CHEESE MISSION

SO excited today because I got to go on a Cheese Mission! My job was to create a spectacular cheese table for a family wedding in two days. I love nothing better than spending other people's money on the food I love! I enlisted the aid of fellow foodie and cheese afficianado Sue D.

The day began in a hot, pre-hurricane stew, as we headed out to Haymarket. Our first stop was Harry's Cheese. Roy, our host, held forth in his tiny closet pantry of a shop. Before long he was issuing thin slices of every cheese we showed interest in, and believe me we were very interested.

He gave us a little description of each cheese. One of our favorite was Drunken Goat, a smooth, hard goat cheese from Spain that is infused with red wine, delicious! Roy was most congenial, and he made it easy for us to select some really great cheeses. As our selections mounted, the prices went down, which is an element of service we would not find at our next destination, Fromaggio, South End.

We made our purchases and bade fare-well to our new friend and moved on to the South End. Fromaggio is an incredible upscale cheese shop, in the trendiest of Boston neighborhoods. Although only about triple the size of Harry's, it is jam packed with every possible thing you would ever want to eat( and drink). We quenched our cheese-scarfing thirst with GUS, GrownUpSoda of the Dry Meyer Lemon and Dry Cranberry Lime order. We also managed to find room for a delightful sandwich of goat cheese, arugula and fig jam.

I had pre-ordered a 6 lb Brie Ermitage, not the most expensive of the Bries, but lovely none the less and perfect for my recipe of phyllo-wrapped Brie with apricot and rosemary chutney. This will be the centerpiece of the Tableau, as Sue would say.

We also purchased two incredible Vermont cheeses, Moses Sleeper and OMA, two soft elegant cheeses, each with their own distinct personalities.At that point, I wanted to crawl inside the expansive refrigerated cheese case, lay my head on a soft-ripened cheese and spend the rest of the day there.