Festival of Cheese

I decided to go to the cheese festival after all and it was AMAZING! I went with 2 friends and we were all super pumped to see what 1000+ cheeses would look like displayed in the Hilton ballroom and we were in pure shock at the outcome. First of all, everything was beautifully displayed on silver platters in sections arranged by type of cheese. There were all kinds of fruit, crackers, and breads on the tables as well to compliment the cheeses. Each cheese winner also had a ribbon nearby to alert you to the really good ones.

My goal for the night was to try 100 cheeses, so I tried to watch what I ate and drank. I skipped all the bread, fruit, and only used small bits of crackers when necessary, so that I could try as many cheeses as possible. At first we went crazy, trying anything and everything that looked delicious, but soon found out that was a bad idea. After about an hour (and 50 or so cheeses) we were full and lethargic. Oops. So we took a break and sipped some of the complimentary wine they had there. I chose an ice wine and actually liked it a lot! The crisp sweetness paired really well with all the crazy rich and salty cheeses. Then we got to trying some more, and I tried to be more selective this time to save room. I tried to take pictures of some of my favorites:

This cheese wasnt something I had heard of but it was so delicious and creamy and had a blackberry puree in the center that mixed with it.

There were seriously sooo many goudas and it was cool to taste a few side by side.

I really liked this 10 yr aged cheddar, but it got mixed reviews among my friends. There were actually 4 whole tables just of cheddar so it was impossible to taste even a good sampling of them all.

This was just one of the tables filled with cheddar.

This was the WORST cheese of the night! It claimed to be chocolate cheddar, so of course I had to check it out and it ended up being DISGUSTING! It didn't taste like chocolate at all and instead was way way way too strong and almost bitter.

I didn't have an absolute favorite cheese of the night, but rather a favorite table. That would be the collection of soft goat cheeses. There were just plain goat cheeses in logs, soft cheese spreads, and spreads mixed with other flavors and all, ALL were incredible. Its the only time I actually ate a cheese twice. Tomorrow there is a cheese market where you can buy any of the cheeses from tonight and if I got a thing or two it would be a soft goat cheese. Here are some pictures:

Actually it was the goat cheeses that got me to my goal of 100 cheeses! I saw some of them the first time around, but I only had about 80 cheeses with 15 mins to go and I spotted a whole new table of them! So I ended up trying 100 unique cheeses tonight! Id say about 80 - 90% were delicious, with a few being meh (unpasteurized goat cheese... who knew?) and only a few being downright terrible (Im talking you, chocolate cheddar!)

A final cool thing about the night was that there was a blue ribbon table where all the best cheeses were displayed.

And here was the best in show cheese ... drum roll...

I tasted this blue cheese and it was pretty good, but Im not personally a big blue lover so Im not the best judge. Apparently the festival people thought it was pretty amazing though!

Anyway, overall the festival was just amazing, amazing, amazing and I probably gained a few pounds but this is probably the only time I will get to go to something like this. I am very happy I decided to go, and yes it was worth the $75. Hooray!