CHEESE NOTES

Sterling College: Fundamentals of Artisan Cheesemaking, May...

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 10:43:56 -0500

Sterling College: Fundamentals of Artisan Cheesemaking, May 15-24

In addition to being a full time cheesemaker at the creamery, I’ve also recently gotten involved with social media here at Jasper Hill Farm, including managing the Instagram account and writing newsletter content. My recent post, on Sterling College’s “Fundamentals of Artisan Cheesemaking” offering, in May, is one I’d like to share here as well. I had the good fortune to audit several of the classes with Ivan Larcher during the January session, and highly recommend the next session, running May 15-24, to anyone looking for an educational opportunity in cheesemaking.

Back in 2013 I completed the Cheesemaker Certification course at UVM’s Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese. Sadly, the educational department within the Institute had to shut its doors soon after, due to financial reasons, ending what was, at that time, the only educational program of it’s kind in the US (I was part of the very last graduating class).

However, Sterling College soon began offering their own, similar program, and many of the professors from VIAC, including Larcher, have migrated from that program to this one. I can say, from my experience both at VIAC and at Sterling, that this is an excellent program and highly recommended.

From the Newsletter:

If you’ve been dreaming of taking a deep educational dive into cheesemaking, check out this unique opportunity! Sterling College, in collaboration with Jasper Hill, is now accepting applications for the next session of “Fundamentals of Artisan Cheesemaking”. This is a two-week intensive intended for practicing and aspiring cheesemakers of all stripes, running May 15th - 24th.
At the end of the course you will leave with a deep understanding of the cheesemaking process — from a technical, scientific, sensory and historical perspective — and a certificate attesting to your completion of the course. Whether you’re a dairy farmer looking to turn your milk into a value-added product, the employee of a cheesemaking operation hoping to expand your knowledge base, a cheesemonger wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the wheels and wedges in your counter, or even a home cheesemaker taking it to the next level, this class will have a bounty of knowledge to offer you.
Led by world-renowned French master cheesemaker and educator Ivan Larcher, “Fundamentals of Artisan Cheese” will provide students with all of the practical and scientific knowledge needed to create the highest quality artisanal cheese, as well as covering core concepts and practices on financial, facility design and management, distribution and marketing aspects as well.
Sessions will also be held with members of the Jasper Hill Farm team, including the chance to talk cheese with Mateo Kehler, co-founder of Jasper Hill; sensory and historical sessions with Zoe Brickley; food safety and sanitation & hygiene with Emily Hershberger; cave tours with the affinage team and cheese microbiology with our resident microbiologists.

You can learn more, and sign up, at the Sterling College site. The classes are kept small and are likely to sell out, so I would recommend moving on it if you’re interested.

A Very Croton Christmas, featuring a Very VT (and CT) cheese...

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 10:22:20 -0500

A Very Croton Christmas, featuring a Very VT (and CT) cheese board. (With apologies to @cheesemongrrl for my crude homage to her genius) (at Village of Croton On Hudson)

Meet the Cheese Grotto, your Personal Cheese CaveIf there’s one...

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 12:10:10 -0500

Meet the Cheese Grotto, your Personal Cheese Cave

If there’s one thing every cheese lover dreams about having in their homes, it would be a proper cheese cave. What turophile hasn’t looked at the wedges and wheels stuffed into the cheese bin or the vegetable crisper, and wished they had a better solution? The truth is, home refrigerators are death for cheese. It’s not so much the temperature that’s the problem, but the lack of humidity and air circulation. Refrigerators are extremely effective at cooling the space within, but do so in part by extracting as much humidity as possible from the air, resulting in a very dry environment. Air circulation, as well, is not a priority, particularly within the drawers, the most likely storage location for your cheese. Some fancy refrigerators may include vegetable crispers with localized climate control, but odds are you don’t have that.

Result? That $25/Lb wedge of precious cheese begins a process of suffocation pretty much as soon as you get it home. A proper cheese paper can ensure a longer life (you’re not still using saran wrap, I hope?), but even so, the sooner you eat your cheese the better, especially in the case of soft-ripened cheeses with more delicate rinds and pastes (think bloomy’s and washed rinds).

That’s where the Cheese Grotto comes in. Jessica Sennett, a New York City-based cheesemonger with 10 years of industry experience, including at Cowgirl Creamery and Bedford Cheese Shop, as well as the resident cheese expert at 61 Local in Brooklyn and cheese editor for The Feed Feed (you may also recall her from the event we co-hosted a few years ago, the Cheese Speakeasy) found her customers challenged by cheese storage and learned they often had no idea how to maintain their cheese at the optimal stage of ripeness. Jessica set off in search of the perfect solution for home cheese storage, but when she found herself stymied, she set out to develop it herself.

In part, she was inspired by the aesthetic of the traditional French storage solution, a “cheese safe” — a wooden box with open sides, enclosed by screens, which was often stored on the kitchen counters or dining room tables of French homes (Google “French cheese safe” to see what we’re talking about). They look great, but are really not designed for extended storage of cheese, and do nothing to control humidity. After years of research and development in a Brooklyn design and fabrication studio, Sennett created what is, in essence, a cheese humidor.

Cheese Grotto is a cheese storage solution complete with humidity and airflow controls found inside a glass and bamboo frame. Designed in conjunction with an engineer and an industrial designer, the Cheese Grotto has a vaulted ceiling to keep condensation from dripping on contents by directing any droplets to the sides (the same principle used in cheese caves, as you can see here). At 8.5” high and 7” wide, with a 12” depth, it provides storage space for approximately 3-6 cheeses (depending on the size of the cheese itself, of course), with two shelves that can be removed; if you have a giant wedge to store, you can remove the top shelf to make room. The Grotto is manufactured in Richmond, Virginia and made out of Plyboo (ie “plywood” and “bamboo”), a sustainable material.

Humidity is without a doubt the most challenging aspect of home cheese storage, and the Grotto tackles it with a clay brick that is soaked in water for a few minutes, twice a week, and then placed in the bottom of the unit, where it slowly releases moisture into the air. This may sound like a rather low-tech fix, but as a home cheesemaker, I’ve used similar wicking solutions in my home aging boxes, with success.

