Hello Culture readers! I'm Danielle, and I have the pleasure of being a 2012 Birth of a Cheese taste tester. Getting free, delicious cheese shipped directly to me from one of America's most highly regarded creameries is about the best thing that can happen in my book. And then I get to blab on and on about it to the world? Perfect.

I am the executive chef of a club at a military base in Texas. My husband, and co-taster, is also a chef and runs the kitchen of a catering company in Austin. Needless to say, we cook, eat, and talk a lot of food. But cheese holds a special place in my heart - I think it's alchemy is magical, and I am beginning to learn how to make it at home.

15 Janurary 2011
Podere Conti/Pontremoli, Italy

Relishing at all the differences while traveling is, no doubt, a full-time job, and loads of fun. But it’s even more amusing to see the universal similarities in people. Italian children are no exception. Watching these four Conti boys has me in stitches, since I am the American guest who brought such wonderful gifts as four whoopee cushions and a bag of punch balls from across the pond. Yesterday at breakfast, I was singled out for a well-rehearsed concert, featuring “The Adams Family Started When Uncle Fester Farted…” complete with a fart-tone baseline using the new “instruments.” A lack of enthusiasm for vegetables is another universal trait, as is that of their parents’ endless mealtime negotiation.

Enter cheese, the miracle nanny.