US readers may be interested to know that there are now branches of Whole Foods in London (and one in Glasgow!). Thus I have finally been able to buy Pace Sauce, and Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Salsa. I can now make Mexican comfort food. But there other things I need. When the Ramones sang, “Sitting here in Queens, eating refried beans”, little did they know that they were not describing a cheap, working class meal, but exotic foreign food that UK residents pay a massive premium for. You can get refried beans in Tesco, but they are in the special foreign food section and they cost $2 per can. Ouch!

Still, at least I can buy them. Can I get decent tortilla chips? Of course not. I can get Doritos, and Dorito-like product, but nothing like the real thing. If it doesn’t come with extra salt, and in cheese & onion flavor, you don’t get to buy it here. I wonder if my favorite burrito restaurant will sell them in bulk?

OK, so it is Valentine’s Day. Exchanging gifts with Kevin is complicated because we are 5,000 miles apart, but if we were together it is fairly certain that food would be involved. Would it be chocolate, or is the way to my heart more surely navigated with cheese? Can you have both? Surely not, but then again…

Yes ladies, you can! Thanks to the good people at Culture magazine I present the definitive guide to pairing chocolate with cheese.

Of course Culture is an American magazine, so they are talking about American chocolate and cheeses. Fine those may be, if you know where to look, they are hard to get in the UK. What I need is an equivalent that uses Montezuma’s chocolate and British cheeses. Does such a guide exist? If not I guess I have a whole year to do the research.

As promised, here is a list of the cheeses I will be eating over the holidays (not all at once, I hasten to add).

Gorwydd Caerphilly – Not only a very fine example of a great Welsh cheese, but also made by the people who operate the cheese shop in St. Nicholas’ Market in Bristol. Sorry I couldn’t get to you for my Christmas order, guys. This is also one of the best looking cheeses around. (And you can eat the rind.)

Sparkenhoe Red Leicester – The magnificent vintage version of this cheese that I found at the festival in Caerdydd isn’t generally available in shops, but the standard version is darn good. Deliciously nutty. A must try if all you have ever had of Red Leicester is the plastic stuff they sell in supermarkets.

Stichelton – Stilton is the must have cheese for the British Christmas. This is as good as it gets. They just can’t call it Stilton as it is made with unpasteurised milk (as are many of the cheeses listed here).

Appleby Cheshire – I’m not a great expert on Cheshire cheese, but this one looked good in the store so I thought I would try it. I’m pleased to say that my instincts severed me well. It is very dry, crumbly and flavorsome. Yum. I’ll be buying this again.

Paxton & Whitfield Cheddar – Most of my cheese shopping was done in Paxton & Whitfield in Bath. They are cunningly located just across the road from Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, and so manage to trap me every time I go looking for books. They make their own cheddar, and I thought it was about time I gave it a try. While it is far better than most cheddars you can buy, the competition is fierce so I don’t think it will become a favorite.

Saint Endelion – If you are going to eat Brie, why eat the French stuff when you can have something very similar made with Cornish double cream?

Stinking Bishop – Well it is Christmas, so you have to have a Bishop. Actually, though, name comes from the pear cider in which the rind is washed, and Stinking Bishop pears were named after a drunken farmer, not a port-sozzled clergyman. The cheese does stink, though, even though the plastic wrapper which I haven’t unsealed yet.

Green Thunder – Marjorie, who knows me far too well, gave me a small truckle of Snowdonia Cheese Company’s garlic- and herb-infused cheddar. It is delightfully powerful stuff — enough to put off even the most amorous of sparkly vampires. It may even chase off stinking bishops.

And finally, to go with the mince pies, I found a Wensleydale with run & raisin fudge in Tesco.

US readers should note that the Gorwydd, Sparkenhoe and Appleby were all featured in the Winter 2011 issue of Culture Magazine.

As promised yesterday, I took myself into Bath in search of fine food. This included buying fresh sprouts from the organic grocery, so I have a good chance of actually liking them. It also involved lots of cheese, but I’ll do a separate blog about that another day as I still want one or two things. I bought some cinnamon tea at the Tea Emporium, which is possibly an even better sensory experience than Lush (and certainly more controlled). And I bought dinner. There was no venison about, so I ended up at The Sausage Shop instead. Solstice dinner will therefore be:

Wild boar & apricot sausages, served with cheddar mash and steamed asparagus spears.

