Keeping You on Your Toes!

Hi Boys and Girls!
I had to post this wonderful, mouth-watering e-mail from Gourmage of New Braunfels. Beer ice cream? Read this and see what I mean!
Until next time...only drink the best wine you can afford. If you can't afford good wine, drink water.

July 18, 2011

Dear Friends,  Well, hello!  It's been a little while since you've heard from us... and as you might guess, we've got all sorts of good things going on.  Never predictable, we always have something going on that keeps us on our toes! And we want to keep you on your toes too... so this week for Tasting Tuesday we're featuring Balarina Aged Goat Gouda.  New to Gourmage, toffee-colored Balarina Goat Gouda comes to us from the Netherlands. Aged one year, the cheese has time to develop a crystalline cr unch and a rich, caramel sweetness that is delicious served with fruit or meat. (We sometimes describe the flavor as being a goat-milk Parmesan.) Balarina sidles up nicely to a Zinfandel, Riesling, Merlot, or Belgian Ale, such as Chimay.  It is devine.  We'll decide tomorrow which beverage we're going to use as the pairing, but I suspect it will be a red wine! And speaking of beverages, we are now making small batches of ice cream -- thanks to our friends at the Faust who brought us some of their newly-brewed Stout beer.  Chef Linsey whipped up some Chocolate Stout ice cream, and now we just can't stop.  After the Stout ice cream came Coconut Saffron and then Butterbeer (in homage to the last Harry Potter film).  Today's flavor is Cardamom Rose.  Tomorrow we'll have two flavors -- Pink Peppercorn and Goat Cheese.  The Pink Peppercorn has a big flavor and a tiny bit of heat, and the Goat Cheese tastes like cheesecake ice cream.  Yum. We were going to top the Goat Cheese ice cream with strawberries mascerated in 6-year balsamic vinegar, but the ice cream is so darn good that we're going to let it stand on its own.  In other fruit news, we are now making our own pickled cherries.  They are sweet and hot, and excellent with cheese and on a snack plate, so definitely come by and give them a try.  We're guessing you'll want to take some home!  We liked them so well that we also whipped up a batch of Spiced Peaches today -- from lovely Frederickburg peaches that we picked up at the NB Farmer's Market on Saturday.  We just made a small amount, and they'll go in the case tomorrow.  They are begging to be poured over vanilla ice cream or pound cake! Speaking of the NB Farmer's Market... did you know that you can vote for our market to be the Number One market in the U.S.?  Here's the link if you'd like to log on and vote.   I urge you to take a minute and vote  -- it would be a great way to help establish downtown New Braunfels as a great food destination. Humbolt Fog In general cheese news, we have a few favorites back in the case.  We now have Humbolt Fog (goat), Lemon Zest Stilton (cow) and both Ardi Gasna and P'tit Basque (sheep).  In non-cheese news, we're selling our chicken salad by the pound and 1/2-pound. Lots of customers are finding it to be a nice, easy supper on these 100+ degree days.  So that's it for this week.  We hope to see you tomorrow, and as always, thanks for coming by and sharing our passion for good food and drink.

Fellow Foodies, Stephanie Richardson and Amanda, Jen, Linsey and Megan For more immediate updates from Gourmage, follow us on Facebook and Twitter!