Cat's out of the bag

I've been mighty silent for a while. I've been talking to some folks about working together. Just didn't want to reveal too much while I was in sensitive negotiations. I think I can talk about things more freely now.

I has always been hard for me to keep a secret for too long and the cat's outta the bag, now. Briar Rose Creamery just got it's first mention in the online version of the Oregonian, Portland's morning paper. Woo hoo! Last Wednesday, I participated in an event called Oregon Cheese Stories sponsored by Oregon State University's Food Innovation Center. Cheesemakers got to tell their stories to cheeseshop owners, distributors, and food writers. I went with Silver Falls Creamery to reveal my new partnership with them and our plans for the future. We also got to talk to lots of folks about our cheese, let them try it, and hopefully get them to order it.

Photo: Cheese tasting at the Food Innovation Center.

What am I doing with Silver Falls Creamery? If things continue along this merry path, this summer I will begin to make cheese with Shawn, the herdsman, cheesemaker, teacher, and father of four youngsters. He's a very busy guy with hardly enough time to breathe, let alone make cheese. I'm going to drive to Stayton a few days a week to make cheese. If you are eager to try some pretty tasty fresh goat cheese, Jim and I are currently selling Silver Falls Creamery chevre at the McMinnville Farmer's Market every Thursday afternoon. Stop by and say hi!

Photo: Shawn milks a doe at Silver Falls Creamery.

While all this partnering is happening, we'll be building out our creamery on our property. Once the structure is complete, I will make cheese in Dundee. Briar Rose Creamery will produce aged cheeses, Silver Falls will have fresh chevre. Both will be made here. At least that's the plan right now.

We've found our milk supplier! Plus I've been approached by a gentleman in Clackamas County who is building a goat dairy and want to sell his milk to me. There have even been conversations with another person who has a flock of dairy sheep. Keep 'em coming!

I am amazed, thrilled, and grateful with the way things are really falling into place. I'm really living the dream! Please don't pinch me, I don't want to wake up.

Cheesemaking at Oregon State University

Photo: OSU Pilot Plant.

Last month Jim and I spent a few days in Corvallis, Oregon, home of Oregon State University. We signed up for a three day cheesemaking class held on campus in The Food Science Department at Wiegand Hall.

Wiegand Hall is named for Professor Ernest Wiegand. He is a professor that made a huge impact in the science of food preservation, specifically with cherries. Cherries grow really well here in Oregon. From 1925-1931 he developed a way to preserve them in brine, trying to keep them from getting too soft and mushy. Before that, canned cherries were a European import preserved in liqueur, tasty, but expensive and mushy. Wiegand's bit in history? He found that making a brin by adding calcium chloride, a form of salt also used in cheesemaking, his cherries stayed firm. No more alcohol needed and we could preserve our homegrown cherries. The maraschino cherry was perfected! And cocktails have been thankful ever since.

His fellow professors continued his work and developed ways to bleach the cherries, and make them any color in the rainbow, blue, green, white, or red. The red ones contain the same food dye (red dye #40) used in gum or according to this website, Dorito's. A portrait of Professor Wiegand graces the lobby of the Food Science building, greeting visitors. There is an article next to his portrait, explaining his notoriety.

The cheesemaking class: The class was lead by Lisbeth Goddik, an Associate Professor at OSU. She's the dairy processing specialist for OSU's extension service. She's the person that fields all of the cheesemaking questions. There were about 25 students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some had dairies, one was a chef with a cooking school, there were families who had goats, there was a fellow cheese monger and blogger, and several of the dairy inspectors from the Oregon Department of Agriculture were attending the class, too. The format was split between classroom lecture and hands-on cheesemaking. The mornings were spent learning about the dairy industry, how cheesemaking works, how do we keep a clean environment, and what's going on in the regulatory world. The fun stuff happened in the pilot plant down the hall.

Photo: Students gather around the vat pasteurizer.

The pilot plant at OSU is a big working laboratory for food science. There are big tanks for brewing beer, a bottling line, incubators, kettles, vats, pasteurizers, lab tables and several sinks. Stainless steel pipes run throughout the building, carrying steam, milk, or water to where it is needed. There is another lab specifically for winemaking. They were working on some Pinot Noir while we were there.

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Time for some cheesemaking. There were four cheese stations set up. We split up into groups to focus on one cheese, but we still could observe the other groups and see what was going on all around us. I worked on Havarti, Jim was on Team Camembert. My team's vat of milk took forever to set up. Don't know if it was the temperature of the room, if we added the wrong amount of rennet, or what the issue was, but we stood there waiting for our cheese to have a clean break for over an hour. It should have been around 30 minutes. But, the curd dictates when to cut, not the clock, so we waited and waited and waited. Finally we cut the curd, let the curd rest and began to stir. Havarti is a washed curd cheese, so we got to heat up water, drain some of the whey off, and added warm water back into the curds. Fun! Then we got to use a mult-form system to full the empty forms full of the knitting curds. Then came the flip with the fancy draining trays that OSU recently purchased from Servi Doryl.

Photo: C. van't Reit small pasteurizer at OSU

One of my favorite lectures was on Starter Cultures and their role in cheesemaking. This is a subject that I find fascinating and am beginning to get a better idea what they actually do in your cheese. Yes they acidify the milk, but they also affect flavor, texture, as well as control how it ripens down the road in the aging cave. The starter cultures develop enzymes that produce amino acids. The amino acids give us more flavor compounds and aromas. They can be buttery, nutty, toasty, fruity, etc. This is the stuff that makes me say "Yum!" when I eat a piece of cheese. Understanding bacterial cultures can help you predict what your final cheese will taste like and what texture it will have. The good cheesemaker is an artist coaxing the best flavor out of a cheese's potential. As many have told me, good cheese is made in the vat. If you start out with great potential, your final results will be that much better.

