GIFT: Gourmet Cheese Box | The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures - The Nibble Webzine Of Food AdventuresGIFT: Gourmet Cheese Box | The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures
We can testify that everything in this gift box is memorably delicious! Photo courtesy Jasper Hill Farm.
Anyone who covets great cheese knows how pricey it is. That’s because there’s so much labor invested in creating artisanal cheese.
So what better gift for a cheese lover than a box of great cheese? This year, we’re recommending the gift box from one of America’s greatest cheese makers, Jasper Hill Farms.
The holiday gift box contains more than two pounds of award-winning cheese, plus artisanal pairings. The foods are packed in a reusable wooden cheese box, for a memorable gift.
Jasper Hill Farm’s 2014 Holiday Gift Box contains:
Bayley Hazen Blue (8 ounces). This signature raw-milk blue cheese is one of the great blues, creamy on the tongue with sweet and salty flavors and undertones of dark chocolate and anise spice. A Super Gold winner at this year’s World Cheese Awards, it was also named World’s Best Unpasteurized Cheese.
Cabot Clothbound Cheddar (1 pound). Made by Cabot Creamer and aged in the Jasper Hill caves for 10-12 months, this is a bold cheddar with a spectrum of flavors: toasted nuts, savory broth, browned butter and butterscotch. It’s a favorite among Cheddar lovers.
Harbison (1 wheel; about 10 ounces). This soft, pudding-like Brie-style cheese can e scooped up with a spoon and spread on a cracker (or devoured from the spoon). It’s wrapped in a strip of spruce cambium* harvested from the farm. The milky, buttery cheese has notes of mushroom, woodsmoke and brassica† vegetables when ripe.
Creminelli Cheddar Salami (a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week). This special sausage includes pieces of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, which add a pleasant zip and a creamy mouth feel to the traditional salami. It’s available exclusively from the Cellars at Jasper Hill and Murray’s Cheese.
Jan’s Farmhouse Crisps (2 ounces). These are the cheese maker’s favorite crackers to pair with their cheeses. Packed full of nuts, herbs and dried fruit, they are thinly sliced and toasted to a light, flavorful crisp.
*The cambium of the pine (between the bark and the wood) is edible. It can be boiled or roasted as a famine food, and makes a reasonable flour. Fried in olive or coconut oil it’s actually tasty. On this cheese, it’s not meant to be eaten, but you could do it. Here’s more about pine cambium.
†Brassica, the cruciferous vegetable family, includes bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and mustard greens, among others.
