How the Swiss use their ''head'', or 'tete. Tete de Moine, in this case. 'Head of the Monk' is an intense little raw milk drum, so potent in flavor it can only be nibbled in small doses. The Girolle is a simple, round wooden platform, slightly wider than the tete, with a steel rod sticking up from the center. the top rind of the cheese is sliced off, then the wheel is pushed down over the rod, which sticks up an inch or two. A small scraping knife is placed atop the rod (like a flag), and is turned like a crank, dragging it across the top of the bared cheese. The action shaves up thin little curlicues of the cheese--just the right sized morsel for sampling.
