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Janet Fletcher

180 Stonecrest Dr
Napa, CA, 94558
(707) 265-0404
{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

Janet Fletcher

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Six to Try Now

April 6, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com
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Cheesemakers across the nation want to get their cheeses to you. Many are making it easier with discounts and deals—even waiving shipping fees in some cases. I’ve heard from readers who saw my list of cheesemakers and retailers who ship (by state and alphabetically) and were motivated to order, and I’ve heard from others who saw the list and couldn’t decide what to order. The cheeses most in need of a home are the fresh and lightly aged ones (think Camembert) that aren’t built to last. While you’re housebound, why not make your happy hours extra joyous with these lovelies?

Alemar Bent River (MN): This Camembert-style cow’s milk cheese has a silky, spreadable interior when ripe and big aromas of cooked onion, garlic, cabbage, mushroom and leaf litter. Yum! It weighs 13 to 14 ounces, but if that’s too much for your household, consider Jasper Hill’s four-ounce Little Hosmer. If you have more folks to feed, go for Jasper Hill Moses Sleeper at about 1 pound.

Nicasio Valley Cheese Tomino (CA): Several siblings of Italian-Swiss heritage operate this organic cow dairy in West Marin. When they decided to start cheesemaking about a decade ago, they went back to their grandfather’s village near Lago Maggiore to look for regional recipes to reproduce. Tomino (top left) is a hybrid style, part washed rind, part bloomy rind. The interior is soft and spreadable, the aroma suggestive of bread yeast, mushrooms, aged beef and garlic. It has a lot of personality but it’s not a big stinker.

Pennyroyal Farm Laychee

Pennyroyal Farm Laychee

Pennyroyal Farm Laychee and Velvet Sister (CA): This farmstead producer in the Anderson Valley milks goats and sheep. Laychee is the creamery’s fluffy, rindless, tub-packed fresh cheese. It has a lemony, cottage cheese-like aroma. Slather it on a bagel and top with smoked salmon. Velvet Sister is a Camembert lookalike. At this time of year, both cheeses are typically about 15 percent sheep’s milk, which makes them a little richer and more buttery.

Jacobs & Brichford Ameribella (IN): A washed-rind cow’s milk square modeled loosely on Italian Taleggio, Ameribella is yeasty, garlicky, beefy, saline. The interior is pleasantly supple and squishy. Spread this cheese on dark bread or melt a slice on polenta. Leslie Jacobs and Matthew Brichford live on the Brichford family farm and have been making cheese from the milk of their own cows for about a dozen years.

FireFly Farms Merry Goat Round Spruce Reserve (MD): Made with goat’s milk from nearby Amish farms, this unusual cheese (top right) is wrapped with a strip of spruce bark to corral it as it ripens. It gets pretty soupy and would collapse otherwise. Others make similar cheeses with cow’s milk (like Jasper Hill’s Harbison), but I don’t know of another goat’s milk cheese like it. It smells of mushrooms and mustard with an earthy note from the bark. When it starts to dimple on the surface, it’s ripe. Slice off the top horizontally and scoop the lusciousness onto crostini. The two wheels in the shipment are individually wrapped so you can safely share with a friend. Buy some of FireFly’s Cabra LaMancha, an aged goat wheel, while you’re at. It’s divine.

Beehive Cheese Promontory (UT): This easygoing Cheddar is so well-priced right now that I have to include it here, although it isn’t as perishable as the others. It’s a block Cheddar, not a rinded one, and not super-complex, but it is well made, moist, creamy and mellow—just what you want to have around for snacks, grilled sandwiches and homemade mac-and-cheese. At about $10 a pound, plus a reasonable shipping charge, it’s a steal.

In From: U.S. Tags quarantini hour, virtual happy hour, Alemar Cheese, Nicasio Valley Cheese, Jasper Hill Farm, Pennyroyal Farm, Anderson Valley, California cheese, Jacobs & Brichford, FireFly Farms, Beehive Cheese
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