Three vents in the back of the unit provide air circulation, and they can be closed off with a sliding panel, allowing control for the level of circulation,

The key to the Grotto is that the cheese can be stored unwrapped within the unit. Like a miniature cheese cave, the conditions are amenable to the maintenance of the cheese rind and retention of moisture within the paste. Cheese is a product that needs to breath, and the Grotto provides the conditions that make this possible.

It’s also a striking centerpiece for your meal; just pull the whole unit out of your refrigerator, bring it to your dining room table, pull the door open, and the cheese course is served in style.

The Cheese Grotto will be available for a limited run of pre-orders this November at CheeseGrotto.com, for $350, and will ship four weeks from the order date. Formaggio Kitchen, the renowned cheese shop located in Cambridge, MA, is offering a promotional discount of $50 off their Cheese of the Month program, to any new customer of the Cheese Grotto.

A cascade of Bayley Hazen Blue curds, at the Jasper Hill...

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 11:50:33 -0400

A cascade of Bayley Hazen Blue curds, at the Jasper Hill creamery. From here they go on to the mounding table, where they are distributed to the moulds by the Cheesemaker.

And speaking of Jasper Hill, I’m happy to announce that after completing a 4-month internship in the Cellars and Creamery, in early October I came on as a full time cheesemaker! Looks like I’ll be sticking around the Northeast Kingdom for the winter! (Better stock up on my woolen socks). I also recognize that I have been severely remiss in posting to Cheese Notes over the last few months. My focus has been on the internship — and now the job — and the blog suffered as a result.

I hope to be posting more in the future; stay tuned for stories focused on Jasper Hill, as well as some visits to other cheese makers in Vermont.

The Adirondacks are home to a quietly growing local cheese...

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:02:07 -0400

The Adirondacks are home to a quietly growing local cheese scene, and now’s your chance to visit some of these cheesemakers (including friends-of-Cheese Notes Sugarhouse Creamery — located in Upper Jay, NY and makers of Poundcake, Little Dickens, Dutch Knuckle and many other fine cheeses). The foliage up there should be pretty spectacular this time of year as well, if you need the deal sweetened.

Check out the Facebook page for more details:

The cheesemakers of Essex County are delighted to announce the Third Annual Essex County Cheese Tour! This self-guided driving tour follows the scenic Ausable River Valley through the foothills of the Adirondacks. It’s the perfect excuse to get out and soak up the fall foliage while also treating your tastebuds. On-farm tours and cheese samples are free! Cheesy lunch fare is available to purchase, and farm stores will be open for sales. This year, those that have their “passport” stamped by all three creameries, will have a chance to win one of three prizes.
Three locations will be included in the tour: North Country Creamery (931 Mace Chasm Rd., Keeseville), Asgaard Farm & Dairy (74 Asgaard Way, Au Sable Forks) and Sugar House Creamery (18 Sugar House Way, Upper Jay).

For more information email essexcountycheesetour@gmail.com.

Q&A: Tia Keenan, Author of The Art Of The Cheese Plate

Mon, 05 Sep 2016 09:00:11 -0400

Unique cheese pairings are all the rage these days; at cheese shops, restaurants and cheese bars, chefs, maitre fromagers and cheesemongers are increasingly constructing cheese plates and pairings that play with conventions or completely blow them out of the water. Top cheese events like the Cheesemonger Invitational feature the Perfect Bite section of the competition, challenging the competitors to build perfection in a single-bite portion, and often features highly innovative ingredients and combinations. From New York City to Seattle and points in between, increasingly the cheese plate is seen as a space for exploration and invention.

One of the people at the forefront of this movement has long been Tia Keenan, a New York City-based chef-fromager who has brought a multidisciplinary approach to cheese pairing, acting as the driving force behind the game-changing cheese program at Casselula, in setting up the program at Murray’s Cheese Bar when it was first opening, and now, through her new book, The Art of The Cheese Plate (Rizzoli, 2016).

If you’ve been wanting to up your cheese plating game, this is the book for you. Keenan has long combined a brilliantly creative palate with a sharp eye for the aesthetics of the cheese plate, combining not just flavor, texture and aroma, but also color, geometry, intuition and even humor to construct pairings that may seem odd at first but always win you over on your first bite.

One of her main concepts is the notion of Supportive vs Contrasting pairings. Supportive pairings “reinforce textures and/or flavors latent in the cheese”. One example she gives is the “Ardrahan & Peanut-Tahini Fudge Roll”, in which the peanut flavors highlight the cheese’s “nutty creaminess and earthy saltiness”. A Contrasting pairing is exemplified by the “Winnimere & Mosto Cotto-Glazed Bacon”, which “relies on the tension between sticky bacon and oozing cheese”.

Keenan offers a wealth of information about the cheeses featured, but ultimately, she defers to the many other excellent books out there on the A-Z’s of cheese, emphasizing that this is “a doing book, quite specifically about creating artful cheese experiences”.

The book offers gorgeous photo spreads (thanks to Brooklyn-based food photographer Noah Fecks) and clear, detailed instructions for creating the accompaniments. I tried a few of the recipes, and was struck by how quick and simple all of them were, yet how delicious the results ended up being. The spreads are categorized with names like “Love Letter to Clothbound Cheddar”, “Smoky Bandits”, “Hard Day’s Night, “Flights of Fancy” and “Vice”, each focusing on a family of cheese, a theme, a creative direction or just a flight of fancy.

I had many questions for Tia after getting my hands on this book, and she was kind enough to answer them. Not only that, she agreed to create a custom recipe, using one of the cheeses I’ve been spending much of my time with lately! Read on to learn more…

Q. The first time I experienced your pairing program was probably around 2009 or so; it was, as far as I know, one of the first of its kind in NYC. Was this something that evolved organically into what it is now, or was it part of your mission statement, from the beginning of your tenure as head of a cheese program?

