Baked Camembert with Garlic and Rosemary: A Not-Quite Recipe with Lactalis

The International Cheese Awards at Nantwich is amazing. It's the biggest cheese show in the world, and is quite simply a cheese-lover's paradise. The inherent problem with the show, however - and I hate myself for admitting there even exists such a thing - is cheese overload; you eat cheese samples for a full, glorious day, and then get caught up in the whole excitement of the day and bring a load home as well. This leads to a fear of one's own fridge, which one barely dares to open for outright terror of the cheese mountain that looms there, growing ever more pungent by the day.

This is where helpful, cheese-loving friends come in handy. I brought back a bag of goodies courtesy of Lactalis, who are the largest dairy products group in the world and who had a ridiculously successful time at this year's International Cheese Awards, winning a total of 22 awards including nine golds. Three of these golds were for the Président range that you will all be familiar with, and as I ended up with two of the whole Camemberts, I elected to bake them whole and serve them up with bread for dipping. Thus I offer this up not as a recipe but as a suggestion really, and to commemorate how much I enjoyed the whole thing.

First, look in your fridge and locate a suitable cheese item. Ignore the rest of the cheese for now, even though it is glaring menacingly and appearing to multiply before your very eyes. Remove the whole Camembert from its waxy paper and put it back into its box, on a baking tray. Lightly score the top with a knife in a criss-cross pattern and then smother it with whatever pleasing ingredients you have to hand. I finely chopped a couple of garlic cloves and a sprig of rosemary, and then drizzled over a little garlic oil and a splash of white wine. Add salt and pepper and pop the whole thing in the oven for about 20 minutes or so - it should be obvious when it's ready as the cheese will have melted but won't yet be at the point where it's leaked all over your oven. Serve with crusty bread - the first of these I did served four as a starter, the second served three as part of a BBQ; but I could, to be honest, eat one of these to myself if absolutely required.

The Lactalis range also includes the Seriously Strong products (which now has a Caramelised Onion variety in the spreadable tubs - see here for a lovely suggestion from Good Egg Foodie on what to make with this) and Galbani Mozzarella, which I like to slice up over the top of a tomatoey pasta. I'm also (almost) looking forward to going back to work so I can use this lunchbox. Lactalis gave me these to celebrate their new products and their success at the awards, but one or more of these items tends to end up in my basket at the supermarket anyway - I might leave it a while before I buy any more though, at least until the salad items rumoured to be somewhere in the fridge have been uncovered.

Dangerous Dairy Diary Dates: The International Cheese Awards 2012 and Fresco Freddo's Gelateria Threaten to Wreck Brave Girl's Diet

First of all, apologies for the longish silence (or, alternatively: you're welcome). Things to do in Manchester has been away, on a spiritual retreat which blended a strict macrobiotic diet with strenuous bootcamp sessions and not - NOT - on a jolly to South Wales to dip its feet in the sea and eat fish and chips. And because I've spent a week restoring my ayurvedic chakra and not - NOT - stuffing my face with fish and chips, I can allow myself to be very excited about these forthcoming dairy-based feasts.

Firstly, it's almost time for this year's International Cheese Awards - the 115th time that assorted cheese makers, connoisseurs and just general greed-faces from all over the world will convene in Nantwich to sample and judge each other's cheesy wares. Last year’s competition saw 3,730 entries from 26 countries jostling for awards in 300 different categories; this year entries are coming from as far afield as China, although there will also be a specialist market area dedicated to smaller, independent cheese makers. Judging takes place on Tuesday 24th July (I'm thinking back to my school days here, and regretting that I didn't have the foresight to request careers guidance on how to qualify as a cheese judge) and then the show is open to the public on Wednesday 25th. As they are expecting around 35,000 visitors on the Wednesday, I would suggest the following:

1. Set off early, in order to be first through the doors and, by extension, first at the cheese.
2. Sharpen your elbows, in case you are tardy setting off and need to push early-birds out of the way. If your grandma can lend you a tartan shopping trolley to help block others, so much the better.
3. Do NOT eat breakfast - toast is simply empty calories when you could be leaving room for extra Stilton later.
4. Do NOT expect to actually see the Gino D’Acampo demonstration; you may be able to hear him, but remember he is only small, and will be hidden behind all the tartan shopping trolleys. You may have more luck with James Martin and Jean-Christophe Novelli, for they are taller.
5. In the absence of a tartan shopping trolley, take a number of the biggest bags you can find with you. I have already struck an entirely fair deal with Mr Liz that I will carry the bags there, and he can carry them home when they contain seven kilos of cheese in individual, sample-sized portions.

Tickets cost £14 in advance - for more information or to book places see the Cheese Awards website - and then accept that you simply won't sleep for excitement between now and the 25th.

In dairy news part two, I note with a small skip of joy that Manchester's Oxford Road is soon to welcome Fresco Freddo's Gelateria, a new haven of summeriness which promises us sun-starved Mancunians twenty two different varieties of gelato and sorbet so that we may pretend we are wandering along a deserted stretch of sun-dappled Italian coast rather than being splashed by buses and poked in the eye by umbrellas. Rather sensibly, they are also planning to offer hot desserts including crepes and waffles, but the real draw here will be the gelato, which is essentially ice-cream's healthier, more satisfying cousin: low in fat with no artificial flavourings, made with milk rather than butter cream and containing around 25-30% air compared to ice-cream's 50%. The launch date looks set to be towards the end of July - keep an eye on their currently rather enigmatic website for future announcements.

Anyway, with that little lot coming up, I for one am pretty relieved that I didn't consume my own body weight in cheese and ice-cream last week - now I'm off to dig out my shopping trolley and investigate the possibility of chic, Italian-style stretch-waisted trousers...