This weekend was an extraordinarily good cheese weekend. I wandered into my local cheese shop, Marion Street Cheese Market and asked my cheese monger, “What have you got that you really like?”
Well, he was quite excited to be carrying cheeses by a cheesemaker from Wisconsin, Felix Thalhammer. Apparently, Marion St. is the first shop outside Wisconsin to carry Felix’s aged cheeses. Now that I’ve sampled them, I can see why Eric was so excited!
Felix owns Capri Creamery specializing in artisan goat cheeses. The first cheese I tried and purchased is Saint Felix.
St. Felix is an aged, washed rind goat cheese, which take 2-3 years to prepare. The St. Felix is apparently the first of these cheeses, and let me assure you, it’s fantastic.
The cheese has a good, strong smell, you just know it’s going to be good! It has a nice, firm texture, with a larger crumble, so it has a nice bite to it, but it still feels great in your mouth, maybe even a little “fatter” than most goat’s milk cheese feel. It’s a washed rind cheese, so it’s nice and salty, with a slightly gritty, nutty finish that will remind you slightly of Parmesan.
Since Felix’s cheeses are made by hand by him alone, they’re probably going to be hard to find outside of the Midwest, or even Wisconsin for that matter! But I did notice you can order on his website. You should do yourself a favor and order some. If the St. Felix is any indication of Felix’s talent for cheese, we should have some really stunning cheeses down the road!
Coming soon, Govarti…