A. From day one of my public work in pairing I knew what I wanted to do. But I definitely wasn’t cognizant of how out-of-the-box my work was considered at the time. I just thought “wouldn’t it be cool to pair Buffalo milk cheese with Indian Buffalo milk cake?” It didn’t occur to me people would be provoked by my work. I remember meeting [Swiss cheese expert] Konrad Heusser and he said to me “If you did what you’re doing here [in America] in Switzerland, they’d ban you! You can only do this because you’re American”. This was not a condemnation, by the way. Konrad is someone who “got” what I was doing right away. It was a different time in cheese, in the U.S., and in Europe. The perception of cheese was very much as a high-brow, Eurocentric thing. I’d like my legacy to be that I made the cheese culture looser and more provocative [ha!], that I helped Americanize it.

Q. Are there any people, cuisines, or establishments, that you drew inspiration from, or that contributed to your unique perspective?

My #1 inspiration when I began my career was sushi. I thought of nothing else more than I thought of that. Sometimes you have an idea – it seems so obvious – why isn’t everyone doing this? I remember seeing Jiro Dreams of Sushi and sobbing throughout the film. Afterwards, I said to my friend, “Why was I crying like that?” She said, “Because you know what it’s like to want to make something that there aren’t words for”. I am in NO WAY placing my work anywhere near the level of Jiro, but I understand the madness of making and pursuing craft, and the relentlessness of feeding people and making food day in and day out – of how hard and depleting that can be, but also how transformative and almost spiritual, too. For the book, I really wanted to make a cheese lifestyle book that was useable and mainstream, yet fantastical. My work in the restaurant business was disruptive: it challenged the formats of how we eat, serve, and socialize around cheese. I wanted my book to do the same thing, but in the cheese book genre. I didn’t want this book to look, read, or feel like any other cheese book.

Q. One pairing that always stuck with me was Kimchi with a young goat cheese, for being a pairing which sounded fundamentally counterintuitive but worked wonderfully on the palate. What are some of your favorite out-of-left-field pairings that you would encourage cheese lovers to try?

Well I have to say I LOVE Asian (especially South Asian) snacks and condiments. First of all, think about the Filipino, Thai or Indian table: filled with condiments! These cuisines really understands punctuation and acidity. They understand sweet and savory in a way that European-derived cuisines just don’t. And just like I love sugar, I love heat. In Eastern medicine, they act similarly in your body – they’re related. Hot sauce and stinky cheese…Yum. I’ll eat a slice of Limburger on a cracker with Texas Pete – now that’s a pairing! But seriously, my book is filled with out-of-left-field pairings I want people to try.

Q. There are some pairings, like cheese with red wine, that can actually be more challenging than expected, despite often being lauded as a no-brainer to cheese newbies. Any cheeses which have had you flummoxed, or pairings which you were sure would be a 10 but ended up being a 3?

Well one of the reasons I love working with flavors is that they always surprise me. But I don’t think I’ve ever met a cheese I couldn’t find a pairing for. No. I’ve found cheeses that were so good I didn’t have the arrogance to want to make a pairing for them – you know, an excellent cheese in a moment of perfection… Sometimes the best pairing is your appreciation and respect – that’s the condiment, an emotion, awe.

Q. One of the approaches that you advocate is offering your guests individually composed cheese plates, rather than a giant cheese board that everyone plunders. We all love a good cheese mountain at a party, but what are the advantages to this approach, culinarily, aesthetically, or financially?

Financially it’s much more economical to control portions by plating individually instead of as a “buffet”: you use less cheese, there’s less waste (think about what your giant cheese board looks like at the end of a dinner party – yuck!). Aesthetically you have much more control, in my opinion. And from a culinary perspective you’re telling the person eating exactly how you want the food to be eaten, because you’re essentially presenting a composed bite. Obviously there are advantages to big boards: when you’re serving a large group, for instance, and composing individual plates would be too laborious.

Q. I think many people associate salty/savory with cheese pairings (nuts, charcuterie, pickled foods etc, with maybe one sweet pairing on the plate (eg the ubiquitous blue cheese with fig-something-something). Your approach is much more adventurous and creative on the sweet side of the spectrum, with all kinds of amazing fudges, brittles, chocolates, marshmallows, chutneys and more featured in the book. Do you think this is an under-explored side of the cheese plate?

First I have to say that I have a major sweet tooth. I love sugar, I do. So it’s a personal preference, in part. But from a professional perspective, I really enjoy the textures that sugar can lend to a pairing: the crunch of brittle, the silkiness of caramel, the airiness of a marshmallow or a merengue. Cheese is savory, but its undertone can be quite sweet, especially when you’re talking about cooked, aged cheeses – think Cheddar, Alpines, Pecorinos. So I always felt that sweet deserved as much space as savory. To be honest, I never really look at what other people are doing, or what is the “norm” when pairing. I just do my thing and hope people like it. For me personally, my creativity is internal, it comes from my own interests, struggles, and journey. I mean, I’m curious about other creatives and their work, but I’m not judging my own work by anybody elses. That is kind of my nightmare, actually.

Q. This book was published by Rizzoli, acclaimed as an art/design/culture imprint, and the photography in the book is stunning. Did Rizzoli, or Noah Fecks — the photographer — bring their own approach which informed the final product?

Absolutely! In the early days of fleshing out the book, my editor Jono Jarrett and I talked a lot about how the book should look. I was adamant that I didn’t want this book to look like other cheese books. There’s a visual cliché for cheese: I call it farmhouse aesthetic, that rough-hewn farm table, magic hour light, slate, grapes, figs, whatever look, I’m over it. SO BORING. I’ve always hated it, since day one of when I started having my work photographed years ago. So I told Jono I didn’t want to work with anyone who’d worked on a cheese project. He suggested Noah and then Noah suggested Reclaim Design for prop and set styling – a genius move. The first time we all got together, I showed them a bunch of the best-selling cheese books and we went through the pictures, and I talked about why I didn’t like them, and what I wanted instead. Then for each entry I wrote a visual treatment, what the theme of the entry was and it’s visual inspiration, what the colors of the food were. Then Reclaim would bring all of these amazing props to set and we’d vibe on how to roll it out. And Noah shot in this style that we called “crispy”: filled with life and color and exactitude. It was an amazing collaborative experience, and being a restaurant person, I thrive on that. We lifted each other and it shows in the work, I think. I could’ve shot this book 100 time over. It was an amazing experience. A true highlight of the process of making a book.

