This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

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February 13th Grilled Cheese & Beer Night!

This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

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February 27th Grilled Cheese & Beer Night!

This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

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In our Cheese 101 course, Andrew teaches the history, origin and the basics about cheese. We also have many of the most famous cheeses available to sample! The cost for the class is $30.00 (plus tax). The class is about 1 & ½ hrs. long, and Andrew will have you laughing the whole way through! Super date idea, for you or your friends!

SEE YOU THERE!

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This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

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January 16th Grilled Cheese & Beer Night!

This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

Posted in Uncategorized |

In our Cheese 101 course, Andrew teaches the history, origin and the basics about cheese. We also have many of the most famous cheeses available to sample! The cost for the class is $30.00 (plus tax). The class is about 1 & ½ hrs. long, and Andrew will have you laughing the whole way through! Super date idea, for you or your friends!

SEE YOU THERE!

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Grilled Cheese & Beer Night, January 9th!

Grilled Cheese & Beer Night | January 9th, 2015 | Andrew’s Cheese Shop

This family-style event has been our most popular. Join us now and see what the excitement has been all about! The cost is $47.50 (plus tax) per person. We have now slightly upgraded the event to have a salad, four courses of our famous grilled cheeses (paired with four specialty beers), and an awesome, new dessert course of an Imperial Stout Float with French Vanilla Ice cream! The event sells out quickly, so check our calendar for upcoming dates, or email us to get on the list for the next event.

If you are interested in booking this event privately, please let us know and we’ll be happy to find a date and go over the details with you. The per person cost is the same and there is a $600.00 minimum for a private event. We are also now offering a premium event for $67.50 per person which switches out one of the beers for sparkling wine and we use super-premium beers for the others.

*NOTE: Please let us know if anybody in your party has any dietary restrictions.

**Due to the incessant flakiness of a small percentage of Los Angelenos, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

Posted in Uncategorized |

These days, it seems like everyone’s got some sort of dietary restriction — whether it’s something as simple as staying away from sweets because you’re trying to drop a few pounds to something as serious as celiac disease, we’re all watching what we eat.
But amid all of this hyper vigilance, I’ve got some good news for the lactose intolerance sufferers out there:  YOU CAN EAT CHEESE!!!!  And all it takes is one simple step — look at the nutrition label!
Since lactose is the sugar found in milk, the fewer grams of sugar on the label, the better. Compare, for example, the 0.2 grams in cheddar cheese versus the 6 grams in feta. An easy way to check for lactose in cheese is to look at the Nutrition Facts under “Sugar.”  Since the sugar in cheese is lactose, you can easily see how much lactose the cheese contains. If the sugar is listed as zero, then the cheese contains no more than half a gram of lactose per ounce. Compare to 12 grams of lactose in an 8 ounce glass of milk.

Cheese with trace levels (less than 0.5 gram lactose):

Naturally aged cheese (such as Cheddar, Parmesan and Swiss) can be digested by many people with lactose intolerance. During the cheese making process, much of the lactose is drained off with the whey (the liquid portion). The small amount that remains in the curd becomes lactic acid during the aging process of the cheese.  Mere trace amounts of lactose remain.

Cheese with low levels (less than 5 grams lactose):

Fresh unripened cheese (such as mozzarella, cream cheese and ricotta) are not aged. Only part of the lactose that remains in the curd has a chance to convert to lactic acid.  Cottage Cheese, also a fresh unripened cheese, generally has additional milk or cream mixed with the curd. Therefore, fresh cheeses contain more lactose than aged cheeses.
Processed cheese foods and cheese spreads are made by melting natural cheese to stop the aging process and then adding other ingredients, including whey or milk. Thus, cheese foods and cheese spreads do contain levels of lactose that may make you, well, intolerant.

So look for aged, rather than younger cheeses, and sugar under 5 grams per serving.  Here’s another rule of thumb: The higher the fat content, usually the lower the lactose levels. If you find that you still feel bloated, just try goat or sheep’s milk cheeses instead.

