Alyssa Gilbert likes the taste of a funky cheese. As the executive director of the California Artisan Cheese Guild and the owner of Ollie’s American Cheese and Provisions, Gilbert recommends Tulip Tree Creamery’s double-cream cow’s milk Foxglove. “It will give you that orange-color rind,” Gilbert told me. “It’s sticky and it’s smelly.”
Gilbert describes washed-rind cheeses as the hamburgers of the cheese world. She eats them unadorned, but for those reluctant to try them she recommends pairing these stinky cheeses with hamburger condiments. “Pickles, onion jam or mustard,” she suggested. “Really anything that complements it and will tone it way, way down.”
Ollie’s makes a sandwich of the week, curates a cheese-of-the-month club, and holds events and workshops. At the cheese-pairing classes, Gilbert said she always pairs a washed-rind cheese with mustard and a cornichon. “Ninety nine percent of the time, one person in each class will say, ‘This tastes like a picnic,’ because the combinations really help each other out,” she said…