Q. Are there any cheeses that you’ve discovered recently that you would recommend?

Maybe these cheese aren’t *so” new, but I’m obsessed with Veronica Pedraza’s cheeses at Meadowood Farms. She keeps coming up with new ones and they’re amazing. And I just love that she works with sheep and sheep’s milk, which is so underrepresented in this country. I’m a total Meadowood fangirl.

Q. As you know, I’m at the Cellars at Jasper Hill right now, as a Cave & Creamery Intern. Would you be willing to propose a pairing that’s not in the book, perhaps with Bayley Hazen Blue? This is a cheese I’ve had a hand in working on, with both the Cheesemaking and Affinage experts at Jasper Hill, so I’d love to see what you’d propose for it.

A. Absolutely!

Bayley Hazen Blue with Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut and Castelvetrano Olive Bark

Ingredients: Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut, & Castelvetrano Olives

Drain 6 pitted Castelvetrano olives and dry with a paper towel. Thinly slice and set aside. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Melt 5 ounces best-quality dark chocolate on the top of a double boiler or a glass bowl fitted over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally with a heatproof spatula

Spread the chocolate in an even ½-inch layer onto the prepared sheet pan. Sprinkle the sliced olives and 2 tablespoons toasted chopped hazelnuts onto the chocolate, gently pressing onto the surface with a spatula. Cool on the sheet pan for an hour or so, until the chocolate sets. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature.

(Photo of Tia Keenan courtesy Kerstin Rodgers)

American Cheese Society 2016: Best Of ShowWe have our top...

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 16:18:36 -0400

American Cheese Society 2016: Best Of Show

We have our top winners! The American Cheese Society 2016 competition winners were announced last night in Des Moines, Iowa, and here are the results! The big winner, for Best Of Show, was Little Mountain, from the Roelli Cheese Company. Chris Roelli has been a long time fixture and award-winning maker on the Wisconsin cheese scene (as well as being an official “Master Cheesemaker” in that state), and this win is well deserved (you can see my post from four years ago, about his Red Rock cheese, here).

Bleating Heart, who did well at the 2015 ACS competition, stepped it up by entering the Best Of Show 2nd Place ranks, as did The Farm at Doe Run, makers of longtime Cheese Notes favorite Hummingbird.

3rd Place was also a tie, with the Caves of Faribault getting the red ribbon for their Jeffs’ Select Gouda, and Murrays Cheese and Jasper Hill Farm winning for their collaboration cheese, Greensward.

Speaking of that last one, there are more and cheeses showing up at the ACS competition that are made at one location and aged elsewhere, a clear sign of the maturation and expansion of Affinage in America. The Greensward starts it’s life as a Harbison, made at Jasper Hill, which is shipped to the Murray’s Caves when green, where the ace team at Murray’s take over, washing and caring for the wheels to produce the funky final product. You can read more about the Greensward in my piece about booze-washed cheeses for Edible Manhattan.

1st Place Best of Show
Little Mountain, Roelli Cheese Company Inc, WI

2nd Place Best of Show (tie)
Buff Blue, Bleating Heart Cheese, CA
St. Malachi Reserve, The Farm at Doe Run, PA

3rd Place Best of Show (tie)
Jeffs’ Select Gouda, Caves of Faribault, MN
Greensward, Murray’s Cheese & Jasper Hill Farm

If you want to see all of the winners, across all categories (be warned, it’s a big list!) you can see the complete list of winners here (PDF):
http://www.cheesesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2016-Winners-for-Website-3.pdf

(Photos courtesy of (from top): American Cheese Society, Bleating Heart Cheese, The Farm at Doe Run Dairy, Caves of Faribault, Murrays Cheese)

ACS 2016 Awards Live Stream

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:35:54 -0400

Wishing you were in Des Moines to watch the announcement of the ACS 2016 Competition winners (aka the Oscars of the cheese world)? Well, if you can’t be there in person, you can stream it live via the American Cheese Society website! Link is here: http://www.cheesesociety.org/cheese-stream-2016/

Pictured above is the moment from ACS 2015, when Celtic Blue Reserve was announced as Best Of Show. Who will win this year? Tune in to find out!

So honored to be doing an Instagram takeover for the Cellars at...

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:28:50 -0400

So honored to be doing an Instagram takeover for the Cellars at Jasper Hill! Follow along over at @jasperhillfarm. #repost @jasperhillfarm :
・・・
“The man, the myth, the legend–Matt Spiegler, aka @cheesenotes, will be taking over our IG account for a few weeks. Check out what he’s up to and see Jasper Hill from inside the vaults!” (at Jasper Hill Farm)

From the New York Times, here’s a story about some very well...

Sat, 16 Jul 2016 12:24:28 -0400

From the New York Times, here’s a story about some very well aged cheese. I had the chance to taste a 40-year Cheddar, which at that point was the oldest edible cheese I’d heard of (not including rock hard lumps found in abandoned shop basements, or that 3,600 year old cheese found alongside a mummy in China). This cheese is pretty much twice as old! And the folks at Talbott & Arding Cheese & Provisions in Hudson, NY, had the privilege of tasting it. Via the New York Times:

After 75 Years, the Cheese Stands Alone
We mark ourselves by what we choose of our past to shield from the churn of change. Much of this, whether an old building or historic landscape, is lasting and durable by definition. That something as soft and perishable as cheese should make it across 75 years of time and space, outlasting brick and mortar — indeed, much of the city — is beyond remarkable. But is a cheese from the age of steam still recognizably cheese? Is it even still edible?
To find out, I took the cheese to Kate Arding and Mona Talbott in Hudson, 125 miles north of the city. In the kitchen of their lovely shop,Talbott and Arding Cheese and Provisions, we undid its winding sheet.
A pungent funk arose, but the cheese was not rancid. “It’s smelling remarkably clean,” Kate observed. Mona sensed a sheep-ish note, suggesting it might be pecorino Romano. Kate, the British-born co-founder of Culture magazine and editorial board member of the forthcoming “Oxford Companion to Cheese,” concurred. “It does smell like a Romano,” she said. “It’s got — even now — this very slight sweetness.”
And then there it was: a mottled ginger-gold, velveteen with sweat, edged with a waxy black rind. We were spellbound. Kate took out a device called a cheese trier. Gently rotating it into the rind, she removed an amber sample, like a core of glacial ice. She broke off a small piece and handed it to me. Timidly, I put it in my mouth.
“It’s got a bite,” I said of the little salt bomb, wondering if there was a good hospital in Hudson. To Mona, it had a leathery note. Kate was impressed. “I’ve sampled contemporary cheeses far, far worse,” she said. This was culinary archaeology. “I have never heard of anyone tasting a cheese this old,” Kate remarked. “Aside from archaeological finds, I’ve never even heard of a cheese surviving this long. I’m amazed; it hasn’t really suffered at all.”