Photo: Tools for Queso Blanco.

We mixed things up the second day of cheesemaking. In the morning we all made Queso Blanco. This is a fresh, Mexican style cottage cheese made with whole milk. Quite easy to make, with quick results that we can eat in 90 minutes. It is acidified with buttermilk and set with junket, a tablet form of rennet also used in making pudding.

Photo: Fresh Queso Blanco.

We divided up into two groups. One group tried to make a drier cheese, the other wanted a moist cheese. It was good practice seeing how curd size, as well as the firmness of the curd mass at point of cutting will determine the amount of moisture left in the curd. The firmer the curd at the initial point of cutting, the softer the cheese, the smaller the size of the curd, the drier the cheese will be. These are all decisions made every time you make cheese.

Photo: Mary and Sasha work on Havarti.

We also got to switch cheeses in the Pilot Plant. Jim moved to Team Havarti and I went to Team Mozzarella. Jim became defacto team leader and got a lot of hands-on cheesemaking. Our Mozzarella didn't turn out. We used store bought milk and didn't add calcium chloride. The curd got over stirred and the curd never stretched. A waste! I was sad. I want to practice stretching mozzarella with someone who knows what they're doing.

Our evenings were spent socializing with fellow students. Jim and I went out to dinner at a brewpub with Sasha Davies of Cheese By Hand, and Professor Marc Bates formerly of Washington State University. Had a great time talking about living in Oregon, cheesemaking, and current events.

The second night we went to Evergreen, an Indian restaurant with Sasha and fellow students Pete and Cecil. More great conversations about what we all want to do, dairying, and what it takes to get going.

There are many reasons to continue to take cheesemaking classes. Not only do I continue to get new ideas and a better understanding of the process of cheesemaking, but I always meet some really nice people with similar interests. Now that I've been following this dream for a few years, I feel more comfortable asking questions and understanding the answers. I'll keep taking classes and working with others so long as there is someone to teach me. I am happy to show others what I've learned and maybe inspire them, too.

Photo: Goat cheese with green peppercorns from River's Edge Chevre.

We ate a lot of cheese. We had a sampling of cheddars from Tillamook. We also got a nice selection of goat cheeses from River's Edge Chevre. We also got to sample some cheeses from Europe. We were never hungry.

Photo: Brian of Oregon Gourmet Cheeses in his cave.

The final afternoon was a field trip to Oregon Gourmet Cheeses in Albany. Brian Richter graciously let our group come into his plant where we heard his story, try his cheese and pepper him with questions. The scale of his cheeseroom is modest. Not small, but efficient. He uses a 500 gallon milk tank as his vat. He makes both raw as well as pasteurized cheeses. His raw milk Sublimity is dense, like an alpine style cheese. The texture is well knit and it is chewy like a tootsie roll, but not sticky. He likes to add dried herbs like lavender and herbes des provence to some of his wheels. Like most cheesemakers, he'd love to have more aging room and is at capacity. I'd like to visit him again so I can ask more questions. Albany is about an hour away. This would be an easy repeat trip.

American Cheese Society Conference 2008

Photo: Chicago Skyline carved in cheese.



Click on the slideshow to enlarge the pictures.

The American Cheese Society Conference began with a bus tour of Roth Kase in Wisconsin and ended with the Festival of Cheese. Four days of lactic gluttony, schmoozing, and workshops. Well worth the time and expense to get to Chicago. From 7:00am to late at night, we immersed ourselves in the American cheese world. American cheese does not mean those little plasticine squares of orange colored cheese food. For me, American cheese is over 1100 cheeses produced by hundreds of cheesemakers from all over the North American continent. I spent hours getting to know some of these fine folks and I enjoyed every minute of it.

My days were spent in workshops like "Demystifying Rennet and Coagulants," "Wine Versus Beer Smackdown," Ripening Cultures for Cheesemaking," and "Selecting Suitable Cheese for Extended Aging." Gripping subjects and stimulating discussions. The highlights were the annual Awards Ceremony and the Festival of Cheese. My favorite cheese discovery this year was Ocooch Mountain by Hidden Springs Creamery in Wisconsin. Brenda Jensen is a relative newcomer to cheesemaking, she's been at it for 1 1/2 years. Her sheep's milk cheese was exquisite. Raw sheep's milk, semi-firm washed rinded cheese in a Basque style like Ossau Iraty or P'tit Basque. Yum!

Jim and I ran away from the conference on Friday afternoon. We went to see the Cubs play the Florida Marlins at Wrigley Field. Our friends Carrie and Bob had tickets and offered us three seats. Carrie couldn't make it, but Bob, Jim, my friend Pam, and I spent a lovely afternoon at the ballpark, watching the game and the crowd. I got to enjoy a Chicago dog in one of the best ballparks in the country. Pam and I ran away after the seventh inning stretch. We had to go to the American Cheese Society Competition Awards. She had some cheese entered, so we couldn't miss the ceremony.

The awards were fun. It is always nice to see friends recognized for their efforts. The Best of Show went to Carr Valley Cheese Company for their Goat Milk Cheddar called Snow White. Sid Cook, is a fourth generation master cheesemaker. He produces over 80 cheeses, many have won awards, but he's never taken Best of Show. Quite a feat for him. If you're curious, click here for the results from the judging.

