Overview
They say eating cheese before you go to bed will give you nightmares, but that doesn’t seem to bother the people who’ve organised Cheese Please, a twilight cheese festival coming to Melbourne in February. OK so that was a cheesy (woo!) introduction to what is undoubtedly the best damn news you’ve heard all week — a cheese festival is coming, a festival of cheese, an event where you can go and eat cheese and drink wine all night, which is incontrovertible proof that we’re all dead and Melbourne is heaven.
And it’s not just any home-brand cheddar block either. The Australian Grand Dairy Awards are presenting the festival and only the finest cheeses will be on display — not a Kraft single in sight. Small-scale, family-owned producers will display alongside your favourites (Mersey Valley, we’re comin’ for ya) and all the cheese on offer will be prize winners of the Australian Grand Dairy awards. As well as much cheese there will also be much like-cheese-but-not. Like-cheese-but-not goes by many names — dips, yoghurts, cream, butter, desserts — and there will also be some very-much-not-cheese like beer, wine and food trucks. Very good.
The event is technically free but you do have to ‘win’ tickets by registering and applying for them. This is probably because they know if it was open to the public we’d swarm the place in seconds, like agile 28 Days Later zombies, and tear it apart looking for cheese (they’ve certainly got our number). To get you in the mood, check out their website (aptly named Legendairy) for some truly inspirational recipes and cheese pairings — spiced oatcake with sour cherries and camembert anyone?
Cheese Please festival is happening on February 19 at Testing Grounds, City Road, Southbank from 5-9pm. Register for tickets here.
Image: Dollar Photo Club.