The Cheese Course: Hey, there's mold in my cheese!

As a child, there was no way that I was going to willingly put a piece of cheese that had mold in it into my mouth. It ranked near the bottom of my least-liked foods, right next to anchovies and capers.

But somewhere in between my parents' love for trying exotic foods (sorry, Dad, I'm still not trying kimchi) and their constant, "Just take a no-thank-you bite," my taste for blue cheese changed and now I love it. In fact, it might actually be becoming my favorite category of cheese.

Blue cheeses, once the closely guarded secrets of European cheesemakers, are one of the fastest growing categories of...