The most common feature of fireworks is a paper or pasteboard tube or casing filled with the combustible material, often pyrotechnic stars. A number of these tubes or cases are often combined so as to make, when kindled, a great variety of sparkling shapes, often variously colored.
People who think they don't like goat cheese -- a big contingent, in my experience -- can have an epiphany when they encounter goat Gouda. This smooth, velvety, sweet cheese from Holland bears little resemblance to the chalky, tart, fresh chevre that many Americans dislike. With its caramel scent and cooked-milk taste, goat Gouda appeals to our sweet tooth. Traditional Dutch Gouda is made with cow's milk, but goat's milk versions are now commonplace. The production process is similar. The milk is pasteurized, cultured and curdled. To achieve a dense, tight texture and produce a wheel with aging potential, the cheesemakers must encourage the curds to expel their whey.
The young goat Gouda I like best, a factory-made brand called Arina, is a 16-pound wheel matured for about four months. (That's young in a Gouda's life; some wheels of traditional Gouda are aged a year or two, or even longer.) Like most Goudas, it has a protective waxy coating that peels away easily. The semi- firm paste is bone-white -- goat's milk has no carotene -- and smooth, with no holes.