6 Top Goat and Sheep’s Milk Cheeses

Manchego “It’s a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese that gets harder, nuttier, and sharper as it ages. I like a one year-aged Manchego but it’s a personal preference. For a softer flavor, go for a young Manchego. Taste around to find a flavor, brand, or age profile that you like.”
Goat Gouda “It’s an aged goat cheese that’s totally different from the fresh crumbly kind you know from salads. Four-, five-, and six-month aged versions are crowd friendly but a one-year is especially good. It gets hard, dense, and really crystalized with almost a caramel flavor.”
Roquefort “My favorite brand of this blue cheese made of sheep’s milk is Carles. There are only seven producers of Roquefort and it’s a highly regulated cheese, so a cheese shop will usually carry only one brand and you probably won’t be able to comparison shop. Roquefort can have a really aggressive, almost nail-polish-remover quality, so the trick is having a flavor that is balanced with the right amount of saltiness. Carles’s flavor is round, sweet, and salty–so you can eat a lot of it even though it’s intensely flavored.”
Young Goat Cheeses “Vermont Creamery makes a fantastic variety with different rinds. If you’re starting out, try the Coupole. It’s yellowy in color with a dry, dense, almost flaky texture, and nutty, mellow flavor. For goat cheese 201, go for Bonne Bouche, a small 6-oz round that has an ash rind, and a very creamy, almost liquid-like-texture, and an herbaceous flavor.”
Feta “Traditional feta from Greece is made with a blend of goat and sheep’s milk but anyone can make a cheese and call it feta, so you need to make sure that you get it from a reliable source. One brand to look for that’s pretty widely available in supermarkets is MT Vikos Feta.”
Pecorino “Any cheese labeled ‘pecorino’ will always be made of sheep’s milk. The name means ‘little sheep’ in Italian. Pecorino comes in a huge range–it can be soft, super hard and aged, or really delicate and mild. If you’re up for an adventure, taste as many Pecorino cheeses as you can–it’s a fun way to learn about sheep cheese throughout Italy, and it’s a great journey to discover what style of pecorino you like best.”

And most of all, enjoy your cheese, no matter what the form!

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I’ve always demystified cheese by telling people that it’s just rotten milk, but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to just leave it susceptible to the elements on your countertop! Cheese’s rotten-ness hangs in a very delicate balance between edible rotten-ness and inedible rotten-ness, so to ensure that you’re being the best cheese guardian you possibly can, follow the steps below and you’ll know how to store your cheese the right way:

1. In order to avoid having the cheese dry out or pick up other flavors, always re-wrap cheese in fresh wrapping (preferably in waxed or parchment paper) after the cheese has been opened.  Remember that natural cheese is a living organism complete with enzymes and bacteria that require air and moisture to survive.  Thus, re-wrapping the cheese in paper and then in plastic wrap will create a micro-environment for the cheese and is the preferred storage treatment.  Also remember that you shouldn’t leave cheese in the same wrappings for extended periods of time.

2. The ideal temperature range for storing cheese is between 35 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit, with high humidity, preferably in the bottom vegetable/fruit bin.  To guard against accidentally freezing your cheese, store it as far away from the freezer compartment and/or the meat bin as possible.

3. Strong, pungent cheeses such as blue, aged brick, or washed rind varieties deserve to be double wrapped to avoid having their aromas permeate other foods.  It’s not a bad idea to place these cheeses in an airtight container for extra assurance against aroma leakage.  It’s best to store cheeses separately if possible, especially blues, washed rinds and milder cheeses, as they will pick up each other’s flavors.

4. If cheeses other than fresh cheeses and blues have surpassed their expiration dates (imprinted on the packaging) or if the cheese develops a blue-green mold on the exterior, make a cut about a ½ inch below the mold to ensure that it has been entirely removed; the remaining cheese will be fine.

5. In general, never freeze natural cheeses, as they may lose their texture, and in some cases their flavor profiles will be seriously altered.  If you must freeze cheese, allow the cheese to thaw slowly in the refrigerator and use it for cooking, as the texture will become crumbly and dry after it is defrosted.

6. If stored and wrapped cheeses are overly dry, develop a slimy texture, exhibit ammoniated or any off odors, it’s best to discard them.  If you find these characteristics in cheeses at your local shop, do not purchase them, as they are  past their prime.  If a retailer’s offerings consistently display the above characteristics, it’s best to find another resource for your cheese.

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