Farm to Table

The slogan “happy cows come from California” has an entirely new meaning now that I’ve been to Marin County. On a recent trip to San Francisco, I made a morning excursion to visit the Robert Giacomini Dairy to see how Point Reyes Original Blue is produced. The countryside of this region is truly spectacular. As I entered the farm, those vivid 250 Holsteins are grazing along lush, springtime hillsides, overlooking Tomales Bay amidst a periwinkle sky. This farm is certified organic and produces much of it’s own energy through recycling processes.

Point Reyes Original Blue is produced shortly after the early morning milking in a facility adjacent to the milking barn. Raw milk, cultures, enzymes, salt & penicillium roqueforti are the only components of this handmade, farmstead cheese. The curds are cut, drained of whey, then poured into moulds where further draining occurs. The wheels are salt rubbed and cured for three weeks, then aged for about 5 months. The result is a great cheese for table, burger, or salad. With Memorial Day weekend approaching, you may need this cheese for all three.

Kuba, the cheesemaker, has begun producing fresh mozzarella that is sold locally in the Bay Area, as well as a fine, raw milk Toma. This Toma (I gladly accepted multiple samples) has a well balanced sweet & saltiness with light acidity and a semi-firm texture that will undoubtedly melt nicely with tomato, in-between two slices of sourdough, yumyum. I was pleased to hear it will be submitted to the American Cheese Society Competition this summer.

Thank you to the happy cows of Giacomini Dairy for closing the road when I tried to depart, and a heartfelt ‘dziekuje’ to Karen and Kuba for showing me around. MM

Wisconsin Cheese Tour 2010

I was fortunate enough to travel to Wisocnsin for a 4-day whirlwind (I've always wanted to use that word about my travels...) tour of several cheesemaking facilities.

We went from the simplest of cheesemaking at the Amish Salemville Cheese Co-Op to the latest state-of-the-art facilities of BelGioioso and Roth-Kase to the sustainable dairy farmers/cheesemakers of Crave Brothers. We visited with Kerry Hennings, of Henning's Wisconsin Cheese, a Wisconsin Licensed Master Cheesemaker and many cheese reps at a cheese trade show sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. We were treated to a gourmet-pizza lunch at Sartori Foods; in fact, every place we stopped, we were spoiled.

I learned a lot, including some great bits of trivia and thought I would share them with you:

Trivia: The largest mammoth cheddar wheel ever made by Henning’s Wisconsin Cheese: 12,000 pounds – and they made two of them for a grocery store chain in Texas.

Trivia: Milk is delivered daily to Sartori Foods from the 200+ farmers, all within 50miles of the cheesemaking plant. That milk is being made into cheese within 3 hours of its arrival.

Trivia: Mozzarella packed in water has a shelf life of about 30 days while the cryovac version has a shelf life of 60 days.

Trivia: It takes between 10 and 13 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese. The rest is water and whey, which is recycled and used or sold.

Trivia: BelGioioso wraps their Gorgonzola in foil and then in cellophane with tiny holes so that the cheese can continue to breathe. Cryovac wrap causes the cheese to become wet; the holes in the cellophane prevent that, making for a better product.

Trivia: The average size herd that provides milk to the Salemville Co-Op: 12 cows.

Trivia: The difference between blue cheese and gorgonzola is 30 days. Blue is aged 60 days and gorgonzola is aged 90 days (or more).

Trivia: 100 Pounds of cow milk fetches $12.00 these days… and the price of cow milk is set on the Chicago Commodity Exchange… 100 pounds of goat milk fetches $45.oo these days… 100 pounds of sheep milk fetches $95.00.

Trivia: Due to the outstanding treatment of their cows at the Crave Brothers Farm, the milk yield per cow is about 30K pounds of milk per yield, while the national average is 20K.

Trivia: The average size dairy herd in Wisconsin is 160 cows.

Dazzle your friends with your Wisconsin Cheese trivia… (MW)

The Cheese Chronicles by Liz Thorpe

I have never reviewed a book, even though I have literally read thousands of them over my lifetime. I began an Excel File in 2001 of the books I read and when I hit 1500 (in early 2008) I told my husband it was time for me to come out of retirement and return to the working world. Little did I know at that time, my new journey would allow me to spend five blissful days every week in the cheesemines.