The finale for the conference is the Festival of Cheese. Imagine a huge ballroom, in this case the Grand Ballroom of the Chicago Hilton, with countless tables laden with cheese. Every cheese that is entered into the cheese competition is set out for sampling. Ribbons are on the award winners. There is a table for everything. You can find blue cheese, smoked cheese, flavored cheese, marinated cheese, washed rinded cheese, soft ripened cheese, sheep's milk, goat's milk, buffalo milk, even a wasabi cheese. Sure, there are cheddars, goudas, jacks, feta, yogurt, butter, and cheese spreads. Everything is up for grabs.

Photo: Ocooch Mtn Cheese, a new favorite of mine. Aged sheep's milk cheese from Wisconsin.


If you get thirsty, there is also lots of beer and wine to wash down all of that cheese. Bread, fruit, crackers, and jams are also available for sampling. The amount of cheese in the ballroom is staggering. Jim and I took care to pace ourselves. At the last festival we learned to get to the the top winning cheeses early and then be more selective about what you want to try. This year I wanted to explore the Canadian cheeses since we don't see most of them on this side of the border. Carrie and her friend Amy joined us and they had a field day, running around from table to table, doing vertical tastings of blue cheeses, washed rinded cheese, cheddar, and goudas. I felt like Homer in Candyland or a golden ticket winner entering Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Everything was edible and most were delicious.

The crowd started to thin during the last hour of the festival and there was still a ton of cheese left on every table. At 9:00pm, the festival was officially over, yet there was still a lot of cheese to be consumed. We looked at all of this cheese and wondered what they were going to do with all of it. Throw it out? I grabbed Steve, one of the organizers and asked if Carrie and Amy could take some leftovers home. "The pig farmer backed out, so anything that's cut is up for grabs. We're just going to throw it out." I relayed this info back to our friends. Their eyes got big and they grabbed their plastic "to-go" containers and did their best to keep some of the best cheese out of Chicago's landfill. After 10 minutes we regrouped. They had filled their containers with a wide variety of small format cheeses and wedges of some nice looking semi-firm cheeses, too. Tucked under an arm, Carrie had a rustic loaf of french bread, Amy had a round loaf balanced on top of her plastic container. Others followed their lead and grabbed cheese, too. Jim and I didn't want to take anything on the plane, so we just got to be voyeurs and helped Carrie and Amy with their haul.

The Festival of Cheese is as close to heaven as a cheese lover can get. And it happens every year. Next year you'll find me in Austin, Texas. Perhaps closer to having my own cheese ready to be judged and consumed at the Festival of Cheese.

Kicking and Screaming

Photo: Mateo Kehler, cheesemaker at Jasper Hill Farm, and Peggy Smith, owner of Cowgirl Creamery plating cheese.

Woo hoo! No turning back now. We're going for broke. Literally.

We now own two homes. One in San Francisco, California and one in Dundee, Oregon. I am very pleased with how things have turned out. The house closed smoothly. We bought a tractor. We've hired an orchard manager to take care of the six acres of Filbert/Hazelnut trees. We toured a dairy to see if we could get dairy contacts from them. We opened a bank account and registered to vote. We've been changing addresses on our subscriptions, We've driven 11 hours between houses, moving our precious belongings.

The movers show up in NINE days!!!!!

Personal rant time: We're packing. We've got so much stuff. A few friends have come over to help and now one side of our garage is covered in boxes from floor to ceiling. The garage is just about packed. What a pain the neck. This is a major sore point for me. I'm pretty good about purging stuff that I no longer need. Essentially, I self edit. My husband is a copy editor by trade. He cannot self edit. He's a HUGE pack rat. We've boxes and boxes of magazines that he just cannot get rid of. Isn't there a name for this kind of hoarding behavior? We have five years worth of Mojo magazine, Rolling Stones from the 70's and 80's. Heavy Metal from the 70's. Bam magazine from the 80's. Ugh. All of this stuff adds up to a lot of excess weight and baggage. If we should die, I feel sorry for whoever has to throw this stuff away.

I have a Vespa scooter (1980 P200e like the one pictured in this ad from the era). He wants me to get rid of it. I made him a deal. He gets rid of the magazines and I'll get rid of my scooter. Yes, my scooter has been sitting idle for 15 years. I used to have a Lambretta and a Heinkle scooter. They're long gone. I've only got my original Vespa that I bought from an engineering professor while I was attending the University of Missouri. At least my scooter is useful and can be tuned up easily. He never re-reads the magazines. They're in no kind of order, nor are they archived. They're just in boxes. This really grinds my gears. Moving brings out the best in folks.

I have visions of delivering cheese on my scooter to restaurants and markets. Will this happen? I don't know. But I like the mental image it creates. End of rant.



Photo: Making Mt. Tam in the creamery in Petaluma, California.


I've been fortunate to take a bit of time to spend with my friends at Cowgirl Creamery. Sue Conley came over from the warehouse on Tuesday and gave me a tour of the new creamery in Petaluma. It is so fun to see a shiny, new creamery in full operating mode. It still has that "new creamery smell"!

They've been making cheese since March in the new location. Mt. Tam, the bloomy rind triple cream is the sole cheese being produced in the new facility. Soon their seasonal cheese, St. Pat will be added to the list of cheeses coming out of Petaluma. Red Hawk will continue to be produced in Pt. Reyes. It is just the perfect environment for it. The flavor is in the air. They've got plenty of room for aging, and even room for more growth. One of these days I wouldn't be surprised if they start making a firm, aged cheese.

Photo: Sue Conley, owner of Cowgirl Creamery, holding a perfectly ripe Constant Bliss from Jasper Hill Farm


Sue invited me to an event sponsored by the California Artisan Cheese Guild on Thursday. She was hosting a cheese tasting and lecture given by herself and special guest Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farm. The event was called "Cave Dweller of the 21st. Century." They talked about their big projects. Sue discussed building the new creamery and Mateo talked about his massive cheese aging facility that's partially up and running on his farm in Vermont.

