Perhaps it is not often enough that I discuss my love of cheese. Hopefully this post will make up for all the times I’ve neglected to give special mention to what is very likely the best animal by-product on the face of this earth (well, tied with butter, anyways).

At this point, you have probably come to realize that my European travels have been a little more food-driven than the average backpacking trip. I like good food and, just as it is the duty of tourists to visit the major sights of a city, I feel it is also my duty to try that place’s specialty food.

In the Netherlands, it is cheese. This made me very, very happy.

One of Holland’s most famous cheese purveyors is Reypenaer. This particular cheese company is well known because of their unique aging process. Their wheels age in a century-old warehouse with an unregulated temperature, meaning that special micro-cultures are introduced into the cheese. The warehouse’s cheese experts also clean each one of the 16,000 cheeses by hand and they have a man nicknamed the “Cheese Whisperer” who detects any holes and inconsistencies in the cheese. This stuff is clearly the top of the line.

Lucky for Gord and I, Reypenaer has a large shop in Amsterdam.

Even luckier? They have daily cheese and wine tastings for only 12€ (which may seem expensive, but, as you will see, we did our very best to get our money’s worth).

Arriving at Reypenaer, we’re directed to the basement of the shop where the area has been transformed into a mini cheese tasting paradise.

Gord and I take a seat and greedily eye up the six cheeses sitting in front of us.

Even though we thought we were going to be the only cheese samplers under the age of 60, we were pleasantly surprised to be amonst a younger crowd. And by younger, I mean 40. Whatever.

Our class began with an intensely-soundtracked shortfilm about Reypenaer cheese, after which we finally began our tasting.

But hold your horses – think you can just pop the cheese in your mouth, chew and guzzle down a few gulps of wine? Think again.

Before the cheese even reaches your mouth, you are required to make observations about both the colour and smell of the cheese. This is quite difficult when all the cheeses smell like, well, cheese. We were told that closing our eyes to smell the cheese (AKA looking ridiculous) helped detect the scent.

After you’ve half BS-ed some sort of answer like “the cheese is a pale cream colour and has a woody, strong smell,” you can finally eat.

STOP. Do not chew. Let the cheese melt on your tongue. This is crucial. The video at the beginning of the tasting said this melting process was extremely necessary.

From here, it is time to describe the taste (my personal favourite: celery dipped in alcohol) and the consistency (less refined, more rugged…).

At this point, most stop to ponder the deep cheese flavouring questions of the universe. As for Gord and I, we just kept cutting more cheese. Remember what I said about us getting our money’s worth?

Below are my “tasting notes” from the day’s class, in which I attempt to recount my experiences with the six cheeses. Please don’t laugh at my embarrassingly unsophisticated palette (see #3 taste).

And finally, since the tasting was an educational experience, here are a few of the things Gord and I learned:

1. Goat cheese is different than cows cheese because of the different amounts of keratin produced by the animals’ stomachs. Since cows have four stomachs and goats only have one, this creates a different type of milk and, as a result, a different type of cheese. This difference is often most evident from the varied colours of cheese – goat cheese is white and cow’s cheese is more yellow.

2. Port wine is absolutely, positively disgusting.

3. The #4 cheese combines well with malt whiskey as well as 80% chocolate.

4. The crunchy, crystalized part of some cheeses is caused by the aged release of natural proteins, minerals and salts.

5. The last cheese we tasted, the XO (extra old) is particularly rare and famous because it is made from the summer milk of cows. It’s produced by cows that have grazed on fresh food all summer and whose milk is the best for keeping the cheese dense and compact which will allow it to age for longer without getting crumbly.

In the end, Gord and I emerged from the basement full of delicious cheese and a little bit drunk off of good quality wine. Mission eat Dutch cheese: accomplished.

Some scenes (and cheese) from our tasting…

Note: better pictures of cake and cafe will be uploaded as soon as I get home and/or can access a piece of technology that is not my iPhone. Snagging wireless from a could-be-a-scam free harbourfront wifi zone in Copenhagen.