Read the full story.

Vermont Cheesemakers Festival 2016It’s that time of year again!...

Sat, 09 Jul 2016 07:32:53 -0400

Vermont Cheesemakers Festival 2016

It’s that time of year again! On Sunday, July 17th, come to Shelburne Farms, just south of Burlington, VT, for the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, a celebration of all of the amazing producers that call the Green Mountain State home. Other than the American Cheese Society conference, you’ll never find this many Vermont cheesemakers in one location at the same time. In addition to Vermont, there are usually representatives from neighboring states like New York and Massachusetts, which makes this a truly unique opportunity to get a panoramic view of the best of the region’s cheesemaking in just a few hours. Add to that all of the beer, wine, charcuterie, jams and other producers that will be present, the workshops and lectures, and the setting on the gorgeous properties of Shelburne Farms, on the banks of Lake Champlain, to really seal the deal.

Check out my report from the 2014 festival to get a glimpse of what you might find at this year’s get-down. And get your tickets now, as it’s pretty much guaranteed to sell out every year.

Vermont Cheesemakers Festival
Vermont is the premium artisanal cheese state with the highest number of cheesemakers per capita: over 40 of them! We invite you to experience our passion for making fine cheeses, taste local and fresh foods and wines, and meet the artisans who make them. Spend a high summer day along the shores of Lake Champlain at the historic Shelburne Farms Coach Barn sampling, buying, learning, and networking. Come and celebrate the season.
Cheesemakers for 2016:
AlpineGlo Farm, Big Picture Farm, Billings Farm & Museum, Blue Ledge Farm, Blythedale Farm, Bonnieview Farm, Boston Post Dairy, Cabot Creamery Cooperative, Champlain Valley Creamery, Cobb Hill Farm, Consider Bardwell Farm, Crowley Cheese Company, Fairy Tale Farm, Franklin Foods, Grafton Village Cheese Company, Hi-Land Farm, Jasper Hill Farm, Karim Farm Creamery, Maplebrook Farm, Midnight Goat Farm, Mountain Home Farm, Mt. Mansfield Creamery, Neighborly Farms, Parish Hill Creamery, Plymouth Artisan Cheese, Sage Farm Goat Dairy, Scholten Family Farm, Shadagee Farm, Shelburne Farms, Spring Brook Farm / Farms for City Kids, Sweet Rowen Farm, Taylor Farm, Thistle Hill Farm, Three Shepherds Cheese, Twig Farm, Vermont Creamery, Vermont Farmstead Cheese, Vermont Shepherd, von Trapp Farmstead, West River Creamery.

More info and tickets at VTCheeseFest.com.

If you’re in NYC and looking for something to do before the...

Sat, 25 Jun 2016 09:49:10 -0400

If you’re in NYC and looking for something to do before the Cheesemonger Invitational gets rolling, check out the Good Food Mercantile, at the Brooklyn Expo Center! Cheese and dairy products will be on display and available for tasting from Crown Finish Caves, Jacobs & Brichford Cheese, Jasper Hill Farm, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company, Vermont Creamery, The White Moustache, Tomales Farmstead Creamery, Zingerman’s Creamery and others. Via Good Food Awards:

Good Food Mercantile
JOIN US IN NEW YORK ON JUNE 25!
The second annual Good Food Mercantile New York will take place on June 25 at the Brooklyn Expo Center! Retailers, media, and chefs can register here.
Seedling Projects and the Good Food Retailers Collaborative are proud to present the Good Food Mercantile, the un-trade show for tasty, authentic, responsible food. This one-day, intimate gathering of like-minded food crafters and retailers offers the same sized booths to everyone, a start time conducive to arriving well rested, and booth fees at a fraction of the price of other trade shows. This is the Good Food Movement’s answer to building commerce and community.
While traditional trade shows convene tens of thousands of buyers, many are not prepared to work with businesses whose core aspirations don’t include unbridled growth, and smaller companies can find themselves lost amongst a sea of thousands of booths. The Good Food Mercantile is a different kind of gathering. Open exclusively to past Good Food Award winners and finalists and members of the Good Food Guild, it is an opportunity for thoughtful, responsible American food crafters to connect with the growing community of retailers that value quality, care and craftsmanship.

learn more here.

It’s that time of year again! You have exactly two more days to...

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 18:38:27 -0400

It’s that time of year again! You have exactly two more days to get tickets for the craziest cheese party of the year, the Cheesemonger Invitational! This annual bacchanalia of cheese, beer, charcuterie, competitive mongering and a madman in a cow suit jumping around on stage is going down this Saturday, June 25th, in Long Island City, Queens. If you love cheese, you won’t want to miss this, trust me. And it always sells out, so if you want those tickets, get on it now!

You can read my report from a past CMI here.

Reporting from Greensboro, VT

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 08:22:59 -0400

Followers of Cheese Notes may have noticed a slowdown in the frequency of my postings as of late. I apologize for this, but am also happy to say that it’s due to my time being consumed with some recent cheese-related moves in my life.

Regular readers may know that — in addition to writing for the blog and other publications, traveling as a cheese reporter, pursuing various cheese-related educational paths, and last but not least making cheese in Brooklyn — I have been working as a web developer and creative technology manager. Essentially I found myself working two full-time jobs, the code during the day and the curd at night. I enjoyed both facets of my life, and can give myself credit for juggling all those balls. However, balancing the two was becoming increasingly untenable as the regular job came to consume an ever-greater portion of my time, and the cheese was suffering as a result. The time came to decide where I wanted to focus my passion and intellectual energy.

