He says 'cheese' every day

Kirk Samuels has such a passion for cheese that he will rise early on Saturday mornings to photograph stiltons, provolones and cheddars. That's when the natural light is most flattering to the fromage.

A Raleigh resident, Samuels is the author of www.365cheeses.com, a blog chronicling his effort to taste a different cheese every day for a year.

The blog was born when Samuels, who is 38, began maintaining a list of cheeses he had tasted. His wife, Fleming, suggested the name for the endeavor, and he has been blogging about his $60-a-week cheese habit since November.

His blog posts quote George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, make references to Wallace and Gromit, and describe one foul-smelling cheese as "reminiscent of certain bodily fluids." Recent entries have included No. 126, a coupole from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Co., ("The flavor is delicious -- fresh with a mild goaty bite.") and No. 125, Tia Anna's Queso Fresco, from Calico Farmstead Cheese in nearby Gibsonville, ("It tastes fresh, like cold bright, new, whole milk straight from the cow herself.").

Samuels' low regard for standard grocery store fare is evident when he spits out the words "Kraft" and "Sargento." And his savory descriptions and photographs of cheese-as-still-life make you want to run to the nearest cheese counter.

His favorite fromage? "Why limit yourself to one when you have so many?"

His least favorite? Vacherin Fribourgeois, which he described as having a stink akin to smelly gym shoes.

His favorite blog post? About that smelly cheese, he wrote, "From time to time someone will say to me, 'You must meet a friend of mine. You two will really hit it off.' On a rare occasion, we clash like tartan plaid and pastel polka dots when we meet. When this happens I always have to ask myself if the person is really crass, overbearing and foul or did I just catch him on a bad day. These thoughts occurred to me when I tasted Vacherin Fribourgeois for the first time. Right now the two of us can't stand being in the same room together."

The most he has ever spent on a single cheese: $60 for a five-pound wheel of Tete de Moine, which came on a round wooden board with a handled shaving blade.

His cheese-buying advice: Good cheese counters, like the ones at Whole Foods, Southern Season and Weaver Street Market, will often let you taste the cheeses before you buy. They also will often let you take home as little as you like. "People can ask for a quarter pound or three-fourths of an inch and be able to bring home a decent amount of a really great cheese for the price of a lot of ordinary, blah supermarket cheese."

His cheese-tasting advice: Let it come to room temperature before you taste it. "It's just going to be friendlier, and you're going to enjoy it a lot more."

What his wife thinks: "It's made life more interesting," she said. During their recent two-week honeymoon in Italy, they drove to small towns in search of regional cheeses to taste.

Why he picked the perfect woman? One of Fleming's favorite memories of the honeymoon involved cheese. "I especially remember that mozzarella in Rome," she said.