This is the cheese, that can bring grown men down to their knees, and make them moan in complete ecstasy! It’s complete heaven, and it’s the first cheese that I fell in love with after starting with the Murray’s Project. My fellow Cheese Steward, Jillian, even uses Fromager d’affiness as a pick-up line when any attractive member of the male species came by the Shoppe. “Let me grab that huge wedge of Fromager d’Affinois for you to try. I can even spread it for you on that cracker!”, she would often say, with her luscious, Marilyn Monroe induced voice. Who knew that they were going get more than a cheese? This was complete theatre and it was my cue to back away! Mostly, I didn’t want to burst out laughing and ruin the cheesy, sexual atmosphere that Jillian would create!
Fromager d’affinois is a pasteurized, double crème, bloomy cheese from France that looks, acts like, and smells like a Brie. Everything about fromager d’affinois will strike you as a cheese that simply is a brie; but it’s important to say that it actually isn’t a brie. During the process of making fromager d’affinois, the cow milk actually goes through ultrafiltration, the complete separation of water from the milk. This process isn’t traditionally done with brie and allows the cheese to be made within two weeks, rather than the typical eight week stretch that brie takes to be made. The end result is a fabulous creamy cheese that keeps most of it’s nutrients, with a fat content of more than 60%.
I decided early on in my new cheese career that I was going to bring home a couple of different cheeses a week in my attempt to get to know the cheese. I wanted to throw myself into my new cheese life, and after having a small orgasmic revelation by trying a small piece of this bloomy cheese, I decided that fromager d’affinois was to be the first cheese to bring home. I then developed a pattern and the following week, I brought it home again and then again the week after that, and so on. I became addicted to this guilty pleasure, and three months later, I found myself ignoring the bathroom scale only because I had gained 20 pounds from eating this devilishly delicious, goddess of a wedge of cheese! Thinking about it now even makes my mouth water! I wish there were meetings that I could attend to get help with this addiction because fromager d’affinois is my crack!
The philosophy of The Murray’s Project is that each customer should be able to try the cheese before they buy it. The moment that Fromager d’affinois hit’s the pallet; the customer simply falls victim to it’s elegant crème. They must have it and they will stop at nothing to get more of it. My fellow cheese lover, Ben once did an active demo of fromager d’affinois and sold several four pound wheels in a few hours. The cheese simply sells itself without much help from us!
I eventually had to end my weekly affair with fromager d’affinois after a few short months. I resist her temptation every time I walk into the Cheese Shoppe, vowing to never allow her into my mouth again. Unless it’s for my birthday, Christmas, the last Saturday of the month or I’m just having a stressful day and I need to be happy. Yes indeed, this cheese makes me happy and happiness is the key to a good life.