For me, this was an update and a refresher course. When I visited Mateo in December, the massive, vaulted cheese chambers were not up and running. Now two of them are filled with Cabot clothbound cheddar, aging gracefully. More vaults are nearing completion and will be filled with cheeses from around New England. It is an ambitious project that excites and inspires me. The complexity and the numerous hurdles needed to be overcome in order to build seven cheese cellars are enough to make anyone throw up their hands and say "forget it!" The folks at Jasper Hill Farm are overcoming those hurdles and showing us that anything can happen if you put your mind to it.

The lecture also featured a nice selection of cheeses from Jasper Hill Farm and Cowgirl Creamery. On the cheese plate we got to sample a Mt. Tam produced at the new creamery. The rest of the cheeses were Jasper Hill's Constant Bliss from Jasper Hill Farms, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Cowgirl's Red Hawk, Jasper Hill's Winnimere, and Jasper Hill's Bayley Hazen Blue.

Each cheese was perfectly ripe and vanished quickly.

Since Cowgirl changed method of production for Mt. Tam, I was really curious to try some the the cheese produced in Petaluma. I was more than satisfied with the results. The new creamery produces some exceptional Mt. Tams. The rind is a bit more delicate, the flavors of cream, mushroom and salt all are have more balance and nuances. I thought is was one of the best Mt. Tams I've ever had.

I met a fellow cheese blogger named Bryce. His blog is called Canyon of Cheese. He's got a good description of the lecture on his blog, as well as the sold out "Raw Milk" panel hosted by the Commonwealth Club earlier in the week. The event was a great opportunity to catch up with Mateo, as well as others attending the lecture. Friends I've made from the Cheese School of San Francisco sat next me. It was nice to see so many friends from the local cheese community one last time before we make a run for the (northern) border.

Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese

VIAC

December 3-5, 2007

I want to move to Vermont. It is a very picturesque state. The attitude of the Vermonters is quite appealing, too. So what’s stopping me? Winter. One week of snow and icy conditions is enough of a reminder for me. I love being able to have some fun in the snow and then hop on a plane and returning to the temperate Bay Area. I don’t think I’d like to live with five months of Winter, three months of mud.

Vermont has it good. They have a lot of cheesemakers making some of the best cheese in the country. They also have great resources to tap into. On the campus of the University of Vermont, the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC) hosted three cheesemakers from Spain who generously shared their time and expertise with my group of 19 cheesemakers and cheese enthusiasts. I was eager to see this place. They recently moved into new facilities on the UVM campus. It is so new that most students have no idea where the building is. (It took me a while to find on my first day.) I love the fact that VIAC is bringing the cheese experts of the world to one place so we can tap into their knowledge.

Mateo Kehler, coverboy.

My favorite technical cheesemaking book is "American Farmstead Cheese" by Dr. Paul Kindstedt. Dr. Kindstedt is a professor at UVM and is a co-director of VIAC. It was great being able to personally thank him for writing such a useful book. He seemed very flattered by my praise. Like everyone I met in Vermont, I found him easy to talk to and a very nice person. He even signed my copy of his book. I've never had a professor sign a textbook before, but I couldn't let the opportunity slip by.

Back to business. Why am I here? Spanish cheese class! The class was an intense overview of three different techniques in cheesemaking. Each day we focused on a different Spanish cheese and cheese production.

The first day we looked at the European and Spanish systems of geographical food protection through the establishment of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO.) This is a way of setting guidelines for the manufacture of food like cheese and wine. The regulations stipulate how and where a cheese is produced and protects the name. For example, legally, as a PDO cheese, Mahón can only be produced on the island of Menorca.

In the afternoon we divided in two groups and split our time between making cheese and watching a film about Spanish Cheeses. We focused on the production of blue cheeses, Cabrales and Valdeón. The videos made me quite hungry. In the makeroom we worked with the set curd, cutting it, letting it heal and hooping blue cheese under the guidance of Dr. Alfonzo Zamora, Dr. Patxi Elortondo and Dr. Montse Alemena. This was a highlight of the course for me.

The second day was Basque cheese day with the focus on Idiazabal, a hard, ewe's milk cheese that is sometimes smoked. The morning was spent reviewing our results from yesterday and learning more about cheese production in the Basque region of Spain and France. We also spent part of the morning going over the production techinques for our second day of cheesemaking, producing Idiazabal. The afternoon was devoted to time in the cheeseroom, making a cow's milk version of Idiazabal.

Torta de oveja

Day three featured soft cheesemaking. We focused on a Spanish triple cream technique that was a bit different from other methods that I've learned. We spent some time talking about tortas de queso like Tortas del Cesar and how to produce them without a cardoon-based rennet. As depicted in this photo, when ripe, you can cut the top off of the cheese and eat it with a spoon. It is fantastic. I can't wait to have my own source of milk and my own vat. I want to experiment with these techniques and see what I can do!

The days were busy, enjoyable, and not just about making cheese, but about making new friends. We had time to do some good socializing during the breaks. I enjoyed meeting my fellow classmates. One student, Isai had been a nice customer at Cowgirl and he remembered me! I must have made quite the impression. I remembered him, too. I seem to recall him telling me that he was a cheesemaker and was very curious about lots of the European cheeses that Cowgirl sells. He had plenty of cheesemaking experience and enjoyed working with goats. Over the years, Isai has worked at Cypress Grove, Redwood Hill Farm, and is currently in New Mexico living and working at Coonridge Organic Goat Cheese. Like me, Isai is a big fan of Garrotxa, a goat cheese from Catalonia. We were both disappointed because the Spanish cheese experts didn't know how to make Garrotxa. I wonder if it like the Spanish Monterey Jack, a utilitarian cheese that's nothing special, and you can get it everywhere.

