Monday, Valentine's Day, I thought my husband was going to work late so I made no unusually special plans for the occasion. I thought I'd make a little beet and ginger soup and some brown rice (something easy, but healthy since we'd just returned from a vacation in Puerto Rico where we ate nothing but two-dollar Coronas and the limes that floated in them.)
But late in the day he called to say he'd be home in time for dinner. In a late-breaking burst of Valentine's energy, I finished up my work and dashed out the door to scurry around the neighborhood, pulling together the ingredients for a simple meal. My last stop was Murray's Cheese where I almost just picked up my beloved's old standard favorite, Morbier.
I was tempted for half a second by a display of cheeses that had been shaped into hearts or sprinkled with ground pepper in heart shapes, and tied up with red ribbons, but something else caught my eye. Buried in the back of the case with raw cow's milk cheeses was a sweet little morsel of a cheese called Constant Bliss made by Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont.
What an offering to give on Valentine's Day - cheese made from cows that are so happy that the cheesemaker himself couldn't resist naming the cheese Constant Bliss. And for a wife, what could be better to serve to her husband's waiting lips than a cheese from happy cows as an acknowledgement of their union. Marriage may not be constant bliss, I told him as we relished the first tangy bite, but it's real bliss. And it's nourishing bliss.
Blessings and Bliss on all your meals. skgr
You have successfully made cheese romantic.
I saw a report on TV about these two brothers, who along with their wives, started this cheese business. They are also trying to revive the dying dairy industry in Vermont. However, I seem to recall Constant Bliss is the name of a Revolutionary War scout who was killed by the native Americans along with another man. The TV segment showed a stone marker with the names where they died.
Regardless, it's a lovely name for a cheese.
For some reason, Lori's post really made me laugh! SK, hold on to your romantic cheese ideal, no matter the dead patriots!! I prefer your lovely dairy-scented sentiment to the brutalities of historical fact!! ;)
(But now I REALLY want to know the name of the dead "other man"... if only to determine if he, too, was seemingly named after a drag queen... and where's Lockhart Steele when you need him?)
(no disrespect meant for our brave minutemen, btw)