My home office is cluttered with all kinds of “cheesy” things: books, cheese journals, logo aprons and hats, charts, photos, magazines. I even have a cheesy mouse pad…

A cousin and aunt gave me a gift card for Barnes and Noble last Christmas. I bought cheese books and one was The Cheese Chronicles by Liz Thorpe. Over the past three months (I only had time during my lunches), I have read and savored her journey discovering American Cheesemakers.

Because I had never written a review, I read several reviews of this book and was surprised at some of the garbage that folks decided to include. I even found comments criticizing Liz because she went to Yale… translation: “just a rich girl with parents to bankroll her cushy life”. The internet is a wonderful tool but it also gives the “tools” a worldwide canvas to be jerks…

I love this book. The excitement Liz feels when a new cheese comes her way is contagious. It’s an excitement that most dedicated cheesemongers feel. An excitement that hopefully will never go away for Liz, me and all the other cheesemongers who bring cheese to life for the everyday folks who love good food. It's an excitement that I try to convey when telling customers that No Woman is named after the song and is NOT a sexist cheese or how Roth-Kase convinced the FDA to let them use copper vats to make Gruyere.

I fell into cheesemongering and Liz did as well. When I heard about the cheese kiosk going into my store, I thought it would be “cool” to work there. Liz thought talking about cheese at cocktail parties would be “cool”. Absolutely!! At least two or three times a week, a customer will say to me, “You have the coolest job”… and they are right. Liz began on the counter at Murray’s Cheese Shop and has risen to Vice President and everyone (even those only remotely interested) in the cheese world know of Murray’s in the West Village of Manhattan. (When I die, I hope to have my ashes sprinkled over Murray’s… just kidding… sort of…)

Liz’s excitement carried me through the book; page-after-page; cheese-after-cheese. I loved her honesty in admitting she showed up hung-over to make cheese and lost her cookies when the smell of fresh milk and the warm humidity of the cheese room hit her “full frontal”. I love hearing how Ig Vella had her totally intimidated when they first met and her journey to the Amish country of Pennsylvania. Liz lays her heart out there and

There are so many favorite parts in this book; but my number one favorite is reading the stories of the ladies in the early 80s who started making cheese and how they made their marks and brought American Cheesemaking to the fore-front of America’s food culture.

Liz loves her job and you see it on every page of this book as she takes us through the challenging and fulfilling world of cheesemaking in America.

Liz is “cool” and so is her book.

(MW)

Last fall Noah and I spent 3 wonderful days celebrating a good friend's 40th birthday - at Disneyland of all places! I hadn't been there since I was very, very young and I was amazed to see how different the place looks through adult eyes. The rides were still fun, the shows were entertaining, and it was heavenly to escape the "real" world for awhile. But for someone as particular about food as I am, it was a culinary nightmare. I don't want you to get the idea that I'm a food snob, because I'm not. I've been known to eat a greasy cheeseburger and fries, or even a deep-fried something-or-other on occasion. But I seriously need to have my daily allotment of fresh veggies, not to mention the fact that I eat artisanal cheese at least once a day, and both of these items were missing from any of the menus I encountered. So after 72 hours of quitting cheese "cold-turkey," this junkie was delighted to get back to the cheese counter!

What was the first cheese I ate upon my return, you ask? It was Petaluma Creamery's Peppercorn Dry Jack Goat Cheese. YUM. This aged cheese is produced here in the Bay Area (not that far from where the original Vella Dry Jack is made) by Larry Peter who also owns Spring Hill Jersey Cheese Co. Its light beige paste is infused with whole pepper corns, and the rind is rubbed with olive oil, cocoa, and black pepper. One of my favorite things in all the world is a cheese which has a mildly sweet attack but has a savory, even spicy finish and this cheese hits the nail on the head. Although it would be great in cooking, I choose to eat Peppercorn Dry Jack by itself so I can fully enjoy the complexity of flavor brought about by the combination of high quality goat's milk and the traditional dry jack rub.

When you bite into this cheese you can just imagine happy goats frolicking across the rolling hills of the North Bay, feeding on nutrient rich grasses and breathing fresh ocean air. Perfect....

SH