Chill the Champagne. We have something to celebrate. Franklin Peluso has resumed making his incomparable Franklin’s Teleme after a five-year pause. Peluso lost his production space in late 2018 (landlord troubles), and for a long while I feared we would never see this California classic again. This third-generation cheesemaker is 78, after all, and entitled to throw in the towel given how many location leads failed to pan out. When he called me recently to tell me Teleme’s rebirth was imminent, I felt like kissing the phone. Even better, he told me that his son, Adam, was working alongside him, assuring a future for this one-of-a-kind cheese.
Read moreTeleme in Trouble
Photo: Sara Remington
One of California’s iconic cheeses is in danger of extinction. Lights out. No more. Franklin’s Teleme has already been MIA since late last year, when Franklin Peluso reluctantly ceased making his supple cow’s milk classic, a former American Cheese Society Best of Show. The 74-year-old cheesemaker, whose grandfather devised the original recipe, has been trying to revive production ever since, with no luck.
Read moreYou Could Look It Up
Franklin Peluso, maker of Teleme (pictured above), is profiled in the new Oxford Companion to Cheese.
Some key facts about the new Oxford Companion to Cheese: 3-1/2 pounds, 325 contributors, 855 subjects (including my entry on Franklin Peluso, creator of the Teleme pictured above). “We hope readers will dip into one entry, only to emerge someplace else entirely,” writes Catherine Donnelly, the project’s editor-in-chief. That certainly happened to me when I first cracked open this tome on tommes and skipped from “bread pairing” to “Piave” to “pregnancy advice.”
Read more