Cheese

The Rainbow Cheese Department has a huge selection of cheese at better prices than most grocery or cheese specialty stores. Domestic, imported, organic, hand made, rennetless, raw, goat, sheep, cow, or water buffalo we've got almost any cheese you could ever want. We love cheese to the point of obsession.

Staying true to our hippie store roots we also have a large cooler filled with soy, rice, almond, and vegan cheese alternatives and workers who actually eat these products regularly.

"Cheese Pride! Cheese Visibility!"
Though we are hidden in the back of the store behind a large green cooler we have a beautiful orange cheese wedge sign showing the way to our wonderful world of cheese.

Organic Cheeses
We carry the full product lines of many certified organic cheese makers including: Straus Creamery, Sierra Nevada Cheese Company, Springhill Cheese, Organic Valley and Cowgirl Creamery. We've got organic cheddar, jack, cream cheese, parmesan, Swiss, mozzarella and even an organic French Roquefort. Organic means no genetically-engineered hormones and no rBGH.

Local Cheese
Northern California produces some of the finest goat cheese in the USA and we carry most local brands. Redwood Hill, Cypress Grove, Harley Farms, and Laura Chenel are all well represented here. These cheeses are tart and range in strength and goatiness. We're selling more and more as many people find goat cheese easier to digest and love the taste. We also have all the other great local cheeses. CHECK THEM OUT HERE!!!! To compliment the local cheese, we have cheeses from France, Italy, Spain, Greece, England, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Bulgaria, etc.
We've got great perfectly ripened cheese from all over the world, including new types of cheese every couple of weeks. We buy only what we need so that we're constantly rotating stock and keeping it ripe. If you don't know what it tastes like just ask for a sample. Ask us questions and learn all sorts of cheese trivia that might make you sorry you asked. Enjoy reading our descriptive hand written signs - if you can read the handwriting.

Join the Cheese Registry!
For those of our customers who fall in love with certain varieties of cheese but forget the names, you can now sign up on our Cheese Registry. Just ask any cheese worker to put you on the list next time you're in the store. That way, you'll never let a favorite cheese slip out of your grasp.

Join our e-mail list!
Sometimes we get extra special deals we want to tell you about. This will be a low volume list, maybe one per month (2 at the most!) that will keep you up to date on our special deals and special cheeses. A link to the list is forth coming...

Saveur Magazine Mentions our incredible cheese dept as one of their 20 favorites.

Check out the RAINBOW CHEESE BLOG for lots more information about CHEESE!!


Haikus

Young cows in bondage
My nose is always stuffy
The treeless jungles

Ringing up bleu cheese
Stink slimes through the plastic wrap
I must wipe my hands

How can you stand it?
That sour evil fuckin' stink!
Your nose must be dead.

Never meant for us
Tortured mom-cows milk curds pressed
Now unfit for calves

Old Testament sin
Hellbound on a cheeseburger
Diet by Moses
-Wind

Malnourished vegan
Bleats at the evil dairy
Sound of broken wind

A man has walked on
The moon, but can they make a
Decent soy cheese? No.

My bust grows ample,
No one's complaining. Sing praise
To bovine sistren.
-Jenny G

A haiku for you
So I can have that barrel
Pick me for winner

Hey Dog! Red Rocket
Red Rocket making cheese from
Doggie milk is fun!

I like best cheese prize
No oil fat in my tummy!
Can I win it yet?

I eat much fiber;
Cheese will keep me regular
Now pass me the brie.

It's fun to drink beer
And demolish the Tastai
But where's my wallet?

All milk becomes cheese
No matter the animal
And it's all smelly

Dear, milk me someday
Do it softly and gently
I must make some cheese

Cheese is fine on bread
Tastes even better with wine
Those French aren't so bad

Waking up I eat
Yogurt, drink milk, spread cream cheese.
Sleeping, dream of brie

Nations who deny
That fine artistry of cheese
Should leave planet earth

China and Japan!
Your cuisines are much lacking
In essential cheese.