Also red wine, and I may make a start on the cheese because I have it now and I want to taste the new stuff before blogging.

Twitter followers may remember me being rather excited last week about getting given a pheasant. This means that I owe you all a cookery post. Here it is.

First up, a pheasant is surprisingly easy to prepare. You don’t need to pluck it. With something like a turkey or a goose plucking is essential because you want to keep all of the subcutaneous fat for when you roast the bird. But a pheasant is a much leaner creature and you don’t lose much by taking the skin off, and all of those pesky feathers with it. There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing how to do it. The only thing I failed on was getting the leg tendons out, which isn’t that important but does require a pair of pliers. Must buy some for next time.

Because a pheasant doesn’t come with its own fat you need to provide some if you are going to roast it. That usually means wrapping it in bacon. Alternatively you can casserole it, which is what I did. The recipe I used is here, and it shouldn’t surprise any of you to learn that it involves chorizo and cream. Browning your meat in the fat left from frying chorizo is a brilliant idea, which I will use in making my pork & chorizo chili from now on.

Of course I’m much too stupid to just follow a recipe. I don’t do many casseroles because I dislike using a big oven. I could have put the bird in the slow cooker, but I decided to try doing a casserole in the halogen oven instead. They tend to cook more quickly, so I reduced the time from 45 minutes to 30 minutes, and that appeared to be about right. Over Winterval I will get to try roasting in the halogen oven, which will be interesting.

Talking of which, I see that Sainsbury’s is offering a four-bird roast: goose, turkey, duck and guinea fowl. Unfortunately it is £80 and serves 14, so I’m not going to be buying one unless I win a lottery between now and then, and can manage to buy a house with a big enough oven and dining room in it in time.

Today, as promised, I took myself off to Caerdydd for the British Cheese Festival. Jo Hall of BristolCon, together with her mum, sister and sister’s partner, also turned up, which made it a much more sociable day out. But you want to know about the food, right? OK, here goes.

We’ll start with the drinks. There were, as I have come to expect, several stalls with fruit wines and liqueurs, but the company that caught my eye was the Septimus Spyder Mediaeval Brewhouse. They get a few negative points for having a sign up saying that they could not give beer samples because it was illegal to serve alcohol — the wine people were happily giving out samples. Also I couldn’t buy anything because of the sign saying that they refused to serve witches, and friends of witches. Then again, they look a lot of fun, and the sample of lime-spiked ginger beer they gave me was remarkably good. Jo went back later without me so she could buy something without any witches around. I wish Kevin had been there as I’m sure he would have liked to try British cream soda.

Also of interest in the non-cheese tent was Pyman Pâtés. Their website is under renovation at the moment but if you go here you can see the range of delicious varieties they produce.

The food tent was structured with the bigger commercial concerns (including Tesco!) around the outside, and with a central island devoted to members of the Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association. That, naturally, is where I spent most of my time, but I want to make a quick shout-out to Pong who have a fine range of cheeses for mail order delivery. I don’t need them as I have a selection of fine cheese shops available in Bath and Bristol, but if you live in a cheese-deprived area of the UK you may find them useful.

Meanwhile, onto the serious stuff. I’m not going to give a prize for soft cheeses as I couldn’t find anything particularly outstanding, so we’ll get straight into the blues where the competition was intense. Cornish Blue was there, of course, proudly trumpeting the World Champion prize that they won last year. However, there is fierce trans-Tamar rivalry going on as the Best English award in this year’s British Cheese Awards (announced last week) went to Devon Blue from Ticklemore. This could be more serious than whether you should put the cream on the scones first, or the jam.

Something interesting I noticed about the blues is that several companies make a selection of varieties using the same recipe but different milks. The famous Irish blue, Cashel, has a cousin, Crozier, made from sheep’s milk. Ticklemore make three cheeses: Beenleigh from sheep’s milk, Harbourne from goat’s milk, and Devon from Friesian cows. Personally I am a sucker for Channel Island milk, so my Best Blue award goes to a past BCA winner (from 2008), Barkham Blue from Two Hoots. You can tell the type of milk used by the rich yellow colour of the cheese. When you see them together that contrasts markedly with the much whiter Barkham Chase, made in exactly the same way but with mlk from Friesians. Two Hoots also do Loddon Blewe which is made from ewe’s milk.

