Farmers Market, Ryde

We’re a couple of idlers. While you are taking your children to swimming lessons and tending to your horses on a Saturday morning, we’re nearly always lazing about. However, due to a quirk of fate, we were up early today and you know what that means – a visit to Ryde Farmers Market.

We’re delighted to recommend IW Cheese Company

It was that really cold Saturday when we were braced for a return of the ‘Beast from the East‘. Nonetheless, three hardy stallholders were at Victoria Square outside Ryde’s big Co-op. And something caught our eye..!

Island Bakers breads

Island Bakers is one of our favourite lunch spots in Newport so we were delighted to see them in our home town. Cat eyed up the potato pizzas while Matt bought himself a seed and malty bloomer.

Brownriggs meat

We popped over to say hi to Max at the Brownrigg Farm Meats stall…

Brownriggs eggs

…and he kindly showed us some large brown eggs!

IW Cheese Company new cheeses

But what we really wanted was some of the newest cheeses from the IW Cheese Company stable – or should that be byre? Blue Slipper and Borthwood Brie were both launched this week.

Buying IW Cheese Company new cheeses

You have to be quick – only 250 of each of these new cheeses are available each week, and only on the Isle of Wight. We bought one of each.

Blue Slipper cheese

Once it started snowing in earnest, we went home and unpacked the cheeses. The Blue Slipper really lived up to its name – we even had to serve some of it using a spoon!

Blue Slipper cheese on seed and malty bloomer

Matt spread his cheese on the malty loaf. We loved the texture of both of the cheeses – beautifully soft and creamy. The brie was more gentle, as was expected.

Blue Slipper cheese on Cantina focaccia

Cat had her cheese on some of Cantina‘s delicious focaccia bread.

Both new cheeses are really good – we’d say that the Slipper is the best though, it really is quite spectacularly gooey, and has a blue taste that is always soft and creamy, never tangy or harsh. Great work, cheesemongers, keep it up. Definitely worth getting up early for!