All of which leads to this: Friday, May 20th was my last day as a full-time web developer. I said a fond goodbye to my coworkers at JCrew.com, my employer of the last few years, and rode into the curd-hued sunset. Beginning on June 6th I arrived in Greensboro, Vermont, in the far northeast corner of the state (also known as the Northeast Kingdom) and started a 4-month internship at the Cellars at Jasper Hill, splitting my time between the caves and creamery.

The first couple weeks have been an amazing but intense whirlwind of immersion in the systems and culture of Jasper Hill. I’ve spent almost two weeks in the Cellars, working with the teams in the vaults where the cheeses are aged and cared for, and on Friday reporting to work at 4:30am for my first day in the Creamery, participating in the makes for Bayley Hazen Blue and Harbison.

It’s been a real eye-opener to work directly with the cheeses that I have admired and enjoyed for many years, from the ACS Best of Show-winning Winnimere and it’s bloomy-rinded bark-wrapped cousin, Harbison, to the blue-veined glory of Bayley Hazen, to the cheeses from other producers that are aged at the Cellars, like the pudgy glory that is Von Trapp’s Oma, or the 40-lb larded wheels of Cabot Clothbound.

As much as I appreciated a cheese like the Harbison, it’s given me a newfound respect for the results that are achieved, now that I’ve seen the lifecycle: from their infancy in the vats at the Creamery, to their childhood and teenage year in the Cellars getting cared for and whipped into shape, to the moment when they’re all grown up, have received their stamp of approval and are loaded into boxes in Packing & Shipping, ready to be moved out to distributors and mongers across the country.

Jasper Hill takes food safety, sanitation and hygiene, and consistency and quality of product very seriously; I knew this going in, but was unaware of just how rigorous their methodologies are and just how much control they are able to exercise over their cheeses as a result. I’ll be talking more about this in a future post, but suffice it to say that the seven vaults at the Cellars may be “caves”, but they’re also models of cleanliness and environmental control, with all team members laser-focused on ensuring that the wheels in their care are continuously provided with the optimal conditions to deliver a perfect wheel and a guarantee of food safety. I’ve seen many a creamery in my day, but never one that operated like such a well-oiled machine, while simultaneously not sacrificing the day-to-day, hands-on care that an artisan cheese requires. Jasper Hill has a unique challenge in operating a large, state of the art facility, with exhaustively designed, tested and continuously tweaked standard operating procedures, and a high volume of production, while still, fundamentally, producing a hand-crafted cheese, in which every wheel of Harbison gets “barked” by a cellars team member, every Bayley gets pierced by hand, one hole at a time. It’s an impressive balancing act.

A big thank you to Mateo and Andy Kehler, Adam Smith, Nat Bacon and the whole Jasper Hill team for affording me this opportunity to get hands-on experience, working in state-of-the-art affinage and production facilities, alongside some of the best minds in the cheese world.

My volume of posts to Cheese Notes will probably continue to be slower than in the past, as my time will mostly be spent within a single cheesemaker, working with their cheeses (which will limit the opportunities I have to go on new-cheese-hunting expeditions as in the past) but I do intend to blog about my experiences at Jasper Hill. Fewer posts, but with more in-depth content.

There will also be events coming up — like the Cheesemonger Invitational, which I’ll be posting from (and which you should buy tickets for, going fast!) — plus I hope to make some trips to cheesemakers around Vermont and northern New York while I’m up here.

And of course you can always follow along at Instagram (@cheesenotes), which has as of late become my primary social media platform.

Tomme de Bois Noire, a raw goat’s milk cheese from Hervè...

Fri, 27 May 2016 16:05:49 -0400

Tomme de Bois Noire, a raw goat’s milk cheese from Hervè Mons.

Emmi buys Cowgirl Creamery

Tue, 17 May 2016 10:06:12 -0400

It’s just been announced that Cowgirl Creamery will be purchased by Emmi AG, the swiss dairy multinational, that in recent years has gone on a bit of a buying spree in both the US and Europe, adding artisan cheese companies like Cypress Grove, Redwood Hill Farm, Roth Kase and others to its portfolio.

Sue Conley and Peggy Smith, the owners of Cowgirl Creamery, were early players in the new American cheese scene, launching their company in 1997 and playing a major role in exposing consumers to domestic cheeses of quality, as well as producing their own, like the Mt Tam, Red Hawk and others. They’ve also been heavily involved with the American Cheese Society, with Peggy Smith serving as President of the ACS for a period and both serving on the board.

While this is certainly exciting news and a well-earned next step for Conley and Smith, the moves by Emmi do seem to presage that the US cheese industry is entering a new phase of expansion and consolidation, and it will be interesting to see where this leads in the long run, and how it impacts smaller producers (either positively or negatively). In some ways it’s similar to what France saw in previous decades, with Lactalis purchasing smaller producers, or as we see now in the US beer industry, with multinationals like AB InBev adding local craft breweries to their holdings. However, Emmi does have a reputation for respecting the practices of the cheese companies it purchases, and allowing them to continue to operate as before, so it seems unlikely that the quality of the cheese will be adversely affected.

Via SFGate.com:

