Welcome!

What A Friend We Have In Cheeses is going to be just what you might guess from the title (which I nicked from Sara Silverman, I believe). Mainly a record of good cheeses I have either had in restaurants, or bought from cheese shops here in Washington, DC. I will be encouraging my Dad -- another fan of that most varied and mysterious of foodstuffs -- to chime in with his own posts.

There will be no actually cheesy content in this first post, so I'll link to a couple of great places to buy cheeses locally in DC:

• Cowgirl Creamery
• Bowers Fancy Dairy Products at Eastern Market

Cowgirl has another branch on the West Coast as well, I believe - and their downtown DC location is straight out of Northern CA; all blonde wood and glass, with an enormous cheese counter and stuff like wine and crackers and olives for sale as well.

Bowers is not a polar opposite, but still quite different. The counter is always manned by the mischievously cranky proprietor, and they only take cash. The small staff seems to hand out about as many free samples of different cheeses as they sell - it's a great way to discover new tastes.