Tasting Tuesdays have become a regular feature over at the Boston office, and when they asked me to pitch in, of course I said yes. It didn’t hurt that they were sending me Beemster’s XO Gouda, which is one of my avowedly favorite cheeses. XO is aged 26 months, and has a wonderful grainy texture because of it, along with a sharp-sweet-savory flavor like that reminds me of a liquor-filled, salted caramel bonbon.
Unfortunately, instead of sending me one wedge of this marvelous stuff, the folks at Beemster sent me six, and I don’t have a squad of interns to absorb the calories. So to prevent overload, I enlisted my sweetie, culture’s science advisor Dr. Minda Berbeco, and her colleagues at the National Center for Science Education for an impromptu tasting and secret experiment in what happens when you a corner a bunch of essentially shy nerds with a video camera: