Picture the scene, you’re sat round the dinner table, you look directly across from you and see the frowning face of an in-law/boss/judgey friend as you present a sad little supermarket bought cheese board and a trickle of whatever is left in the bottle on the table. Your other half is fuming, they’ve spent days working on this dinner party, trawling recipes, visiting their local greengrocers and butchers and working out how to make their gravy without those weird lumps. You, you were in charge...

Nettlebed Creamery A Whole Lot Of Hay By Sarah Sambrook In the second installment of our Producer Spotlight, we’re focusing on a very special Cheesemaker tucked away in the Oxfordshire countryside… Nettlebed Creamery. Headed up by Rose, Patrick and their small team of cheesemakers, they’ve been making organic cheese in Nettlebed, just outside Henley-on-Thames, since 2015 – though Rose’s family have been farming the same land since 1901.  Nestled next to the church in this sleepy village,...

An Autumnal Cheese Board By Sarah Sambrook The hills are fading into red, gold and brown and crunchy leaves are starting to coat the pavements – autumn suddenly feels like it’s here.  Autumn is my favourite time of year. Thick jumpers and cosy scarves are dusted off. Long, crisp walks in the country and ducking into pubs with roaring fires… what’s not to love! You’ve probably gathered that we love any excuse to feast on a cheese board, and the darker nights are the perfect time to invite...

A Visit To Sparkenhoe By Sarah Sambrook Red Leicester has a bad rep.It’s fair to say most of us grew up with shiny, sweaty Red Leicester – something to bulk out the sarnies and inoffensively melt atop a burger. Cheap, sharp and very orange. But Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, well it’s something else entirely…The first raw milk Red Leicester to be crafted in Leicestershire for decades,  David and Jo Clarke turned their hand to cheese making in 2005, using milk from their 150 head herd of pedigree  Holstein-Friesians....

April 2022 Buy The Box We’re back! It’s the second in the “What’s in the Fridge?” series and I’ve got 5 more cheeses to introduce/reintroduce you to! For any newcomers to the blog, my names Abi and I own and run Arch 13. I’m a certified sommelier, and recently qualified as a member of the academy of cheese. Which is to say, I’m officially a “curd nerd.” For people returning after last months blog, welcome back! To those of you that bought your “What’s in the Fridge?” box in March, I hope...

The Trials and Tribulations of 2020 I think we can all agree that as the clocks chimed at midnight between December 31st 2019 and January 1st 2020 and we pictured the year ahead (whilst muddling our way through Auld Lang Syne) nobody saw this coming. The first week of January in this trade is all about making plans for the year ahead, although trade is slow it’s a very exciting week as we look towards the future and what the next 12 months has in store. All of our tastings were in the diary,...

Anybody that knows me well can tell you how much I detest early mornings (it’s why I quite like Hospitality as a career), and therefore how difficult it was for me to get up before dawn to be at Heathrow Airport for 6am on a Monday Morning. So difficult that I woke up 20 minutes after I was supposed to leave the house. Luckily a very quick drive (not too quick Mum, don’t worry) down the M40 saw me meeting up with a bunch of fellow wine folk at 6.30am to get on a flight to Stuttgart. A matter...

You may have guessed by now that we love a bit of cheese. I’m actually eating cheese as I write this. I have visited Vineyards around the world to look at wine production and taste the final product, so it seems only apt to do the same with the cheese. It was this thought that had me picking up the Dream Team 13 at 9am one Monday morning and leaving the jewellery quarter behind for a short time in exchange for the rolling green grasses of Worcester. After packing the team into my relatively...