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BY LORRIE BAUMANN Cheese plates have become a staple form of creative expression that's shared in the course of home entertaining. For those who are less confident about their ability to put together a cheese display that will impress their guests, cheesemongers are happy to give advice, there are discussion groups on Reddit and cheese boards are all over Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube. But artisanal cheese, great as it is as the centerpiece of a cheese board, doesn't have to be something that people enjoy only when they're standing up to eat – great cheese is very capable of taking its place in the meal's main course. Price Is Indeed an Object Nobody's suggesting that anyone should spend big money on a high-dollar specialty cheese and then use it as the whole cheese component for a mac and cheese, but a metered portion of something better can elevate a dish beyond what can be achieved with mass- marketed shreds and slices. "Beyond a certain price point, you want to feature it, but Carmody is at a price point where you can use it to lend its flavor," said Liam Callahan, who makes the cheese at Bellwether Farms. Callahan makes Carmody from the milk of Jersey cows, which makes it mild and creamy with a golden color and buttery flavor, and for his family table, he likes to cube it up and add it to a bean salad or pair it with a tomato soup made from very ripe tomatoes, and his kids like to put it in quesadillas. "Carmody doesn't get super-oily like some aged cheeses do," he said, "It melts nice, but it doesn't break and get oily. A lot of aged cheeses don't accomplish that." Bellwether Farms is known particularly for sheep milk cheeses, but those tend to be too expensive for people to want to cook with them – they're better eaten as they come from the market, Callahan said, but Crescenza, a soft-ripened cheese made from Jersey cow milk, works well on a flatbread or a bruschetta along with some balsamic vinegar or maybe a tapenade, and it pairs well with fruit, too. "It picks up flavor and adds creaminess," he said. "If you're looking for a really soft-ripened cheese that you can spread on bread without having a rind left over, the Crescenza works great for that." Don't Let Good Cheese Go to Waste Laura Werlin, speaker and author of books including "The All Helping Your Customers Think Beyond the Cheese Plate 6 The Cheese Guide