Seaside Cheese Company in New Jersey

"Say cheese!" Don't smile because you're getting your picture taken...smile because you just walked into the Seaside Cheese Company in West Cape May, New Jersey!

Seaside Cheese Company owner Steve White had a dream of owning a restaurant since his high school days. Once he earned a culinary degree, he worked in the restaurant industry, and a noted chef even took him under his wing. But the hours were long, and once he got married, he decided to move into the health care field, where for 20 years, he was food service director at two nursing home convalescent centers. When the opportunity came to open his own shop, Seaside Cheese Company was born.

At West Cape May's Seaside Cheese Company, it's truly a "world of cheese". In addition to cheeses from America, such as Wisconsin and Vermont cheddar, you'll find products from Italy, France and Greece. Talk about variety, they even have seven different types of blue cheeses, each with it's own distinct flavor!

Seaside Cheese has far too many varieties to mention, but here's a small sampling of some cheeses of interest.

Parmigano Reggiano, a yellowish, white, grainy cheese with a hard, but moist, intense flavor, is aged for two years. It's made from partially skimmed cows' milk.

Campode Montalban is a semi-hard cheese made from cows' milk, goats' milk and sheep milk.

When you visit Seaside Cheese Company in West Cape May, stop by when you have a little time. You'll learn a lot from Steve, who encourages tasting in his shop. "Before you buy a cheese you are unfamiliar with, I want you taste it, rather than have you get it home and discover it isn't something you care for," said Steve.

Speaking of learning, Steve explained that if you like provolone cheese you should be aware that the domestic cheeses get their flavor from the gas they shoot into them, so you're ingesting the gas, too. But, foreign provolones gets their real sharp flavor from the aging process.