The hard cheese category didn’t have quite such obvious rivalry, but was tough all the same. There were the usual star cheeses such as Montgomery Cheddar and of course my friends from Trethowan’s with their Gorwydd Caerphilly. But there were also some interestingly different cheeses. I’d like to give a shout out to Lynher Dairies whose nettle-wrapped and wild garlic-wrapped Yarg were very interesting. Plus points also to Lyburn whose Old Winchester is a creditable attempt at producing a UK version of aged Gouda.

Kent is not a part of the UK that I usually associate with cheesemaking. The people of Kent grow hops, and write outraged letters to the newspapers under the famous byline of “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”. Also when I was young they used to beat Somerset at cricket with monotonous regularity. That doesn’t happen these days, but the thought that people from Kent should make a fine cheddar cheese does very strange things to my brain. Step forward, therefore, Winterdale, whose Winterdale Shaw is a very fine cheese indeed. I’m giving it a special prize as my discovery of the day.

Kudos is also due for their determination to make their business entirely carbon neutral. To do that when making aged cheeses you need a suitable cave, which apparently they do. I’m hoping that their commitment to environmental responsibility doesn’t prevent them from shipping the cheese out west to somewhere I can buy it regularly.

And finally, we need a winner. You may be astonished to learn that it is not a West Country cheese. It is, however, a cheese that explodes your taste buds. I’m familiar with Sparkenhoe Red Leicester from the Trethowan’s Dairy stall in Bristol, but at the show they had a vintage version and it was absolutely awesome. Red Leicester is well known for its flavour — indeed it is often recommended for cooking because of this. While I was at their stall I overhead someone say that she didn’t like it because it had a “very cheesy” taste. Goodness only knows what she was doing at the show. But I love it, and Jo bought a big wedge too.

My Best Hard Cheese and Best in Show prizes go to Sparkenhoe Vintage Red Leicester.

By the way, American readers, the red colour in Sparkenhoe comes from Annatto. Wikipedia says that before that was available they used carrot juice instead, which must have given a very different flavour. I’d be interested to see someone revive that recipe.

And that, I think, is enough for now. I do have some photos, but I’m trying to give the shoulder a day off from the computer so you’ll have to wait for those.

Yesterday I was in Bristol for a BristolCon committee meeting (lots of exciting news about that to come soon). Afterwards I took the opportunity to do some shopping. Naturally some of this involved St. Nicholas’ Market and good food.

My first stop was the Trethowan’s Dairy stall for some more of their fine Gorwydd Caerphilly. I also picked up some Havod, which is a Welsh cheddar made from organic-certified unpastreurised milk. It is nowhere near as strong as Somerset cheddar, but it does taste rather good.

Next Saturday I am off to Caerdydd for the Great British Cheese Festival, which the Trethowan’s folks assure me will be quite spectacular. Expect more cheese blogging in a week’s time.

Before that, however, I have a new discovery to share. One aisle away from the cheese stall I found A Bar of Chocolate. They must be fairly new as there’s no way I would have missed them had I gone past before. Much to my delight, they sell Montezuma’s. They also sell much more besides; for example Divine, which is a Ghanaian Fairtrade collective. As I said on Twitter at the time, I suspect that bankruptcy looms for me in the very near future. There might well be such a thing as too much chocolate.

One of my favourite chili recipes involves chocolate and beer. I tend to experiment with beers, depending on what I can find in Tesco on the day. As I have already tweeted, today’s chosen beer was the Double Stout from Hook Norton Brewery in Oxfordshire. I always make a point of tasting the beer before it goes into the pot, and I was very impressed. And this from a Guinness fanatic.

The reason I am blogging, however, is that the brewery is rather interesting. It was founded in 1849, which is probably quite young for the UK, but is still using the same premises. In particular the brewery has its own power plant: a steam engine installed in 1899. They don’t use it every day now, but it is still in working order. They have Shire horses as well.

And judging by their stout, the beers are good too. I think I’ll look out for their new wheat beer.

The postman just delivered a package from Kevin — mail for me that still goes to our address in California. Amongst the items included was the latest issue of Culture, which is nothing to do with Iain Banks (M or otherwise) and everything to do with cheese. From them I discover that I have to be in Cardiff in September.