With our valiant New year's eve efforts to go ice-skating foiled, four of us found ourselves munching a cheese and meat plate from the choose-your-own-assortment at Bar Pillar. We went with:
- a Camembert
- a Mimolette, and
- an Irish-style Cheddar
Somehow I am always surprised that Mimolette is an orange cheese. Subconsciously, I suspect that I associate orange cheese with American kraft singles, and Mimolette just sounds so French. It turns out, this was a cheese commissioned by Louis XIV, who wanted a cheese similar to Edam, but to make it sufficiently different, had it colored orange (see wikipedia if you don't believe me). This cracks me up. In any case, it pairs nicely with Irish style cheddar (it has a very clean cheesy taste), and the plate at Bar Pillar had some sound accompaniments (french mustard, quince, etc). As aways, I like the fact that you can build your own from the menu, even if they were light on descriptions.