Cowgirl Creamery sold to Swiss dairy company
Since launching Cowgirl Creamery in 1997 in Point Reyes, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith have turned their small Bay Area dairy business into a nationally distributed artisan brand to be reckoned with. Now, just eight months shy of Cowgirl’s 20th anniversary, the two owners have told The Chronicle that the company will merge with the far larger Swiss dairy company Emmi.
Cowgirl Creamery is only the latest in a string of local artisan brands being bought out by big companies. Last fall, humane-focused meat supplier Niman Ranch was bought by Perdue. Around the same time, in early September, Petaluma’s Lagunitas Brewing Co. sold a 50 percent stake in the company to Dutch beverage behemoth Heineken.
The Cowgirl merger, which also includes its distribution arm, Tomales Bay Foods, comes six months after Emmi’s acquisition of Sebastopol goat dairy Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery. (Emmi also owns Arcata’s Cypress Grove Chevre, which it bought in 2010.) The Swiss company, founded in 1907 and operated by a cooperative of dairy farmers, is the largest Swiss milk processor and exports cheese and other dairy products to approximately 60 countries. In 2015, Emmi posted net sales of nearly $3.3 billion.The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
When Conley and Smith launched Cowgirl in the mid-’90s, there were only six cheesemaking operations in Marin and Sonoma counties. As the local craft food scene has boomed, so has Cowgirl’s business. Today, there are over two dozen cheesemaking companies in the region, and Cowgirl has helped bring many of their products to the attention of shoppers nationwide via Tomales Bay Foods. The company now has approximately 95 employees; a product line of nearly a dozen cheeses, including its flagship triple-cream Mount Tam; two retail outposts (a third location in Washington, D.C., closed in 2013); two cheesemaking facilities, plus a third in the works; and a Ferry Building restaurant, Sidekick.
Conley and Smith will continue to operate Cowgirl Creamery and Tomales Bay Foods; Smith will take on the title of president and Conley will be vice president.
Conley and Smith have long been familiar with Emmi — and have carried several of its cheeses over the years. They looked closely at how it has worked with its other local acquisitions. “Mary Keehn (Cypress Grove’s former owner) took a big chance when she merged with Emmi,” said Smith. “We talked with Mary a lot about this, and she has confirmed that they run their business exactly the same way they did before they started with Emmi.”
Some of the sophisticated cheeses sold by Cowgirl require a final stage of care known as “affinage” as they mature. For fans of the cheesemaker, they too will have to watch the combination of Emmi and Cowgirl ripen over time.
“The whole trick is integration,” said Geis. “The worst thing that can happen is for the larger company to try to change the smaller one and take away its significance.”

Read the full story.

Cheese in New York: An Insider’s Tour

Wed, 11 May 2016 09:38:23 -0400

Are you a cheese professional looking for the ultimate NYC cheese experience? Academie Opus Caseus is offering a one of a kind package that will guide you through the most exciting cheese week of the year in the five boroughs, taking you from the Cheesemonger Invitational to the Fancy Food Show, from the Murray’s caves of Long Island City to the underground tunnels of Crown Finish Caves. Along the way you’ll meet mongers, makers and cheese experts and eat at the best cheese-focused restaurants to ensure that you absolutely get your fill. But sign up now as space is very limited!

Via Academie Opus Caseus:

Cheese in New York: An Insider’s Tour
June 24 - 27, 2016
The Academie Opus Caseus, the center for professional development at MonS Fromager-Affineur will escort participants through a whirlwind of cheese events and visits in New York City during the Summer Fancy Food Show.
Cheesemonger visits: Manhattan cheesemonger visits include Eataly (one of NYC’s top three tourist destinations!), urban cheesemaking east coast outpost Beecher’s Cheese, the inimitable Saxelby Cheese shop in the traditional Essex Street Market, and Lucy’s Whey at Chelsea Market. We’ll also visit Eastern District, one of Queen’s hottest foodie spots.
Special Events: We’ll attend the Cheesemonger Invitational, the hottest competition for cheesemongers in the country, and the loudest cheese party in the industry. At the Fancy Food Show we’ll visit cheesemakers from around the world, distributors, and retailers shopping for great new products.
Affinage visits: We’ll have a tour of Murray’s Cheese affinage facility in Long Island City, and we’ll attend a private Mons event at the famed Crown Finish Caves.
Carlos Yescas, Director of the Oldways Cheese Coalition will join us for a discussion of worldwide efforts in support of raw milk cheese.
Cheese dining: Lunch will be served at Terence Brennan’s Artisanal Bistro on the first day, and that evening we’ll rest our feet at Casellula, Brian Keyser’s wine & cheese bar. And our farewell meal will be at Murray’s cheese bar. Of course we’ve left a free evening for participants to choose their own NYC.
Registration is limited to 6 participants*, on a first-come, first-served basis. Cheese professionals only, please. Registration deadline: May 23, 2016. The cost of the program is $2500, and includes 4 nights’ hotel (double occupancy), most meals, and all ground transportation. *4 participants minimum required to run the program. Visits may be changed, substitutions will be of equal interest.
The Academie Opus Caseus is the center for professional development within the MonS Company. The curriculum evolved out of practical, daily experience over decades, in collaboration with top French dairy scientists and researchers. MonS Fromager-Affineur is widely recognized in France and internationally as one of the premier affineurs in the world, and draws from over 50 years’ experience in all domains of the cheese business, from production and product sourcing through affinage, national and international distribution, wholesale, and retail.

Kickstarter: The Cave

Tue, 10 May 2016 14:49:57 -0400

This Kickstarter looks like a project worth keeping an eye on! As somebody who has used a variety of hacked together mini-caves and wine refrigerators for aging over the years, I’ve often yearned for greater control over the variables of temperature and humidity (Humidity in particular can be a real pain in the a**). If this product delivers what it promises, it could be a great solution for home cheesemakers.

The Cave: Fermentation Control Unit
The Cave is a fermentation control unit that can be installed on many different types of refrigerators or freezers. With the Cave you can heat, cool, humidify, and circulate air to meet your fermentation requirements. It includes wireless controls to give you complete versatility for any fermentation project.
You can use the Cave to ferment almost anything with complete control of humidity and temperature. Age homemade cheeses. Hang salamis or dry cured meats. Ferment beer (even lager your own home brew). You can make yogurt, proof bread dough, ferment pickles, brew kombucha, make rice wine … the possibilities are endless.
Every purchase of the Cave comes with a download of three e-books, with everything you need to know to get you started brewing beer, making cheese, or dry curing meats Pick one project to work on, or try them all! Our comprehensive guides will walk you through the process with plenty of pictures, recipes, and explanations to get you well on your way.
The Cave must be installed onto the top of a working refrigerator or freezer. Installation is easy and takes just a few minutes. All that is required is a drill, a 2-inch bit, and a phillips screwdriver. You will have to drill a hole, attach some screws, plug it in, and then you’re good to go.
Once the Cave is installed, the refrigerator is plugged into the back of the unit. To control humidity, an ultrasonic cool mist humidifier can be plugged into the interior port. Sensors in the unit will determine when to give power to the refrigerator, humidifier, or heater.
A wide range of refrigerators or freezers will work with the Cave. You will want to look for one that does not have dual temperature zones: if the top of the refrigerator has a freezer component, it may skew the temperature readings and you will not have consistent temperatures inside the chamber. Dorm fridges, chest freezers, upright freezers, beverage refrigerators: these are all excellent options.
If you plan to use the heater component of the Cave (for example, for making yogurt at 110F), plan on using a chamber that is ten cubic feet or smaller. Otherwise, use as large of a chamber as you would like.

