Yogurt. Blueberries. Now’s the moment. I’m a cheerleader for plain whole-milk yogurt because it’s so easy to add fresh fruit myself. The challenge, in some markets, is finding yogurt that meets my specs: plain, whole milk, stabilizer-free (no pectin, no gelatin) and not Greek. Straus Family Creamery is my go-to, but a new California yogurt checks all those boxes as well. What’s more, it’s made with A2 milk.
Read moreThin is In
The last time I was in France, visiting Comté producers in the Jura Mountains, I thought I might find a beautiful old cheese plane in an antiques shop. But I didn’t know how to ask for a cheese plane in French, and my French host—a veteran of the cheese business—was no help. He had no clue what a cheese plane was.
Read moreNow Here’s a Fresh Idea
From Turin to San Francisco is 9,500 miles, a long journey if you’re a cheese. Fresh cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella have to travel by air, which makes the cost spike. Inspections or missing paperwork can delay entry, further shortening the precious selling time. So here’s one Italian creamery’s solution to the fresh-cheese challenge: produce it in California. Northern Italian know-how meets West Coast milk.
Read moreRogue Creamery’s Next Chapter
Rogue Creamery the Oregon producer of some of America’s most acclaimed blue cheeses, has a new partner: the French dairy giant Savencia. Good news? I wasn’t sure. I’ve been a huge fan of Rogue since David Gremmels and Cary Bryant bought it, in 2002, from Ig Vella, whose father founded it. Gremmels and Bryant had zero cheese experience. But Gremmels had the marketing chops and Bryant, who knew microbiology, quickly mastered the cheesemaking. Ig mentored them both until his death in 2011.
Read moreBuffalo Stampede
You’re not imagining it. Buffalo are roaming all over American cheese counters these days. Buffalo ricotta, mozzarella, Camembert, blue. I haven’t spotted a buffalo Cheddar yet, but surely any day now. From a curiosity to (almost) mainstream in a decade, cheese made with rich water-buffalo milk is having its moment. Many are good; a few are great.
Read moreMasterful Cheese from Magic Milk
Dinner guests don’t usually bring me cheese. Coals to Newcastle and all that. But recently some friends showed up with a new Oregon creation, and let me just say they are welcome back any time. The wedge was luscious, aromatic and unusual—potentially a great new American cheese. But could the cheesemaker repeat the feat? Yes. Would I love it as much the second, third and fourth time? Yes.
Read moreTwenty Years and Counting
Twenty years ago, many Americans had never heard of sheep cheese. (You can milk a sheep?) I’d say we’ve made progress, thanks in part to pioneer cheesemakers like Jodi Ohlsen Read. Despite a tragic setback just as her sheep farm’s notoriety was spreading, Read and her husband, Steven, are about to celebrate 20 years of cheesemaking at Shepherd’s Way Farms in Minnesota. I’ve admired her cheeses from the get-go and ached for the couple when tragedy struck. The path back to a healthy farm and normal life has been arduous and, to those of us watching, inspirational. “I’m not good at quitting,” says Jodi.
Read moreBlue Debut
The mission: to create a luscious Gorgonzola-style cheese, more creamy than crumbly. An American Gorgonzola dolce, the young cheesemaker imagined. He had tried that spreadable Italian cheese for the first time and fallen in love. “And that’s how it started,” says Joe Moreda of the first cheese he has shepherded from idea to reality. “I told my mom I would like to make it, and she said, ‘Let’s go for it.’” Three years later the world has a new blue cheese.
Read moreThree-Part Harmony
Mixing cow, goat and sheep milk is an age-old practice in farmstead cheesemaking. Resourceful rural people always use what they have. That mindset has led to some enduring creations, like the mixed-milk robiolas of northern Italy. But today, cheesemakers are more likely to blend milks out of creative impulse, or to set a new product apart. Five years ago, Hook’s Cheese Company launched Ewe Calf to be Kidding, a three-milk recipe, to acclaim. Now Tony and Julie Hook are at it again.
Read moreCheese for a Cause
Quesadillas, you bet. Burgers, of course. Mac and cheese, a no-brainer. This new creation from Utah’s Beehive Cheese will soon be starring in those dishes and grilled-cheese sandwiches across the country. Sales have been phenomenal since the cheese debuted nationally in January; my local cheesemonger couldn’t believe how quickly he sold his first wheels. It’s eminently meltable, snackable and here’s the feel-good part: three percent of sales support a great cause.
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