Greetings!
In the Bermuda Triangle, skiffs, tramp steamers and Dakota DC-3s disappear without trace. Innocents who wander into our own Cheese Triangle - bounded by Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet and Yeovil - are in severe danger of becoming cheesemakers, which is what the entire population of the area seems to do. Lost to their loved ones, the traveller disappears into a world of curd, starters and stainless steel vats, only to be glimpsed on a damp Thursday at the Farmers Market in Frome.
So it was some trepidation that I ventured into the Triangle in search of the Bartlett brothers. More below.
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Christmas Cheese Preview
 It's coming. You can run but you cannot hide. For Christmas we offer a set of boxes based on small whole cheeses: 3, 4 or 5 of them chosen from our favourite artisan cheesemakers - people like Menallack Farm, Curworthy and Smarts. Prices start at £25.50 plus delivery for the Christmas Three (£1 less than last year - we're trying!).
The posh box option is there, to make it look even better (pictured, with a Christmas Five), and all three boxes can be seen on our up-and-running Christmas Cheese page right now. Order as soon as you like - just put 'Christmas' when asked for a delivery day.
Coming soon - a tweaked and smartly repackaged Christmas Hamper with an option to add some great red wine and fortified wine ...
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 This Month's Offer!
Having read about my visit to Wootton Organic Dairy, you're bound to want to try some of their wonderful cheese, so here it is at half price. The offer includes two fantastic hard cheeses which are new to The Cheese Shed: Millstone and Ringwell.
So: order either of these, Little Ryding or Old Burford, before the end of October and you'll get a 50% discount.
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The Bartletts' No-Compromise Cheese
 Campaigners for 'real cheese' in the 1990s were looking above all for unpasteurised cheese, with its greater depth and complexity of flavour. They also pointed out that there was a shortage of organic cheeses. This week I drove east across the Somerset Levels to North Wootton, where David (left) and James Bartlett make four great cheeses which tick both these boxes.
On the family farm, with its slopes looking across to Glastonbury Tor (see photo below), they initially produced organic ewes' milk for sale, before taking over a cheese recipe from renowned maker Mary Holbrook. This was the small mould-ripened (and unpasteurised) Little Ryding. Wootton Organic Dairy was born.
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 Because ewes' milk can't be produced all year round, cheese no. 2 was brought in. Old Burford is another soft cheese - with the same downy white rind - but this time made with bought-in organic Jersey cows' milk. The specially creamy quality of that milk makes lovely cheese (i.e Sharpham Rustic).
The most recent additions, about 5 years ago, were two hard cheeses, Millstone (ewe) and Ringwell (cow - Jersey milk again). Made using an essentially similar recipe, these are hard-ish, dry-ish, and crumbly in the case of the former. They mature for about 5 months and feature an especially beautiful rind, in terms of both texture and colour. Both were new to me but they're gorgeous cheeses which I'm delighted to make available through the Cheese Shed.
The Bartletts haven't gone the obvious route. Unpasteurised, organic ewes' milk cheese could be described as a niche within a niche within a niche! But David tells me there's more interest all the time, so their no-compromise approach is obviously paying off. Sometimes you just have to go with your instincts.
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Quicke's Triumph / A Quicke Supper
 Some great wins for local makers at this year's British Cheese Awards, including two for Pete Humphries (Whitelake Dairy): Little Wallop took Best Soft White Cheese, and Rachel, Best Semi-Soft Cheese.
And 'Best' means best in the country.
This years' Best Goats Cheese was deemed to be Quicke's Hard Goats Cheese (no arguments from us), so congratulations to Mary Quicke and her team at Newton St. Cyres. In celebration, Annie Howes has come up with a gorgeous recipe for oven-roasted roots with goats' cheese (pictured). A lovely supper for an autumn evening: read the recipe here.
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World Cheese Book: Two to Give Away!
 Ok, this is simple. Dorling Kindersley have produced this great World Cheese Book, edited by uber-guru Juliet Harbutt.
We've got two copies to give away. If you want to be in with a chance, just email me before the end of the 4th December and we'll pick a couple of names out of the hat / barrel / wheelbarrow.
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