When planning your next party, potluck or fancy soiree, Wisconsin Cheese makes a great party food. Flavorful and versatile, it can be used as a snack, an ingredient in your favorite recipe or paired with the perfect accompaniments, the main course.

Serving

Here are some tips to make serving cheese even easier!

• Cheese tastes best at room temperature because its flavor is at its peak. Take the cheese out of the refrigerator and let sit, covered, 30 minutes to an hour before serving.
• Before serving, make sure to trim off any dry edges or surface mold.
• With more than 600 varieties, types and styles of Wisconsin Cheese, don't be afraid to mix and match cheeses, play around with contrasting flavors and, of course, be sure your guests know exactly which Wisconsin Cheese they're enjoying. If appropriate, use a creative name card or sign to identify the cheeses.
• Cutting cheese into manageable bites – cubes, sticks and squares – makes serving a breeze. Allowing family and friends to cut directly from the cheese wedge or chunk is another idea to engage your guests at the party.

The Cheese Course

For more intimate gatherings, a cheese course is excellent way to please both your guests' taste buds and their eyes. Creating a beautiful spread of cheeses and accompaniments has a place before, during and at the end of a great meal.

• Served as an appetizer or first course, a cheese course featuring a variety of flavors and textures offers guests a glimpse into the delicious meal ahead. Add a glass of wine, and you have the ingredients for a great night ahead.
• A cheese course as a transition mid-meal helps guest slow down and savor the dining experience. Make sure to use small plates so guests don't fill up too much before dessert!
• Believe it or not, cheese for dessert is one of the best ways to end a meal. Paired with fresh fruit and a classic dessert wine, cheese is a perfect finish for an outstanding meal.

The Cheese Buffet

When hosting a big bash, a cheese buffet is the perfect people-pleasing option that allows guests to experiment and get creative with their own cheese pairings.

• When selecting cheeses for your buffet, vary the colors, textures and tastes. Not only will you satisfy a wide range of guests, but the range makes for a beautiful spread.
• Choose three to five varieties of Wisconsin Cheese to feature, depending on the size of your get-together. Average about six to eight ounces of cheese per person used as a main course or about four ounces for a dessert tray.
• Once you've decided on the cheeses you want to feature, accompany them in your spread with fruits, vegetables, nuts, olives, crackers and breads. For more information on pairing suggestions, check out our Wisconsin Cheese Pairing Tool.

By Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board

Welcome! January 20 is National Cheese Lover’s Day and to celebrate we are launching a brand new blog, 30 Days, 30 Ways with Macaroni & Cheese! We’ll kick-off the effort with one of our favorite cheesy recipes, but in the days that follow, we’ll turn the blog over to 30 top food bloggers from across the U.S. and Canada.

Each day, a different blogger will share her spin on macaroni & cheese with a blog entry, recipe and photos. Each recipe is made with Wisconsin Cheese - more than 25 cheeses will be featured throughout the month!

From simple to sophisticated, the recipes we feature will appeal to every cook, be it with kid-friendly recipes, gluten-free options and even a look at the sweeter side of macaroni and cheese. We’re counting on you to check back often to catch up on the featured bloggers and recipes!

 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Cheese would become Wisconsin's official state snack under a bill up for public hearing on Thursday.

The proposal by Democratic state Sen. Jim Sullivan of Wauwatosa doesn't differentiate between cheddar, blue or Swiss. And it also doesn't say anything about curds.

What it would do is make plain old cheese the official snack, joining corn as the official state grain, cranberry as the official state fruit and milk as the official beverage.

Cheese has been getting a lot of love from lawmakers this year.

Another proposal would name the bacterium that converts milk into cheese as the official state microbe.

The bill will be considered by the Senate Agriculture Committee.

A smooth and tangy 15-year-old cheddar unveiled last week by a Mineral Point cheesemaker is grabbing international attention. And it's selling faster than cheese mongers can cut it - even at $50 per pound in a bitter economy.

The 1,200-pound stash of what's believed to be the oldest cheddar on the U.S. market is selling so quickly for holiday gift-giving and entertaining that it may be gone by the weekend, one week after its release, said cheese maker Tony Hook, who co-owns Hook's Cheese Co. with his wife and fellow cheese-maker, Julie Hook.

"For all the hype about the bad economy, we were having a good year even before we released this cheese," Tony Hook said Tuesday. "The response to the 15-year-old cheddar has been unbelievable. We're getting phone calls and e-mails from all over the country and the world. It's beyond ridiculous."

Among those placing orders: Wisconsin soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan who plan to be home for the holidays, and want to share the cheddar with their families, Hook said.

This is the single malt scotch of cheddar.

Older cheddars might exist, but they're the stuff of private stashes in cheese-maker cellars - not sold to the general public, according to John Umhoefer, executive director of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, which hosts national and international cheese competitions.

Word of the unique cheese - aged at least three years longer than the next oldest known cheddar - spread the past few days through The Associated Press, which picked up the Journal Sentinel's report about the cheddar on Saturday. Yahoo News, CNN, USA Today, National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and news organizations from as far away as Malaysia have carried the story.

The cheddar is available exclusively at Larry's Market in Brown Deer and at Fromagination in Madison. Both are selling it for $50 per pound, making it the most expensive cheese in either store.

Hook also took 75 pounds of the cheese to the Dane County Winter Farmers Market at Monona Terrace in Madison last Saturday, where he's a regular vendor. He sold it for $35.95 a pound, and it was gone within two hours, he said.

Hook said he hopes to have some left for Saturday's farmers market in Madison but will sell it for $50 per pound, due to demand.

The cheese is unique because cheddar tends to turn bitter or acidic with age. Most supermarket cheddar is 1 to 3 months old.

The secret to aging cheddar successfully is starting with a good batch of cheese in the vat, Hook said. He gives a lot of the credit to the milk he uses from small dairy farms within eight miles of the Mineral Point cheese factory.

Wisconsin is known for its aged cheddars, Umhoefer said. Decades ago, Wisconsin was known for commodity cheddar. Mozzarella replaced cheddar as the commodity cheese with the popularity of frozen pizzas, Umhoefer said.

"It's great to see cheddar capturing the headlines that American artisan cheeses have been getting," Umhoefer said.

Hook's sells a 12-year-old cheddar, previously its oldest cheddar. Customers increasingly have been requesting older cheddars that push the envelope, Tony Hook said.

Hook's will release a second batch of 15-year-old cheddar in March or April, Hook said Tuesday. He said he may try aging a small amount for 20 years.

Larry's Market was immediately inundated with orders for the cheese Saturday morning, the morning after its release.

"The 40 pounds we got on Friday was gone by 1 p.m. Saturday," said the market's co-owner, Steve Ehlers.

Ehlers ordered another 80 pounds on Monday, and that sold before it was even delivered to the store on Tuesday, he said. Another 80 pounds was to be delivered Wednesday.

"It was just amazing," Ehlers said of the demand. "Most people are buying a pound - at $50 - and a lot of it is going for Christmas gifts for someone who loves cheese."

This isn't the first time the Hooks have received international attention.

A Colby cheese crafted by Julie Hook in 1982 captured "best cheese in the world" honors at the World Championship Cheese Contest. She was the first woman to win that honor.

Both Tony and Julie Hook are first generation cheese-makers. Tony Hook has been making cheese for nearly 40 years, and Julie Hook, about 33 years.