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The recipient of occasional OCD panic attacks, I decided to create a list of things I wanted to do in each place I was visiting. For all the cities I’ve travelled to so far, my list was always topped by some traditional tourist site – the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, etc. etc.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that, although food recommendations have weighed heavily into my city agendas thus far (especially with Paris and macarons), these places have never been the crowning glory of my to-dos.

Vienna, however, was a different story.

When I started researching what I wanted to do in Austria’s capital city, I stumbled upon a sensational Internet claim: “In Vienna, try the world’s most famous cake,” the websites declared.

Well, well, who am I to resist trying such a thing?

This famed cake is called the Sachertorte, and is not for those who consider chocolate anything other than their absolute favourite thing. Extensive research told me that the cake was chocolate and, in between the layer of cake and rich top-secret chocolate icing, there was a layer of apricot marmalade.

The cake originated as a specialty dessert at the Sacher Hotel, and has since spawned many a knock-off cake.

Anyways, at this point it isn’t too hard to guess the location of Gord and I’s first Vienna stop.

After an exhausting 12 hour overnight train ride from Florence to Vienna, we decided to fight off our sleepy stupor with a piece of this cake for breakfast. There’s nothing like a chocolate and cappuccino fix to start the day.

Thanks to Gord’s masterful navigational skills (minus the time he got us devastatingly lost in Pisa..), we got to the cafe quickly and, before I knew, were presented with a generously-sized piece of cake and mountain of whipped cream.

Pictures were taken, cake was admired. Time for the first bite.

Gord and I quickly found out that the title of world’s most famous cake is not synonymous with the title of world’s best cake.

Maybe the Austrians like their chocolate torte dry (update: the ever-reliable Wikipedia informs me that the whipping cream is served with the cake because the Viennese find it too dry otherwise), but we Canadians found the cake too crumbly for it’s own good. Yes, the top-secret chocolate icing was good (perhaps they keep that part of the recipe a secret because they realize it’s the best part) and the apricot marmalade added another dimension to the dessert, but the cake was the make-it-of-break it factor for me. Thank heavens there was enough whipping cream to smother a small town. Much joyous dipping and spreading occurred.

Important note: I had another piece of Sachertorte at the airport today for SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES to see if it would be any more moist. Admittedly, it was a knock-off airport cafe piece, but it was still dry as a bone. Such a shame.

Back-at-home goal: recreate Sachertorte using a postcard recipe I bought at the Albertina museum of graphic arts. Concoct a fudgy icing recipe. MAKE CAKE MOIST. Die a happy camper.

I know, I haven’t updated in forever. Trust me, it is NOT because I haven’t been eating. What an outrageous thought. Nope, rather my absence can be attributed to the fact that I haven’t had access to a real computer since my last Santorini post. As a result, I haven’t been able to upload the (hopefully) b-e-a-utiful photos that I’ve been taking of every meal and snack (to Gord’s occasional embarrassment and disapproval).

I’ve decided, however, to write a few posts anyways, otherwise things will never get done. Until I can upload my actual pictures to a computer, you will just have to deal with my semi-okay iPhone photos. I shall replace them with the real thing shortly (maybe tomorrow in Copenhagen).

Positive: perhaps the mediocre quality of the photos will make you less tempted to drool!

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On our first full day in Rome, Gord and I separated for the afternoon to do some independent sight-seeing.

Clearly, the phrase independent sight-seeing did, and always will, translate to mean that I had the opportunity to find more food.

So what if I had just eaten lunch? It’s not everyday a girl’s in Italy.

After making a hastily thought up wish at the Trevi Fountain whilst trying my best not to be pick pocketed, I started off in search of what I thought was one of my many Twitter food recommendations. My endpoint was a mysterious location that I had, for some reason, saved in my iPhone’s Google Maps the day before.

My afternoon motto quickly became “I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I’m sure it’s nearby.”

