Pass the Cheese please

We are fast approaching Cheese Festival time here in Dorset. This year’s Sturminster Cheese Festival takes place over the weekend of the 10^th and 11^thSeptember and is one the biggest festivals of its kind in the south west. If you are a lover of cheese and all things cheesy a visit to the festival is a must. You might also be interested in a new range of cheeseware that we’ve just started selling. Boska is the company in question. They’ve been making cheese tools in Holland for over a 100 years, although they are anything but set in their ways. Current product designer Frank Bleeker has the look of a nutty professor crossed with a rock star. His radical designs have reinvented bland every-day items turning them into things of beauty, often improving functionality along the way. But don’t take our word for it. His powerful designs have earned Boska a total of six Red Dot Awards for Product Design. The Red Dot Awards are the Oscars of the design world. Winners are chosen by an international jury of expert designers, professors and journalists. Frank is a happy man! Below are some of the products in the Boska range

Fondue

Fondues originated in Switzerland and traditionally used Gruyere or Emmental.  A fondue set is a real party pleaser and a great talking point when entertaining or dining with guests. Heated by either a candle or an oil burner, your chosen cheese will melt and stay warm in the fondue. With the use of special fondue forks, you can dip in bread, meat or vegetables of your choice for a smothering of warm, gooey loveliness. If you are feeling adventurous try also adding herbs or spices. To follow up your fondue feast you can also use it to melt chocolate or caramel for dipping strawberries, marshmallows or cookies into for an indulgent dessert.

Curler

A curler is designed to shave very thin layers from a wheel of cheese creating delicious ruffles. Perfect for serving Tête-de-Moine, the cheese is placed on the board over the centre pin and held in place by small grips. The curler blade then sits on top and rotates to shave off the very thin ruffles which can be used to decorate salads. This is a great centrepiece for your table when entertaining. Each person can take it in turns to create their own ruffles. The curler can also be used with a chocolate wheel creating perfect ruffles for decorating cakes and desserts.

Partyclette

A party raclette provides a handy way of melting small amounts of cheese. Open up the party raclette, pop in the tea lights, add your cheese to the tray and place over the tea lights. The cheese melts in less than a minute and is easily poured onto nachos, chips, potatoes etc. thanks to the tray’s non-stick coating.

Cheese Knife

There are probably more types of specialist knife for cheese than there are for any other type of food. Hard, very hard, soft, spreadable cheeses all have specifically designed knives. It’s important that the knife should have a good handle for safe and controlled cutting. Knives for cutting sticky, soft cheese sometimes have holes in the blade to reduce the surface area that it can stick to or alternatively have a very narrow blade. Knives for spreadable cheese and butter will be wider with a rounded end to help spread the soft produce. There are also knives with a pronged end for picking up freshly cut cheese.

Grating and Slicing

Slicing and grating has never been easier thanks to the tools and utensils now available. A slicer has a long handle and a flat wide head with an angled slicing blade. Pull this back across the surface of the cheese and a perfect thin slice is shaved off. A grater follows the similar principal but has a grating head instead of one angled slicing blade. Graters can also be conical in design and have various sizes of grating surface around the outside. A Romano grater is slightly different but perfect for harder cheeses such as Parmesan. Put the cheese inside the holder and clamp it down with a squeeze of the handle. The cylindrical grating drum rotates using your other hand to produce finely grated cheese.

Serving

Serving cheese on a board with a selection of biscuits and grapes is a nice finishing touch to your dinner party or evening drinks. If you like to make a nice display of your cheeses, a tower with several tiers would serve the purpose. Different types of cheese can go on different levels and will look great on your table or buffet. A board with a glass dome also makes a nice centrepiece at any occasion.