I've noticed a great thing at the local natural foods market.

They are now packaging cheese as if they were carpet remnants. If you've been to a carpet store, you know that they take the last few pieces of once-large rolls of carpet and sell them at reduced prices. While the market I visit didn't reduce the per-pound prices, I always feel a little silly asking for a single person's snack-size portion cut from the big chunks of cheese they put out for display. Now they have samples of things I wouldn't normally want to try because of the cost. For only a dollar or two, I can try all kinds of oddball cheeses!

My first effort to sample cheese was very successful--I enjoyed all four of the varieties I bought. In particular, I discovered something called Fromager d'Affinois, a French cheese. It turns out that the cheese, made in Affinois, France (duh), is made using the same methods used for making Brie. The difference is that they filter out a substantial amount of the water in the milk used for the cheese--why they don't call this condensed milk, I don't know.

It's a great cheese, but wow, is it rich. But I recommend that you avoid baking it like you would Brie. The much higher fat content is likely to make a greasy, nasty mess...