was drawn from a second bottle. As the meal was declared complete, some of the fine wine remained. Unwilling to leave such precious grape juice to the cooking wine collection, someone suggested we try some cheese.

Wine and cheese at the end of a meal. It was a flash back to life in Europe for me. During the last decade or so living in New England, the cheese plate and its role as a foil to the conclusion of a great bottle of red wine has eluded me. It's just not fashionable and rarely offered. Perhaps, because we New Englanders

don't linger over the end of our meals. I am not sure. Maybe the restaurants want us out so they can seat another party. Maybe we live such hectic and driven lives that we no longer have any interest in lingering over that last glass with some fine cheese. Maybe we just don't have the cheeses that Europe has – definitely not the case!

It's a great pity. There is something about the combination of red wine and cheese that defies description. Not only can you finish your wine, but it keeps its balance when combined with cheese. Contrary to popular myth this delicious conclusion to a meal often involves less calories than a dessert, although, obviously, cheese is a high fat conclusion to your meal.

What we see in our research is a wide range of excellent artisan cheeses including many unpasteurized cheeses. Pasteurization is a great thing. It definitely makes milk based products safer (from Bovine Tuberculosis and other bacteria) however it also kills many so called good bacteria and alters the taste of the cheese.

For most healthy, non pregnant adults there is little or no risk in unpasteurized cheeses and the flavor is noticeably better than pasteurized equivalents. The really great cheeses tend to come from small farms and cheese artisans. Milking a cow and making cheese on the same farm is how you get to some of these incredibly intense cheeses that are literally labors of love and each one has its own character.

OK – health warning over, what about the smell? We have to face it, some of the best cheeses literally stink. They have a pungent and unpleasant odor that makes most people think twice. Why would you even want to eat them? Well the answer is that they also often have the most intense flavor imaginable. The odor and the taste are somehow not connected and if you can get up courage to try some, it is well worth the effort – hey you could get yourself on “Fear Factor” after eating some of them!