Bodacious: A Bumpy Tasting

We were all set to fall in love with Bodacious, especially after our recent experience with Bohemian Creamery’s Bo Peep.  Alas, our experience with Bodacious was not as smooth, and I suspect that we took home a cheese that was past its prime.  This is frustrating, because I sampled a healthy cheese at the cheese shop.

Bodacious is a fresh goat’s milk cheese produced by Bohemian Creamery in Sonoma County, California.  The cheese is produced in a wide flattened dome that suggests a miniature white volcano.

Bodacious looks like the top of a lemon meringue pie.  Its surface shows smooth white ridges and valleys, with light tan highlights.  The cheese’s interior paste is snowy white and fluffy.  The rind is velvety soft to the touch.  The underside of the cheese feels soft and wet.

Bodacious’s rind has a perfume like cooked cabbage, but the interior paste smells grassy and buttery.  The interior paste has a soft and airy texture like ricotta.

Bodacious’s flavor is sour and tangy.  The cheese is not tart like a classic chevre, but tastes more like a hyper-tangy plain yogurt.  Unfortunately, our cheese sample had an underlying bitterness reminiscent of green leafy vegetables; this bitter flavor lingered long in the mouth.  The rind’s flavor amplified the bitterness of the cheese.

So what happened? The Bodacious I tasted at the cheese counter was sharply tangy whereas the sample we took home was bitter and difficult to eat.  I do not think the sample we took home was representative of Bodacious’ optimal flavor, yet it is the sample we evaluated.  We look forward to a better purchasing experience next time.

Purchase Notes:  We purchased Bodacious at Cheese Plus (San Francisco).  We purchased half of a whole cheese; it weighed approximately 4 oz.

Foggy Morning: A Light Breakfast Cheese

Foggy Morning is is like San Francisco fog: soft, light and barely there.  Its lightness is well-suited to accompany summer meals and breakfast. This cheese got us talking about foods that would taste better with a bit of Foggy Morning.

Foggy Morning is a fresh pasteurized cow’s milk cheese.  It is farmstead produced by Nicasio Valley Cheese Co. in Marin County (California).  It is  produced in a small cylinder format. (Our photo shows half of a whole cheese).

Foggy Morning is marshmallow white.  Its exterior surface showed some specks of bright pink surface molds.  To the touch, the cheese is damp and spongy.  Its aroma is fresh and milky.

Foggy Morning is very mild.  It has a light sour flavor that is similar to cottage cheese.  It does not have much depth or variation in its flavor.  Its texture is light and soft.

We liked Foggy Morning’s light flavor and soft texture.  My kids really liked its mildness (one noted that it would be good for babies).  We ate it with classic baguette but thought it would do better mixed with fruit, vegetables, or herbs. This is not a cheese that would be good paired with other cheeses, as its mildness is likely to get over-shadowed by the others.

Purchase Notes:  We found Foggy Morning at Mollie Stone’s (San Francisco); we purchased a whole cheese.  It’s small size can be divided into 8 servings.