We opened our Hot August Night Dinner with a York Hill Farm Capriano plus three cheeses from Spring Day Creamery in Durham, ME:
- Evangeline
- Spring Day Blue
- La Vie En Rose
All four were bought from their makers at the same time, at the Brunswick Farmers' Market. they were sampled in Plymouth, MA one week after they were bought. We drank a pleasant French Chablis with the cheeses.
All three Spring Day cheeses are made with cow's milk. Sarah Spring's La Vie en Rose just won the first place prize at the American Cheese Society annual meeting in Raleigh, NC, in the crowded field of Original Recipe - Cow's Milk Cheeses. She beat Cowgirl Creamery! The Capriano is an excellent aged dry goat's-milk cheese that we have had before.
The Evangeline got us off to a great start. It is a soft, bloomy-rind, ripened, ashed pyramid. It was at peak ripeness (Sarah had helped us to select one to be consumed a week after we bought it). We were happily surprised! the flavors were harmonious and fresh throughout, with the sense of the grassy seaside fields around Brunswick. The Evangeline was Richmond's favorite, which is somewhat surprising because he usually doesn't favor the soft cheeses.
The Spring Day Blue was my favorite. It is a creamy blue, not a crumbly white blue. It had a tang backed up by rich earthy flavors. I tried it with a cherry, and that woke up many more flavors. I wished we had more of it; I could have sampled that blue all night long! The Spring Day Blue took Second Place at the American Cheese Society 2011 competition.
The 2012 ACS award-winning La Vie En Rose was a special treat. We marvelled at how it provided so many flavors in fine harmony, like a day when everything goes right. That's another one we could have sampled again and again. It was like a fine painting that offers more every time you look at it. I hope we can find it in our future travels to Maine! This was Lorna's favorite.
Sarah Spring hit a real trifecta here. This was the first time any of us could remember a cheese maker producing three such different cheeses that we all liked so well. We will seek all of them out again. Sarah produces a number of other cheeses. She likes to experiment and solicit feedback. I am eager to see her other creations.
The last of the cheeses of the evening was the Capriano. Capriano is an aged goat's-milk cheese from York Hill Farm in New Sharon, ME. Although this is an excellent cheese, we had enjoyed the cow's-milk cheeses so well that we did not want to introduce discord by bringing a goat to the party, so we saved that for later.