An indulgence in artisan cheese can be had as close to home as Pike Place Market this weekend.

The first Seattle Cheese Festival runs Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the market's cobblestone street, outside of the main arcade. More than 35 cheese-makers will offer samples of cow's-milk and goat's-milk cheeses from the Pacific Northwest, North America and Europe, along with plenty of packaged product to purchase and take home.

Appel Farms' cheeses will be featured at the booth for DPI Northwest, a local distributor. Neither Pleasant Valley nor Samish Bay are participating, although Pleasant Valley cheese is sold at Beecher's, a handmade cheese shop and factory that opened at Pike Place in November 2003.

Cheese-making at Beecher's can be viewed through the store's inside and outside windows.

"Local interest in cheese has been growing," says Pat McCarthy, owner of DeLaurenti, the Pike Place specialty food store hosting the festival. "Some of our customers have gotten to the point where they demand to know what's new. They've already tried that one and now want to move on to the next one."

Cooking demonstrations by local chefs are scheduled at the festival every two hours. Five dollars buys admission into a Northwest Wine Garden, where you can sample the wines that go best with specific cheeses — because the pairing of the two is a divine marriage worth celebrating. Rumor on the street is that Pike Place has its share of bakeries selling baguettes, too.

Cheese. Wine. Baguette. What more do you need?