European-style soft cheeses; Rogue, an Oregon producer that shocked the cheese world by smoking blue cheese; Black Sheep Creamery, a Chehalis producer that has risen from the ashes after flooding wiped out its farm; and Allgau Mountain Cheeses, which crafts German styles that burst with flavors of nuts, grass, sea salt and other Bavarian goodness.
You can also watch free demonstrations from local chefs [2], like Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery, the Skillet Street Food guys or Harvest Vine/Txori's Joseba Jimenez de Jimenez, who, McCarthy says, always does "insane" things with cheese.
Sample wines chosen for their ability to pair well with artisanal cheeses in the wine garden [3] (five tastes for $10), or dress the kids up in cow, goat, sheep or cheese-themed costumes and let them march in the children's costume parade and contest [4] the morning of May 17.
If cheese is your thing but throngs of other cheese lovers aren't, you can indulge in one of the festival's cooking classes or seminars [5]. Seminars are $40 each; cooking classes with local chefs are $50 each.
At "A Taste in Time," (May 16, 4-5:30 p.m.), cheese diva Debra Dickerson, revered in the industry for bringing prized English cheddars to the United States (apparently a very challenging and courageous feat), will team up with Pike Brewing Company founder Charles Finkel for talks and tastings of cheese with beer.
At "Northwest Terroir," (May 17, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.), Jeffrey Roberts, who extensively documented and mapped the country's proliferating boutique cheese producers in his book, "The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese," will talk about how soil and climate in the Northwest influence the types of cheese we make locally.
In addition to the three days of the festival, cheese will be celebrated across Seattle this month at a few dozen of our best restaurants (Crow, Union, Cremant, Tilth and La Spiga, to name just a few), which will offer a special cheese-themed dish or two (or three). Check out the list of participating restaurants online [6].
Through May 25, Union Square Grill hosts "For the Love of Cheese," featuring cheeses from local artisan cheese maker River Valley Ranch. The highlight of the promotion is a five-course artisan cheese feast with wine pairings for $75 on May 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