Learn more at the Kickstarter.

‘Run For The Cheese Party’ 5kLove cheese and...

Wed, 04 May 2016 17:42:29 -0400

‘Run For The Cheese Party’ 5k

Love cheese and running? Are you headed to Des Moines, Iowa in July for the 2016 American Cheese Society conference? Then this is the event for you! I’m happy to have contributed to the brainstorming and planning for this 5k to benefit the Daphne Zepos Teaching Award and the American Cheese Education Foundation. Check it out and join the Cheese Party today!

'Run For The Cheese Party’ 5k
It’s the first annual Run For The Cheese Party 5k! This race will be taking place in the streets of Des Moines, Iowa — host to the 2016 American Cheese Society conference, the annual meeting of minds and celebration of all things turophilic from across the North American cheese world.
After eating, discussing, living and breathing cheese for three days, there’s nothing you want to do more than put on your running shoes and make a mad dash for the finish line, right? Who is the fastest curd nerd in town? Whose wheel has the fastest roll? Only one way to find out!
And every step you take helps a great cause, with all proceeds going to the Daphne Zepos Teaching Award and the American Cheese Education Foundation. Even if you didn’t attend the ACS conference, you can still register for the 5k. Show your love of cheese, score some sweet cheese-themed race swag and go for your PR.
Costumes welcome! There might even be a special prize for the best cheese-themed get-up, so start sewing your cheese mite mascot outfit today!

Cheesemaker Visit: Winter Hill FarmMaine is known for its rocky...

Mon, 02 May 2016 17:37:44 -0400

Winter Hill cheeses on the board

the label

blue cheese in the moulds

The solar hot water array

Collinsbrook, Tide Line, Frost Gully, Bradbury Mtn Blue

Randall cows in the field

Cheesemaker Visit: Winter Hill Farm

Maine is known for its rocky coastlines, fog-draped pine forests and pots overflowing with lobsters, but in recent years it has established a place for itself on the cheese map as well, with the number of dairies and creameries rising steadily, and some excellent cheeses accompanying these developments. On a recent spring weekend, I got a chance to visit one of this new generation, at Winter Hill Farm, in Freeport, Maine.

Set inland about 15 minutes drive from the coast, in an open stretch surrounded by 55 acres of rolling pasture and mixed forest, Winter Hill Farm is owned by a trust and managed by Steve Burger and Sarah Wiederkehr, a young couple with two children, who live at the farm. Started over a decade ago by Jim Stampone and his wife Kate LeRoyer, the farm had as one of its central missions the preservation of the Randall Lineback breed of cows. When they retired in 2011 the trust purchased it and Sarah and Steve began to manage it.

Randall’s are known as a “landrace” breed, which is to say that they are uniquely adapted to the local climates and condition in which they dwell — in this case the rugged New England landscape — and are used for milk, meat and draft. They are a sturdy, hardworking animal, but don’t produce as much as milk, so over the decades they have been replaced by more productive breeds, and almost went extinct in the 80’s, before a small group of farmers worked to preserve them. Today the Randall’s status is listed as ‘critical’ by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), but farms like Winter Hill ensure that they won’t be going away any time soon.

Cheesemaking was added to the mix about four years ago, with the construction of a small cheese house. The farm also added some Jersey Cows to the herd, to ensure a steadier supply of milk. The cheesemaking operation has been growing steadily since then, and when I visited they had just started moving cheese into two brand new aging caves. Sarah, the head cheesemaker, has been gradually expanding the line of cheeses, with 6 or so now in rotation throughout the year. Through the Maine Cheese Guild, Sarah has had the opportunity to work with cheese-world luminaries like Gianaclis Caldwell and Dr. Ben Wolfe, which has contributed to the refinement and improvement of her make processes.

Sustainability is another mission of the farm, and with that in mind, all of the hot water for the cheese house is supplied by solar photovoltaic hot water arrays on the roof, with additional solar arrays providing electricity. Sarah told us they reduced their propane usage dramatically thanks to the solar technology. Whey is fed to the pigs, who spend their summers in the nearby woods, foraging for nuts and roots when they’re not being treated to the delicious byproduct of cheesemaking.

The cheese was what I had come for, and I had the opportunity to sample four of Winter Hill’s cheeses, all made with the milk of the Randall and Jersey herd:

Frost Gully: a soft-ripened, pasteurized milk bloomy rind cheese, aged 2-4 weeks. A bright, milky, cheese with buttery and tangy notes. The paste was soft with a lightly oozing creamline.

Tide Line: made with the same recipe as the Frost Gully, but with an ashed rind, and a line of ash through the center. With a velvety, fudgy paste and mineral, earthy and briney notes. Tide line won a 3rd place ribbon at the 2015 American Cheese Society competition in Providence, RI.

Collinsbrook: a raw milk, semi-hard, natural rinded cheese. Aged for 2-5 months, the rind is rubbed with olive oil for the first 2-3 months. Mild, but with earthy and tangy notes, a bit sharp, with a lightly eyed paste. This also makes an excellent melter for grilled cheese.

Bradbury Mountain Blue: Named for a nearby peak, this raw milk, natural rind blue is creamy and mild, the gold and ivory paste moderately blued, with sweet, vegetal and meaty notes.

The one cheese I was not able to try was their Everett’s Tome, which is named for the ‘father’ of Randall cows, Everett Randall.

Winter Hill’s cheeses are currently available at local farmer’s markets and cheese counters in Southern Maine, but with the expanded aging facilities they may start to increase production and ship to points further south. But in the meanwhile, look for them in Portland and the surrounding area.

Winter Hill also has an AirBnB on the farm, a charming, cozy apartment, with views over the back fields and woods, just a few steps from the cow barn, and which comes with complimentary cheeses in the fridge. So if you’re headed to the area and don’t mind waking to the mooing of cows, check it out!