Occasionally the language barrier was a stumbling block. Dr. Francisco "Patxi" José Perez Elortondo, the professor from the Basque Country spoke English reasonably well. Dr. Alfonzo Zamora from Quesos Ibar spoke almost no English and relied on Montse Alemena, a Spanish native as well as a VIAC faculty member to translate. It worked but it slowed things down sometimes. Their knowledge of cheesmaking made up for the other difficulties. They were eager to share all they could with us.

The make room of UVM was unexpectedly small. There were two, small vats that we used for cheesemaking. Marc Druart, a master cheesemaker, ran the cheese room. He did all of the prep work, adding the culture and getting the curd ready for the class. The figure 8 vats made cutting curds tricky. I loved being in the make room, but one of the real highlights was sharing stories with my fellow students. I had some good conversations with Eran Wajswol, the owner of Valley Shepherd Creamery in New Jersey. He produces a sheep's milk cheese that I adore: Oldwick Tome. I also met Willow Smart, a Vermont cheesemaker with a flock of sheep and a neat stone-faced cheese cave in Milton, Vermont. I also enjoyed meeting Mark and Geri Fischer from Woodcock Farm in Weston, Vermont as well as Marisa who is starting her own creamery with Princess, one of Mateo's employees at Jasper Hill Farm. Barbara, a student from Michgan was fun to talk to. She's produces goat cheese and can barely keep up with the demand. Her friend Sally, also from Michigan, has sheep and wants to milk them and produce cheese, too. I sat next to Pam, a fellow student in the Cal Poly cheese class I took in 2005. Pam is an R&D cheesemaker for Sartori Foods in Wisconsin.

After the first day of class, we braved the cold and snow and seven of us went a restaurant in downtown Burlington called Smokejacks. http://www.smokejacks.com/ Several people recommended the place, including Mateo Kehler, describing it as a good restaurant that promotes local products and has a very cheese oriented menu. It was a good call. The portions were generous and there was lots of cheese throughout the menu. I had the green salad with shaved Tarentaise cheese on it. Nice, tart dressing on a good salad. My burger was well prepared served with melted cheese from another Vermont cheesemaker (I forget which one, sorry!) We were all happy with the dishes and we finished the meal with a large cheese plate. Unfortunately, I didn't write down what cheeses were on the plate, but it was a nice assortment of cheeses from New England as well as Canada.

The second evening was devoted to a guided tasting of seven Spanish cheeses with three Spanish wines. The cheeses were mostly ones I am familiar with during my time behind the cheese counter. We started with 1. -Nevat, a soft-ripened goat cheese. It looks like a snowy mountain, with a delicate flavor. 2.- Pata cabra - a washed rinde goat cheese shaped like a flat brick. This one was young and fairly mild. 3. -Idiazabal, a Basque ewe's milk cheese smoked over beechwood and hawthorn. It is smoky and nutty and fairly hard. 4.-Garrotxa, my favorite goat cheese on the planet, comes from Catalonia. It has hints of macadamia nuts and slightly acidic. I can devour a lot of this cheese. Next up was 5.-San Simon, a teardrop shaped cow's milk cheese from Galicia. This was fairly rubbery and not too impressive. It is smoked over birch bark and that pretty much dominates the flavor. 6.-Zamorano is a hard ewe's milk cheese. It is similar to manchego, but has more nutty punch and depth of flavor. It comes from Castille-Leon. We finished the tasting with 7.-Valdeón, a spicy blue cheese from Castille-Leon. It is wrapped in the leaves of sycamore, plane, chestnut, and/or maple leaves. It can be fairly strong and peppery. The wines served were Don Olagario Albarino (Rias Baixas), Scala Die Negre (Priorato), and Bodegas Roda Roda 2. I wasn't to fond of any of the pairings, so my notes are sparse.

The next day we ate more cheese. We had a session devoted to a Vermont Cheese Tasting. It was lead by Jeffrey Roberts, who recently published the book: The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese. We started with fresh chevre from Vermont Butter and Cheese. 2. Blue Ledge Farm Crottin. 3. Taylor Farm's Farmstead Gouda. 4. Green Mountain Blue Cheese Farm's Tomme Collins. 4. Shelburne Farms Farmhouse two year cheddar. 6. Vermont Shepherd Sheep 7. Twig Farm square wheel. 8. Jasper Hill Farm's Bayley Hazen Blue.
Of all of the cheese that we tried, I think Jasper Hill Farm and Twig Farm were my favorites, hands down. They had the most developed flavors and character. Some of the cheese we tried were not in the best of shape. Some were bitter, one was ammoniated, some had no flavor. It was a good exercise in sensory evaluation.

I feel lucky to have met so many wonderful people in this class. I am eager to see them again, hopefully at this year's American Cheese Society Conference in Chicago.



When class wrapped up ,Pam, one of my fellow students and I made plans to go visit Willow Hill Farm outside of Milton, VT. Willow, the cheesemaker, attended the first day of class as well as the Spanish Cheese Tasting. She makes cheese from ewe's milk as well as cow's milk. Her farm is about 40 minutes from Burlington and we spent part of Thursday afternoon visiting with Willow.

Coming up next: A very snowy visit with Willow Smart of Willow Hill Farm.

Jasper Hill in the morning and Twig Farm in the afternoon

Brrrrrr!

