| The holidays are upon us once again and it's that | | | | Cooks Illustrated trial to determine if the soft |
| time of the year to dust-off the fine china and | | | | cheese knife, designed with 3 cut-out holes on the |
| polish the cutlery for this season's festivities. If | | | | blade, really works. The answer was a resounding |
| you are planning to do a lot of entertaining don't | | | | - yes. If you're the really adventurous type, you |
| wait till the last minute to take stock of the | | | | could conduct your own trial with your guests. But |
| serving and cutting utensils. Appetizers often | | | | there's no need to bother because this knife really |
| include a cheese plate and depending on what | | | | works. |
| you're serving there are specific knives and cutter | | | | If you're really aiming for perfection, you can go |
| designed to do very specific tasks. For example, | | | | out of your way to have several cheese knives: |
| you may be serving both Parmesan Regano - | | | | hard cheese knife, soft cheese knife, cheese |
| which is very hard; along with a soft cheese - like | | | | slicers and cheese spreaders. You can serve |
| Camembert. In this case, you'll want to set out | | | | several types of cheeses displayed on a wooden |
| different knives: one designed to cut hard | | | | cheese board. Soft cheeses, like Brie, look great |
| cheeses and the other designed to cut soft | | | | when set upon a wooden board. Bamboo is also a |
| cheeses. | | | | nice choice. |
| Holiday Parties are Not the Time to conduct your | | | | If you are planning to serve a cheese plate |
| Own Cheese Cutting Trial | | | | individually, for each guest, one suggestion is to |
| If you use your chef's knife to cut a soft delicate | | | | include a slice of 3 to 4 different cheeses. Choose |
| brie it will most likely stick, cling and make a mess | | | | cheeses that represent a balance of differences in |
| of the cheese: Not a good party favor. In fact, | | | | flavor, texture, and/or milk type. |
| this experiment was already conducted in a | | | | |