Mama's Got a Cheesebox

A thoughtful friend brought us some cheese papers as a hostess gift recently. I had never seen them before. They have a thin, wax paper-y layer on the inside, and paper on the outside, which apparently allows the cheese to breathe. They also come with neat little labels so you can identify the cheese later. Very fancy. And they really work to keep the cheese in perfect condition longer. It's so disappointing to find a beautiful round of expensive cheese dried out or moldy at the back of the cheese drawer. Leaving cheese tightly wrapped in plastic causes the cheese to marinate in its own expirations, which isn't any better.

It made me wonder if regular old waxed paper would work. I have a whole box of waxed paper sandwich bags that I thought would be cute for Valentine's cookies, but which were not that cute.

It turns out that these little bags make great cheese storage units, too. I just write on them with a magic marker to keep them sorted out. Most cheeses need to be within an outer plastic zip-lock or within the veggie drawer as well to keep them from drying out. Fantastic cheese blog with more cheese wrapping tips here.