Sunday, 8am

Mrs. Harbison got up bright and early and made me waffles with real, local maple syrup. I love staying at B&B's. Ann Harbison made me feel like I was having breakfast at Grandma's house. Breakfast was served on china and she uses her silver. It made me seem like an honored guest. Well fortified, I scraped the heavy ice off of the windows of the car and drove up the road to Jasper Hill Farm

Mateo invited me to work with Julie making/ladling the Constant Bliss that Prin prepared the night before. I entered the cheese room and found Julie hard at work. There was a stack of 5 gallon buckets three deep on a low table. Molds were set across a draining table and Julie was ladling the curd into the molds. She'd got to work at 5:30. I washed up and joined her. We chatted and ladled, and ladled and ladled. Constant Bliss takes a long time make and get into the molds. Like all of the cheeses of Jasper Hill Farm it is made from raw cow's milk and therefore must age at least 60 days. This being a fairly small cheese, it tends to ripen quickly, so great care must be used in its preparation in order for it to ripen on time. If it ripens, in less than 60 days, it will be too fragile to ship and too ripe to sell. After two hours we were still going strong. I was keeping an eye on the weather as a storm was supposed to blow in at some point on Sunday.

(Photo: Julie and Constant Bliss)

While we were working on the Constant Bliss, Andy Kehler popped his head in to say hello. He was spending the morning in the cellar attending to the daily tasks downstairs. He also had cheese to salt and lower into the aging cellars. We talked for a few minutes and he was off, trying to track down his brother and the rest of the family. Sunday is Mateo's day off.

Around 11:00 I said goodbye to Julie and the Kehlers and hit the road. I had another date with another cheesemaker and I had to go pick up my stuff from Mrs. Harbison's house. I had some shopping to do, as well! I stopped by Willie's Store, the general store in Greensboro and picked up some local maple syrup. How can you come to Vermont and NOT have maple syrup? It was quite busy when I stopped by. People were stocking up on supplies while there was a break in the weather, I guess.

After stocking up on souvenirs from Vermont, I took a quick detour and saw Caspian Lake. As Mateo said, "It's why we're all here." The lake attracts the big crowds in the summer time, drawing families from all over who want a vacation in the mountains of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It is a pretty lake, dotted with large, mostly empty homes around the shoreline. I see several loons, floating on the surface of the chilly water offshore. There is a layer of ice that extends out for about fifty feet. I could see the draw of this place, even in the winter.

The drive south was much nicer than the drive north. The roads were clear, there was very little traffic and I got to see some pretty amazing mountains, rivers, waterfalls, covered bridges and picturesque villages. I passed Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory. I didn't stop. I've got to save that for another trip. The Vermont landscape can be summed up easily. It is PRETTY.

(photo: Twig Farm)

I drove to Burlington and headed south for about 40 miles, past Middlebury to a farm south of West Cornwall. Like Jasper Hill Farm, Twig Farm is also farther down the road, beyond where the pavement ends. I turn into their driveway and see new-ish barn looming ahead. Beyond that is a house. Both are painted mossy green. I park and get out. I am greeted by Michael Lee, and his two year old son, Carter. They're putting covers over the outside goat feeders. The goats are not around at the moment, they're wondering around some other part of the farm. It is cloudy and cold. Snow is threatening to fall. A few stray flakes hit me. The temperature has barely broken 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Michael is the cheesemaker at Twig Farm. He is also the herdsman. His wife Emily Sunderman is also involved in the business, handling the marketing side of things. We move away from the house as Michael and Carter take me for a walk around the farm, looking for the goats. We walk amongst the bare trees, the ground is littered with dry, brown leaves, rocky outcroppings of slate and shale, as well as twigs (thus the name of the farm.) We walked through the wooded pasture looking for the free wandering goats. This time of year the goats are allowed to browse on a lot of the pasture as most things are dormant. Michael explains, "We let them browse on anything they can find. They really like the maple trees. They've girdled a few of them. The maple makes their milk taste incredible. Maple trees don't stand a chance with these goats"

(photo: goats a'comin')

As we pass amongst the trees, we discuss my background, what I'm doing in Vermont, as well as what I've got planned for the future. I feel like he's interviewing me as much as I am interviewing him. We had plenty of time to talk as the goat were nowhere to be found. Eventually, we spot the herd walking up the hill from a draw at the far end of the property. They see us and trot over to say hello. In a minute we're surrounded by 30 happy does. Some are visibly pregnant, their sides expanding as the kid develops. Several walk over to me so that I might scratch them and pet them. They rub their heads against my hand and nibble on my coat's zipper. These are some very happy and content goats.

(photo: Michael Lee and Carter)

We walked back to the house, surrounded by our caprine entourage. Michael and Carter take me inside to meet Emily. The house is light and airy. Very modern and clean. We move into the kitchen where Emily is preparing tea. Carter is seated at the island. He's given some pens and starts to draw. Emily wants to hear all about my French Laundry meal. I tried to recount the entire meal by memory and didn't to too badly. I forgot to tell her about the cheese course! Ah well. It is hard to keep all nine courses straight in my head. It is apparent that she and Michael have an affinity for fine food. It's nice that they're producing some really fine food, too. I see some homemade pasta drying on a rack on the counter. They eat well around here.

Time to feed the goats! I followed Michael into the barn and talked to him while he took care of chores. Fresh alfalfa for the goats. Cat food for the barn cats. The goats are herded into a side pen in the barn for the evening meal. Michael lets them into the milking parlor, six at a time. He's only milking in the mornings right now, as most of the goats will be dry soon. This evening feeding is a nice way to keep an eye on every goat, as Michael inspects each one while she's eating. When they're all fed, our tour continued into the cheese room.

