May should be a month when the days are longer and warmer, when dairy herds move onto a frost free grass diet and when we all start thinking about salads made with sharp, creamy feta cheese and evenings of dinning outside perhaps dipping some fresh crusty bread into a little ceramic pot of liquid, salty St. Marcelin. So far we are still firmly in fondue season, or sitting in front of a fire with a hunk of cheddar and a glass of stout. At least the first asparagus arrived from Claremont farm (www.claremontfarm.co.uk) this weekend and has been fallen upon by everyone with a sigh of relief that it might, just yet, be summer on the horizon.

This month for us at Liverpool Cheese Company is also the start of wedding cake season, we seem to have a consultation every day and an ever increasing number of cakes to build, decorate and deliver each week. It is hard for us to believe that cheese wedding cakes are still considered unusual, but they are a great talking point at weddings as well as a very practical and cost effective way of feeding any number of guests. Many cheese shops will only provide the cheese for the “cakes” but I really enjoy decorating them and lots of people are hooked on looking at the pictures we post on Facebook. One customer told us recently it was his guilty pleasure!

There have already been some exciting events. We went to the launch of Camp & Furnace (www.campandfurnace.com) in the Baltic triangle at the start of the month. It is a great (and huge) venue with food headed up by Stephen Burgess of Rhubarb & Custard (www.rhubarbandcustard.net) They have some great cheeses in use on the menu and guests at the launch got to sample a Rarebit made with tasty Lancashire and Baltic (of course) cheese mixed with some beer the Camp & Furnace team brewed themselves. This week sees the opening of the Epstein Theatre (formerly the Neptune) we are delighted to be taking some cheese along to the event as the Theatre is hoping to make a feature of offering the best Ploughman’s in town, we wish them every success, please support them – it is great to have this theatre reopen. This will be the third venue on Hanover Street we are proud to supply, the others being the ever popular Hub Alehouse and kitchen (who also have great beers) and Laura’s Little Bakery (she doesn’t just make great cupcakes, her cheesecake is legendary too)!www.thehub-liverpool.com www.lauraslittlebakery.com

It is a shame that our shop, whilst perfectly formed in many ways, is too small for us to host cheese tasting events so we rely on the many restaurants and venues we supply to host events.This has its plus points – we get to do unusual things like a cheese and tea pairing last year (big challenge for me as a black coffee and alcohol type person). This month we are delighted have been invited to host an event at Duke Street espresso organised by the truly lovely people at our favourite Bold Street Coffee. (www.boldstreetcoffee.co.uk) The evening is already sold out so we will hopefully organise another soon.

Just in case this wasn’t enough to keep us busy, we have a date of 18^th June for the opening of our unit in the Food Hall of the newly refurbished indoor market at Southport, more of this next month, suffice to say, so far we have no equipment except the fridges but we do have a fantastic new logo courtesy of the very talented Becka Griffin. (www.beckagriffinillustration.co.uk) Most importantly, we need to give some urgent thought to acquiring and training some staff, food for thought, better get on with it…