This afternoon Kevin and I headed up to Napa for a launch party for Culture magazine (which I have written about previously). Kudos here to the Culture folks for finding my blog post and inviting me, otherwise we may never have known about the event. A lengthy report follows.

As Kevin has already reported, the party took place at the Oxbow wine and cheese shop, which is in turn located in the Oxbow Public Market, a splendid little place on First Street which I’d love to shop at more except it is 1.5 hours away by car. The butcher and fishmonger looked very good, but were closed by the time we got out of the party. Several of the other shops looked really good too.

Also involved in the event was a group of cheese enthusiasts called Cheesewhizzes. From the look of their web site, they are quite new, and are looking for enthusiastic people around the country who might like to throw cheese tastings. Jay, are you listening?

The basic structure of the event was an Irish cheese and beer tasting. The cheeses were provided by the store, and the beer was a Californian porter provided by Napa Smith Brewery. As you probably know, I am very fond of my Guinness. I was happy to drink the Napa Smith beer. That’s a recommendation, in case you hadn’t noticed.

The cheeses included Tipperary Cheddar, which was quite pleasant but a bit mild compared to what I’m used to from Darkest Somerset, and Cashel Blue. Both of those are fairly readily available. (The cheddar is even on Amazon!). I’m quite fond of Cashel Blue and it was a good choice to end the tasting with.

The other three cheeses were Coolea, Gubbeen and Ardrahan. The Coolea is gouda-style, but not the heavily aged sort that we normally eat. The Gubbeen is creamy and interesting, but not something I’d eat regularly. And the Ardrahan was not really my sort of thing. But you know I am really a hard cheese fan and the creamy stuff doesn’t send me (honorable exceptions for Humboldt Fog and anything blue). If you want to know more, all three cheeses are featured in the article on County Cork in issue #1 of Culture.

I got to meet the magazine’s founders, Kate Arding (who is British) and Lassa Skinner. The editor, Elaine Khosrova, wasn’t there, so I didn’t get to talk articles, but I did have a short chat with Kate about writing for them and I shall be submitting some ideas soon. Because, you know: writing, cheese, what more could I ask for?

I did take some photos, but it seems like the interface between WordPress and Picasa got broken by a recent upgrade (of one or the other, I’m not sure which) so those will have to come later.

As Kevin noted, we bought some cheese. I’ll report on it tomorrow when we’ve eaten some.