(photo: Michael in Twig Farm's cheese room)

Twig farm's cheese room is fairly efficient. There's a vat, a sink, a draining table and a large storage rack. No pasteurizer, as he only makes raw milk cheese. This is nice to see, as he makes some incredibly complex, yet approachable goat cheese. (You can find some of his cheese at Cowgirl these days.) I like seeing this size operation, because I think it is pretty close to where I'll be in a year or two or three. He also blends some cow's milk into some of his cheese. Michael gets cow's milk from his neighbor, Diane St. Clair of Animal Farm in Orwell, Vermont. This is the same woman that makes butter for French Laundry. As she only uses the cream, her skim is available for Michael's cheese. Michael explained how he got started, apprenticing at another farm, working with sheep's milk. Most of his technique he's learned by doing in his own cheese room with his own milk. Twig farm has only been licensed since early 2005. Since then, he's been selling as much as he can produce.

(photo: Michael Lee in his cellar)

We went back into the house and went downstairs to see their aging cellars. One end of the basement is devoted to the storage and aging of his cheese. The cellar is filled with ash shelves, covered with natural rind, grey mold covered tomme, a semi-firm mixed milk (cow/goat) wheel, a washed rind, semi-soft wheel, an alpine style cheese, and a goat milk blue. Brine tubs are on the floor and wire racks stand in the center of the floor, filled with more cheese.

We went back upstairs and tasted some of his cheese. The square wheel is opened and he gives me a taste. Yum! I'm pretty tired at this point so complex descriptions don't come easily. It is slightly firm, earthy, herbaceous, as well as toothsome. I enjoyed it very much. He hands me a taste of his blue cheese, too. Smooth and milky, creamy with a mild blue flavor. This is a nice, goat milk blue with a good, sweet finish. He's producing a great array of cheeses. I'm really glad I took the time to drive to Twig Farm and take a peek at what they're doing in West Cornwall.

I got tired and bid them farewell as they prepared supper. I headed back to Burlington and checked into my hotel. Comfort Inn on Dorset Street. It is nice and cllose to campus. I went down the street for supper. Al's French Frys called my name. With a name like that how can I not try it? Yes, the fries are good. Try them. I went to bed, the snow began to fall in earnest.

Jasper Hill Farm

Greensboro, Vermont.

I landed in Burlington at 4:30pm on Friday. The sun had just set at 4:15. As I got off of the plane, the air on the jetway smacked me in the face, it was coooold. The clouds had partially cleared, revealing the last of the fading light in the western sky. I picked up my rental car and headed east towards Montpelier on I89. My goal was to be in Greensboro ASAP and try to avoid driving in the snow. There isn't much snow on the ground. The weather report had snow in the forecast for Friday night.

While driving east on I89, I saw an uncommon road sign. A big yellow sign glowed in the night with three words on it: MOOSE next mile. Moose? I'm in moose country? I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see a moose emerging from the darkness.

I stopped in the smallest capital city in the United States for dinner. Montpelier is a cute town with a buzzing downtown. I walked up State Street and found a busy restaurant called Positive Pie 2, a.k.a. + Π 2. It is a pizza and pasta restaurant. It was quite busy, filled with diners young and old. The place had a "good vibes" atmosphere and a nice, diverse group of patrons. Some tables were set up on a stage, as this place is also a live music venue.

I scanned the menu and finally got the waitress to take my order. Make it a mini pizza with pepperoni and basil, also a Caesar salad, just to make the meal a bit more balanced. The waitress wandered away and left me for 30 minutes staring at a crowded room and my empty table.

It can be hard, being a woman dining alone, especially at dinner. Waitstaff just don't know what to do or how to treat you. I find that they often ignore me, avoiding eye contact. Tonight was one of those nights. I finally flagged down the hostess and begged for my salad. She was stunned that I wanted to eat it first. I didn't know I had broken some unwritten code, and had failed to inform my waitress that I wanted my salad as a salad course. She went off to go check on things and returned with both my salad and pizza at the same time. The Caesar was surprisingly good. A good amount of garlic, lemon and anchovies were in the dressing. The pizza was good, too. I just wanted to hit the road so I ate quickly, paid my check and walked back to my car. As I headed out of town it began to snow.

I drove up highway 14 towards Hardwick and Greensboro. It is about a 30 mile trip from Montpelier to Greensboro. About five miles down the road, the snow began to accumulate on the road. About 10 miles down the road, the pavement began to vanish and it was snowing harder. 15 miles down the road, I was getting dizzy trying to watch the double yellow line beneath the downy blanket that was trying to obscure it. Visibility was difficult. The car tracks in front of me became my guide and solace, knowing that there was another fool driving on this lonely road in the dark.

I reached Hardwick and was thankful that I only had five more miles of winding, curvy snow covered road. Mrs. Harbison was waiting for me with a soft bed and a warm house. I finally arrived in Greensboro around 8:45pm. There was about six inches of fresh, powdery snow on the ground.

Ann Harbison is the owner of 1847 House in "downtown" Greensboro, population 700. She's 87 years old and still going strong. She's also hard of hearing and it took me a while to let her know I was here. I received a warm welcome and we spent the evening talking about the weather, California, politics, and the Kehlers (she's known the Kehler family for many years.) I had a big day planned for Saturday, so I went to bed early.

Up at 5am. Ann was up with a bowl oatmeal and hot tea waiting for me. She gave me directions and saw me off. I drove over to Garvin Hill Road, on the other side of town. The roads were plowed, Vermonters knows how to handle snow. The sky was beginning to have a blue cast to it, signaling the end of a long night. When I hit the end of the pavement I know I was getting close to their farm. Cheesemakers have a knack of living beyond the end of the pavement. I spotted it on the right. It was about 6:15am. I pulled up to the barn and saw contented Ayrshire cows through a windowless window. I enter the building and find Mateo is alone in the cheese room. The morning milk is filling the 1100 liter vat, still warm, swirling in from pipes overhead that come in from the barn on the far end of the building. This morning is devoted to making Winnemere, a wash rind cheese encircled in a strip of spruce bark.

