Specialties: veal scallop souffle, with Beaufort cheese, and venison.

For their efforts, local organizers awarded them 99-pound wheels of Beaufort cheese.

It consists of alternating layers of sliced potatoes, Beaufort cheese, and pieces of butter, with bouillon as the liquid.

Beaufort cheese adds dense creaminess to a bacon and onion tart, and a huge Parmesan tuile sharpens up a large mound of glistening steak tartare paired with a silken anchoïade.

Beaufort cheese is pale yellow, with a smooth and creamy texture and lacks holes like other Gruyère-style cheeses, Comté, Vacherin Fribourgeois or Emmental.

"It was all very interesting but very inconsistent," said Chris Russell, an owner of TanDa, who liked the pig's cheeks, the vanilla ice cream goat cheese, and the smoked foie gras with Beaufort cheese.

Salmon rillettes, leek gratin with Beaufort cheese, juicy roasted guinea hen and perfect duck confit with salad made an ideal ending to our getaway.

At Wheatleigh in Lenox, Mass., J. Bryce Whittlesey matches the purple spread with Beaufort cheese, but any hard cheese, or even a semi-aged goat cheese, would also work well.

Traces of pyridine can be found in Beaufort cheese, vaginal secretions, black tea, saliva of those suffering from gingivitis, and sunflower honey.

At the end of the day, Kildow was awarded a Tarine cow, the breed that produces milk for locally produced Beaufort cheese.