After sadly discovering my map destination to be an empty alleyway, I decided to console my lost self with strawberry and lemon gelato across from the Trevi Fountain, before starting the long walk back to meet Gord at the place where we were staying.

Now at this point I really did have every intention of returning back in order to make our pre-arranged 5:15 meeting time.

But then I saw it: the sign for Giolitti gelato, the specialty shop my friend Elisa had recommended to me. Well that was that, meeting time or not, I had to get more gelato.

Nestled beside the Italian parliament buildings on Via degli Uffici del Vicario, Giolitti is to Italian gelato as Laduree is to French macarons. I found the shop just as I was finishing up my first gelato cone. Slightly embarrassing? Perhaps. Judge not, dessert lovers.

Despite the shop being packed, I went forth anyways, for good gelato is always worth the wait. Pushing my way up to the glass display case, my eyes went wide with the sight of more than 30 different types of gelati.

Put on the spot, I settled on a small cup of orange and, what I thought was raspberry, but actually turned out to be watermelon (in hindsight, it was a beautiful mistake).

The orange gelato had real zest in it and, combined with the tiny chocolate “seeds” of the watermelon, I felt like I was eating a luxurious Terry’s chocolate orange. The watermelon was also perfectly refreshing.

Thanks to my little gelato delay as well as a complicated route back that saw me accidentally find the Colosseum, I finally got back to the bed and breakfast at 6 p.m., 45 minutes after our original meeting time.

All in the name of gelato.

PS: here’s a final list of the gelato flavours I tried while in Rome and Florence: lemon (x2), strawberry, orange, watermelon, mascarpone cheese (my favourite!) and a generous spoonful of Gord’s creme caramel.

Tonight is our last night in Santorini. Tomorrow, we bid farewell to the land of feta cheese, moussaka and the best gosh darn tzatziki dip I’ve ever eaten.

Below, a small look at what Gord and I have eaten recently.

Oia is the perfect Greek island city. Rows upon rows of white plaster houses line the cliffs and domed blue roofs sparkle on the horizon. Oia is on the other side of the island from where we’re staying, but we got the chance to wine and dine (minus the wine) in the city on our second night in Santorini. Our dinner followed a super exhausting, all-day excursion that saw us climb cliffs, hike up a volcano and swim in stinky, sulfurous hot springs. This dinner was our reward for our adventurous day.

This seems like the most un-cultured and un-foodie thing ever, but I really, really love European Fanta. As far as I know, they don’t have the plain old orange stuff in Canada (I think it is some tangerine nonsense), so I always load up when I come to any European country. The Europeans know their fizzy drinks.

Gord was a little more sophisticated and went for the standard bubbly water.

As for the meal itself, we decided to get a mix-up of different, classic Greek appetizers.  The first was my personal favourite (and I think Gord would agree). It was a BAKED FETA DIP. Note to everyone reading this: baked cheese is normally extraordinary, but baked feta is all together outstanding. There were tomatoes, green peppers and red onions mixed in. We piled it on top of bread and gorged shamelessly. This is definitely on top of my “will recreate once back in Ottawa” list.

Our other appetizer platter was a combination of several other wonderful traditional Greek things: fava beans, an eggplant salad (the Greeks love their eggplant!), stuffed grape leaves, fried cheese (yes, this is actually exactly what it sounds like) and some other Greek food that was so traditional there wasn’t even an English name for it on the menu. There were way too many consonants in the word for it to make any sense.

I returned to Oia this afternoon in hopes of turning all my window shopping that happened the other day into real life purchases. Turns out that everything was ridiculously overpriced, so I only came away with a magnet and a few postcards. I did, however, manage to get some lunch in, including a delicious (albeit probably not very traditional) cheese and vegetable tart and a piece of cream puff cake. The latter was actually a bunch of chocolate eclairs stuffed into cake form. Creamy and delicious. Exactly what I did not need, but delicious nonetheless.

Alright, well that was all for our Oia dining.

Next stop on this crazy adventure? After a night in Athens we’re off to Italy where I hope to eat my body weight (and more) in pasta, pizza and gelato.