I get to work, assisting Mateo in turning day old Constant Bliss. They'll be salted later in the day, and set into the aging cellars for affinage. Constant Bliss is an oozy, raw milk cheese with a bloomy rind. It is so buttery and rich. I love it.

We are joined by Princess and Bert, two of Jasper Hill's employees. They're both young, Bert having just turned 21. Princess works at Jasper Hill in the wintertime. The rest of the year she works at a sheep dairy, Bonnieview Farms. Princess is planning on starting her own creamery working with sheep milk.

(photo) Bert inspects Bayley Hazen Blue.

There are wheels of Bayley Hazen Blue sitting on a table, drying. They're also salted and moved down into the aging cellars. There is a trap door in one end of the cheese room that leads down to the cellars. A hook and mechanized pulley system on barn track lift a double-decker cart with a big handle on it. The cheese is carefully loaded onto the cart, the cart is hooked to the hook and it is lowered into the cellar. No one has to carry tons of cheese up and down the stairs. Ingenious.

Mateo prepares the winnemere, he cultures it, lets it ripen and then adds the rennet. The curd is cut and stirred gently for a long time. Mateo is well versed in the ways of starter cultures. Like all good cheesemakers, he has to adapt his recipes to the season and the milk. He's currently experimenting with the cultures in winnemere. Making your own "cocktail" of cultures practically requires a doctorate; you've got to know what plays well with others. I know I have a lot more to learn. Working with him reminds me and humbles me.

While he's stirring the curd, I followed Princess (Prin for short) into the cellars for a quick tour. We go into the basement of the building and enter a large work area. Floor to ceiling racks fill the rooms. They're all covered with cheese. Cheddars, blues, fill the many wooden shelves, and in another area, metal racks are covered with wash rinded winnemeres, snowy white constant bliss, other wash rind cheeses sent to Jasper Hill for nurturing. There are lots of cheeses from all over Vermont. Jasper Hill Farm is aging cheese as well as shipping cheese for other cheesemakers, too. Mateo Kehler worked at Neal's Yard Dairy for over a year, has developed relationships with affineurs in France and has visited countless European cheesemakers and aging facilities. He's putting his knowledge of the cheese aging process to good use. Coaxing the best qualities out of a cheese isn't easy and it takes patience as well as years of experience.

I spy something I don't recognize. There's a new cheese emerging from the cellar: Moses Sleeper. A bloomy rinded cheese that looks like a camembert, but isn’t. Soft, oozy, fragrant like a Constant Bliss. It is milky, slightly grassy, you can feel the straw in the palate. The paste is like a rich butter that you want to spread on a nice crusty baguette, you don't want to stop eating it. Ohhh. I love buttery cheese.

Back upstairs, Mateo and Bert have hooped/scooped/ladled the winnemere curds into multimolds, molds that are in a plastic frame covered with a stainless steel plate with holes. The curd is scooped out of the fat and spread across the molds, filling them with little waste. The stainless steel plate guides all of the curd into the molds. These systems are common in Europe cheeserooms. Especially in the production of small format cheeses like camembert and crottins. We all flip the young winnemere and Mateo and Bert assembled it into a towering stack of multimolds on a table near the vat. It's draining time.

Mateo asked me, "Wanna go for a walk?" "Sure," I blindly replied. I wasn't sure what was in store. Is he going to show me the pigs?

It is bitter cold and I forgot to grab my gloves. We walk down. around a red storage shed and there it is. Glistening in the sun, is a concrete structure with large plastic windows, where glass should be. There are piles of wood, stones, cinder blocks and power tools littering the ground all around us. We push aside a black plastic sheet and enter the building. I'm in the new cellars. This is a huge building being built on the farm. It is rare that I am so excited by a construction project but I am in awe. It looks like a post modern railroad roundhouse. The building is a semi circle with Quonset hut cavern shaped spokes radiating outwards. Upon completion these caverns will all be buried. The place is built like a bunker. The walls are 14 – 18 inches thick. Solid concrete. It faces northwest, I think. (For some reason I can't tell east from west when I'm on the east coast. Strange.) There's still a lot of work to be done, but two of the aging caves will be operational in a month or two. It is very exciting to see. They are behind schedule by months, but one of these days this place will be a distribution hub for some of the finest cheeses of the Northeast. Cheese will fill these hollow halls, rivaling anything you'd find in Europe. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the northern mountains of Vermont.

As I spent the day with Mateo, I was constantly reminded by how driven he is. I sense that he's a pretty savvy businessman. He sits at a desk surrounded by architectural drawings, paperwork, awards, comic strips, and a poster of Jerry Garcia. He spent a while figuring out shipments to eager customers across the country. Reggae music is in the background, emerging from the speakers by his Macintosh. He's trying to keep his customers happy with the knowledge that he just doesn't have enough cheese for everybody. He and his brother Andy have a lot to juggle. They're running a business, they're expanding, they're farming, they're taking care of families. They've got a lot at stake with the new cellars. There's a great amount of risk involved, both financial as well as personal. But I KNOW they'll succeed. There's something about these guys that just attracts success.

By the end of the day, I was happily tired. I felt like I had learned a lot and really enjoyed the company of some new friends. Mateo's wife Angie and their two kids are great. Their kids are funny and I had a good time with them as they showed me their legos.

I sleep well that night. Sunday's very busy, too. Lots of driving in store for me. I've got to be back at Jasper Hill Farm at 8:00 and then I'm due in West Cornwall around 2:00. That's a lot of driving.

Coming up next: Day 2 at Jasper Hill Farm and a visit to Twig Farm, West Cornwall, Vermont.