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Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax has brought home another award from the American Cheese Society competition, an annual, nationwide contest that is in its 26th year.

This year, the dairy's best-selling cheese, Grayson, placed second in the Washed Rind Cheese Category. Just what is a washed rind cheese, you are probably asking? Well, these are cheeses that are literally washed down, usually with a saltwater brine but sometimes with such liquids as beer, brandy, or wine, on a regular basis throughout the aging process.

Keeping the surface of the cheese wheels wet allows a beneficial bacteria called b-linens, or brevibacterium linens, to multiply across that surface. But since I am no expert, here's more information from the American Cheese Society:

“Washed rind” is used to describe those cheeses that are surface-ripened by washing the cheese throughout the ripening/aging process with brine, beer, wine, brandy, or a mixture of ingredients, which encourages the growth of bacteria. The exterior rind of washed rind cheeses may vary from bright orange to brown, with flavor and aroma profiles that are quite pungent, yet the interior of these cheeses is most often semi-soft and, sometimes, very creamy. Washed rind cheeses may be made from both pasteurized and raw milk, depending on the style of the cheese and the cheesemaker producing them. Cheeses in this category include some tomme-style cheeses, triple-crème, and semi-soft cheeses, similar to Epoisses, Livarot and Taleggio.

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No, I'm not talking about Star Trek. I'm talking about the latest installment in Retro Menu Madness, a sampling from my husband's dusty collection of old takeout menus that I found piled in a plastic bag in one of our kitchen drawers.

You may remember the premier installment of RMM. If not, you must check it out before you can fully appreciate this latest menu.

Tell me what you remember about this defunct restaurant:

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I would like to introduce a new and very exciting feature on the Fridge Magnet blog. This journey along Nostalgia Lane is brought to you thanks to a junk drawer clean-up in the Nair/Swank household.

While engrossed in this clean-up, I came across a plastic grocery bag stuffed full of restaurant to-go menus. A certain male someone in the Nair/Swank household has an affinity for to-go menus and seems to collect them voraciously and then keep them for years after a restaurant served its last meal.

As we went through them and sorted out all of the ones for restaurants that no longer exist, it occurred to me that perhaps these menus might be of interest to somebody. Somebody like my hubby, who has lived in Roanoke for all of his life and can remember eating at just about every restaurant that ever opened -- and then closed.

Introducing Retro Menu Madness! On an occasional basis, I'll put up an old menu on the blog and see how many readers remember eating at that particular restaurant. Drumroll please for the first ever retro menu, below the jump...

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