Please repair your ways
And pass the message on to
Burma and Thailand!
-Rachel F

Cheese is pretty good
Wisconsin makes the best
Fuck California
-Philip D

The still point of Brie
Sliding silver down my throat
Can there be such bliss
-James F

A tincture of cheese
Injected to the heart gland;
The perfect murder

Chuggin' choo choo cheese
Casey Jones he helms the train
Powered by fondue
-Kevin C

Sink your teeth into
Mucus oozed from bovine teat
Curdled with enzymes
-Robin G

Eat cheese? I do not.
If I do I fill with snot.
No snot? Ollies pop!
-Rama
Advice of a Cheapskate Anarchist

Creamy havarti
Is too expensive to throw.
Use the tomatoes.
-Krista L

Cheese, how I love thee
Oh, so utterly, so sweet
Smells like stinky feet
-Christine Letarte

Vapor leaves traces
Holes in smooth fermented wheels
Tease tongue and palette
-Mark N

A cool cheese contest
I'm counting the syllables
Quick! Get back to work!

Little Miss Muffett,
Although famous, has nothing
Over Cheese dept's charms

'Cheese Pride!' is our cry
Fight for truth and liberty
The path is the whey

Our culture is odd:
'Cheesy' is perjorative
An insult to taste

A constrain'd format
Haiku is dense, elegant
It's a lot like cheese

Fresh mozzarella
Olive oil and tomatoes
Food fit for the gods

Cheese literature
Poems display the varied skills
Of Rainbow's smart workers

Somehow I can't see
Writing a page of haikus
For Package or Bulk
-Adam W

Glee from wee shopper
Cheese sample bowl now empty
Strong teeth, smiling face

Milk to heaven turns
Goat cloud and sheep istara
Praise bacteria!

Furry and pungent
Ripe daughter of Capricorn
Hidden pleasures 'wait

Capricious goat cheese
No matter how you cut it
Twenty-one a pound

Two-name cheese haiku
Brin d'Amour fits nicely when
Fleur du Maquis won't

Provolone swaying
French girls buying Chevre d'Or
Cheese counter in spring

Counting sheep tonight
Write cheese haiku instead, ah!
Solid dreams of cream

Let us explore that
Small round place deep in the heart
Of domestic Swiss

Brebis, breboui
Letarte and D'Louie skip
Off to France

Soy cheese, vegan cheese
Travesties of nature all
Dark side of the moon

The Cheese Primer says
Theoretically, the
Rind is edible

Whether it's soccer
Or Kraft Velveeta cheese spread
USA kicks ass

World Cup we don't care
Soccer is a stupid game
Limburger bastards
-D-Louie

Fermented milk sits
On the cold metal counter
Customer echoes

Fuzzy brownish gray
Inhabitable planet
You can taste and eat

Tiny bug flattened
Shipped in from Italy, trapped
In hard trentino

Mold is often sad
Not the life of party dips
Scraped by caterers
-Jeff R

I've obviated
Your insipid little game
The barrel is mine!

Cheese is pure evil
I know this because I've been
Vegan since last week

Tormenting my nose
A fetid stench fills the room
Someone cut the cheese

Despise cheese? I do
It gives me diarrhea
That is all for now

Evacuation
Of my bowels just because
I ate some cheese. Plop!
-Dan F

Seldom does the smell
Of cheese wither my nostrils
Must be limburger

Girls in big straw hats
Dream of cheese wrapped in nettles
Cowgirl creamery

How much pus, kind sir
Is in that Vermont cheddar?
You don't want to know.
-Sarah Fran W

Vegan warrior
Pizza, don't tell anyone
Goat cloud of defeat
-Mike M

In my hands I hold
Cheese for you to sample but
My heart holds contempt.
-Kristen C

ENTRIES BY NON-WORKERS:

I like cheese a lot
Guilty feelings overcome
God, I tipped a cow!

Aisle Nine is lame,
Their barrel selection sucks
And they don't sell cheese.

Lost my pants gambling
You guys have a nice barrel
Something about cheese.

I really love cheese;
Vegans won't even eat it.
Give me the barrel.

Give me the barrel,
Give me the barrel, stupid,
Or I'll kill you all!

Employees only?!
Tell me now, why don't you shit,
What a waste of time.
-David A

Pungent is my love
It has a stink that warms me
French muenster d'alsace

O taleggio,
What hides beneath the surface
Peel the zombie skin
-Anna C

 

 

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