Q: What Kind Of Wine Goes Best With Velveeta? A: Boones Farm.

What up, Colorado Cheese Festival?!

I was lucky enough to attend this awesome cheese extravaganza!

Val, Christine, and Diamond were there!
Val's all about the cheese...he used to be a cheese maker!
Believe you me, I've already put a word in with Val to have him teach the Denver Craft Ninjas how to make cheese!

Mozzarella, Paneer...BLESS!

So, this is how you roll at the Colorado Cheese Festival:
Grab plate, tong up a couple squares, eat while moving to next table, sip a little water (or wine), REPEAT!

Some of my favorite cheesers...
Doug and Steph!

TJ tagged along too! I love TJ! She makes me laugh so much!

We started tasting - that's the reason we were there, right?!

This table had some sheep's milk cheese.
Sheep's milk isn't for me! The flavor is crazy strong and it caught me off guard.
Good to know for next time!

Val knows his stuff...we let him lead the way!

Seriously, every cheese you could imagine...
Blue, gouda, cheddar, chevre!

This variety had jerk seasoned cheese, cajun cheese, and cheese rolled in coffee grounds.
And the coffee grounds cheese was friggin' amazing!

Diamond is a cheese kid!

We worked out a cooperative system where the person with a free hand served up cheese to the rest of us.

Artisan cheese makers!
Thank you!

Son of a...
Humboldt Fog!
The best of the best in my book.
They had a truffle cheese that I told Steph I wanted to spend some time alone with.
Yeah, romantically!

And this table was just a cheese blow out!

Doug can hang!

The cheese crowd...is also the Bill Cosby sweater crowd!

Mmmm, GRUEYERE!

Edible rind...okay, why not?!

Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy is a Colorado based cheese maker!
And their cheese is dreamy!

Haystack Mountain Buttercup, Haystack Mountain Chevre en Marinade, Applewood Smoked Chevre...
I mean, you can't go wrong.

Yeah, it started to become overwhelming.

Cutting boards galore!
Flavors, varieties, subtleties, families...

This guy was serving up a cheese with cumin seeds.
It was ridic good.

Douglet and Steph waiting their turn!


And just when I thought we were done...
I was pleasantly surprised to know that we would be attending a pairing class that Val was teaching!

Want some wine with that cheese? Yes, yes, I do.


The pairing class gave us the opportunity to eat MORE cheese.

And hang out with weird cheese types.

The spread was wicked good...
Bread, olives, nuts, fruit, cured meats, jams, and honey!

And cheese...
But they had a WHEEL of Humboldt fog!
I took an unhealthy wedge.


I insisted that I get a pic of Steph's plate.
She looks perturbed, but I can't tell if it's because she's cheesed out or because she can't wait to attack the plate!

I cleaned my plate...
I'm not so much for the rind, although, I did learn from Val that you can eat the rind of the Humboldt Fog.
I'll try it next time.

I took lots of notes in my Colorado Cheese Festival Cheese Journal.

And I did actually learn a lot from Val and his cheese compadre!

By the time it was all over, I sort of had a headache.
A cheese hangover...but god damn, that's pretty awesome.

Also, I ate some food cooked up by Hosea of Top Chef.
I would have gotten a picture of him, but I felt bad for him because everyone was asking him for a pic and he seemed sort of tired of it.