What's That Smell?

Yesterday a customer came into the shop and remarked that he loves the way our shop smells. For a brief moment I though to myself "what smell?". Then it hit me. Oh yeah, the shop smells kind of funky, lactic and delicious. It's just not one those things I'm constantly thinking about as I'm at work.

Of course I smell all of the cheeses individually when sampling them to customers, or giving the cheese case some much needed TLC, but since I'm surrounded by the smells for hours at a time I grow accustomed to it-except for when we unwrap the washed rind cheeses of course. Especially a big, pungent cheeses like Grayson from Meadow Creek Dairy in VA, or Hooligan from Cato Corner Farm in CT.

One of my favorite things to do while working is to play "Guess that cheese". A co-worker will be busy re-wrapping product for the case and I'll just shout out what I'm smelling. It's a bit of a cheese-focused verbal spasm. " Grayson!" "Winnimere!" "Hooligan!"
All of the cheeses have such distinct aromas. Sniffing cheese is one of the best parts of my job. Some days it trumps tasting.

One of the ultimate opportunities to smell and taste cheese comes once a year during the "Festival of Cheese" on the last day of the ACS conference. Every product that was entered for judging is there. Last year I believe there were over 1300 dairy products entered.Table after table of butter, yogurt jostle for banquet and tummy space with cheese tables that are packed and are put in displays bigger than my 5'5" frame. Fantastic smells of washed rinds, fresh chevre, tangy yogurts, earthy cheddars and peppery blues all come together and fill the senses with a symphony of smell.

This year the conference and Festival of Cheese is going to be in Seattle. Going to the full conference is a wonderful learning experience, but even if you can't make the conference you've got to get to the cheesy banquet that awaits you on the last day. Your nose will thank you.
-aa

Summer Cheese

I have been thinking about cheese that is great for summer. Mainly, burger and grilling cheese.

When selling the cheese I have been importing I have found a theme....flavor. People seem to love flavored cheese of almost any kind. I found that Carr's Valley Cranberry-Chipotle Cheddar has been very popular. It is great in a burger as well as in desserts! Personally, I can just eat chuncks of it...Thanks Carr Valley!

For other grilling cheese I have come up with a great grilled steak recipe. I use my favorite blue cheese; cut a pocket into a nice steak and then put it on a hot grill. While that is cooking I prepare a plum reduction sauce by combining plum jam, red wine, salt and pepper. Tossed into a sauce pan these ingredients combine and are ready when the steak is ready. Sometimes, I add fresh basil just for a change. Anyway I look at it; I just love this recipe!!

Happy 1st day of summer all!

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

Getting fuzzy with Twig Farm's Fuzzy Wheel

Occasionally I'll buy a certain kind of cheese just because it has a fun name. Such is the case for Twig Farm's Fuzzy Wheel. I purposely did no research and asked no questions when I sent my order for this fun sounding fuzz from Formaggio Kitchen. I wanted to be totally surprised...and I was.

Twig Farm is a small goat farm in West Cornwall, Vermont and has been in operation since 2005. Owners Michael Lee and Emily Sunderman use traditional equipment and techniques to make their varieties of farmstead cheeses, forming them by hand and aging in their cheese cellar.

At first glance, this Fuzzy Wheel has an unassuming look, similar to a Tomme with its flecked edible rind and graduating paste. Unlike a typical Tomme, this semi-hard cheese has a "fuzzy" white mold covers the rind giving this cheese its name.

Moving in for the smell test may not have been the best idea. I am not sure if it is the fuzz or the blending of cow and goat milk, but this cheese produces a stench that is beyond stinky. To be honest, the rotting mushroom aroma almost kept me from tasting it, and I love stinky cheeses. Had I allowed the funky fragrance to deter me, I would have missed out on a truly tasty treat.

Getting past the funk, I took a small bite and was pleasantly surprised to find the flavor was nothing like the smell. Initial taste on the tip of the tongue is fresh and grassy, yet as it hits the taste buds toward the back, the assertive, earthy flavor wafts in one's mouth and builds to a savory peak. Light and creamy on the tongue, each bite gets better and better and paired with some red raspberries and a hefty glass of Cabernet, it is a fantastic fromage find.

Admittedly, I lucked out in this quirky find in Fuzzy Wheel. With the price of some cheeses costing as much as a three-course meal, playing roulette on selections can truly be a gamble. I was lucky this time and will probably do it again. I encourage everyone to give the wheel a spin sometime and see what the fates bring. (RK)