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A cheesemonger's inside look at what you're getting in our Haunted Harvest Box, the limited-release curation built for Halloween night.
By
AppyHour's Cheesemonger | Updated this week
Halloween boards usually get the look right and the flavor wrong. Candy corn, black plates, and a cheese that tastes like the fridge. This one still looks every bit the part. The difference is that every detail is cheesemonger-curated, and the ingredients come from real artisan makers who put flavor first. Spooky on the board, seriously good in every bite. Let me open up the Haunted Harvest Box and show you what's inside.
Northern California
This is the one people photograph before they eat. A little four-ounce round with a bloomy white rind over a thin layer of black vegetable ash, and when you cut into it, the inside is bright orange. That color comes from annatto, the same plant-based seed that's turned cheddar orange for centuries. No artificial dyes, no gimmicks.
It's made by the oldest continuously operating cheese company in the country, and it only shows up for the season. Triple crème means extra cream goes into the milk, so it's ooey, gooey and buttery, with a gentle earthiness from the rind.
Silky, dry-cured Berkshire pork finished with black truffle. That's the whole ingredient list: pork, sea salt, truffle. The truffle doesn't shout. It sits at the end of each slice as an earthy, woodsy aroma that makes the whole board smell like something special is happening.
Shelburne, Vermont
Shelburne Farms is a nonprofit working farm and education center on the shore of Lake Champlain, and they make some of my favorite cheddars in the country. For this one they teamed up with Fiddlehead Brewing, right in the same town, and soaked the fresh curds in Fiddlehead's flagship IPA before aging.
The result is a sharp, creamy Vermont cheddar with hoppy, floral, faintly yeasty notes running all the way through. It's the brew in "boos and brews," and it's the cheese on this board that pleases everyone.
Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
An aged sheep's milk cheese from the same region as Manchego, with the same buttery, nutty body. Then it's marbled with mojo picón, the fiery red pepper sauce from the Canary Islands, so every slice has streaks of heat running through it.
Don't let the name scare you. It's not blow-your-head-off spicy. It's a slow warmth that builds and then fades into that rich sheep's milk. The devilish one of the bunch, as the name promised.
Vermont
Lonza is the whole pork loin, one lean muscle, cured with little more than salt, black pepper and garlic until it's firm and silky. Nothing ground, nothing stuffed. Delicate and faintly sweet, it's the quiet one on the board that ends up disappearing first around here.
Slice it as thin as you can manage and fold it rather than laying it flat. It practically melts.
Included in the Large box
A dry-cured pork salami made with hard cider from Whaleback Farm in Maine. The cider gives it a gentle orchard-fruit note and a bright acidity that cuts right through the richness of the pork. If there's a salami that tastes like October, it's this one.
It's a fall favorite, and members agree:
Roasted almonds in rich dark chocolate. Nutty, crunchy, and bittersweet enough that they feel grown-up. This is the candy bowl for people who'd rather be at the cheese board.
Golden caramel crunch with just enough salt to keep you reaching back into the bag. Made with brown sugar, butter and a little molasses, so it tastes like the caramel corn you'd get at a fall fair.
Popcorn on a cheese board sounds like a gimmick until you try it. Then:
California
Thin, golden crisps baked with real pumpkin, warm fall spice, raisins, walnuts and pumpkin seeds. They snap cleanly, hold up under a heavy swipe of triple crème, and bring a little sweetness and spice to anything you stack on them. They're the backbone of this whole board.
This isn't everything. You'll also get a bonus artisan cheese and small-batch jam, matched to each other by us, things like Baked Lemon Ricotta with blackberry balsamic, or Manchego Aurora with caramelized fig and pear. And it isn't a one-time thing: you'll get a bonus cheese and jam pairing in every box, for life.
Every combination in this box is written out for you in your personalized tasting guide, and I even throw in wine pairing suggestions so you can make a whole Halloween night out of it.