Is Cheese a Dairy Food?

January 15, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

Boont Corners: Good Foods award winner — Good Food Award Finalist: Pennyroyal Farm Boont Corners Reserve

The cheeses I love are a collaboration between humans and animals. Milk, culture, enzymes and salt plus centuries of passed-down expertise. But I may need to rethink that. Last week, for the first time, a plant-based product was named a finalist for a Good Food Award in the cheese category. I wasn’t even aware that plant-based products could enter, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about this news. If cheese isn’t from milk, what is cheese? I reached out to some people whose opinions I value—retailers, cheesemakers, writers—for their thoughts on this shifting landscape. Is it time to redefine cheese in a way that embraces non-dairy alternatives?

This is What Leadership Looks Like

July 26, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com

For the fourth time in 16 years, a cheese from Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm took Best of Show at the American Cheese Society’s recent competition. This time it’s Whitney, a new creation, in the winner’s circle. A raclette-style wheel made from raw cow’s milk, it topped 1,400 entries of all types. You can view all the category winners by reading the post.

Cheesemaking’s Existential Moment

October 16, 2018 janet@janetfletcher.com

Photo: Colin Clark, courtesy of Jasper Hill

My brother Andy and I started making cheese in Greensboro, Vermont, in the spring of 2003. We wanted to satisfy three fundamental needs: meaningful work, in a place that we love, with people we love.

We set about developing a business built around a collection of cheeses that would serve as the economic mechanism we would leverage to protect the working landscape in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Is Raw-Milk Cheese Safe?

March 21, 2017 janet@janetfletcher.com

Raw-milk gems: Parmigiano-Reggiano and Cabricharme

Spinach. Melons. Burgers. Chicken. Eggs. Peanuts. Is anything safe to eat any more? All of these foods (and others) have been implicated in outbreaks of food-borne illness. Recently, a domestic raw-milk cheese joined the list. Authorities say it sickened six people, two of whom died. That’s tragic—no other word for it. But should you cross raw-milk cheese off your shopping list?

Collaboration Nation

August 16, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Many cheesemakers and brewers know that their products are better together. But lately some American artisan cheesemakers are taking the relationship further. By washing their cheese with local brews, they’re producing some unique one-off wheels that deserve a permanent place in the firmament. Jasper Hill’s Gose-Washed Willoughby, part of a new beer-themed series from this Vermont creamery, proves how rewarding the collaboration can be.