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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

  • Home
  • About
    • About Janet
    • Media
    • Client List
    • Contact
  • Planet Cheese
    • Planet Cheese Blog
    • Planet Cheese Signup
    • Cheese Library
  • Store
    • All Items
    • World Cheese Tour
    • Books
  • Classes
    • World Cheese Tour Classes
    • Other Classes & Events
    • Custom Class/Event Request
    • Cheese O'Clock Video Archive
  • Recipes
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Autumn
    • Winter
    • Comfort

Next-Level Chopped Salad

May 13, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com

I did not know that chopped salad had a celebrity pedigree, but AI just informed me. I went searching for some history on the dish, which I associate with red-sauce restaurants, and learned that it likely originated in Beverly Hills in the 1950s. Chopped salads with chickpeas, salame and mozzarella were a favorite with tony Angelenos, fancied by starlets like Natalie Wood and ladies-who-lunch like Nancy Reagan. Seven decades later, they’re still popular. They’re colorful, crunchy and amenable to improv. Include what you like; omit what you don’t.

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In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Rogue Creamery, Smokey Blue, chopped salad, blue cheese, Oregon cheese
5 Comments

Next-Level Chopped Salad

May 13, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com

I did not know that chopped salad had a celebrity pedigree, but AI just informed me. I went searching for some history on the dish, which I associate with red-sauce restaurants, and learned that it likely originated in Beverly Hills in the 1950s. Chopped salads with chickpeas, salame and mozzarella were a favorite with tony Angelenos, fancied by starlets like Natalie Wood and ladies-who-lunch like Nancy Reagan. Seven decades later, they’re still popular. They’re colorful, crunchy and amenable to improv. Include what you like; omit what you don’t.

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Rogue Creamery, Smokey Blue, chopped salad, blue cheese, Oregon cheese
Comment

Keeping it Raw

October 8, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

No longer raw: Buttermilk Blue from Roth Cheese

International Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day is Saturday, October 19. But as our former President might say, “So what?” If nothing else, the occasion is a reminder that the freedom to make and sell raw-milk cheese is not guaranteed. This election year, especially, we’re hyper-aware that laws can change and restrict or retract rights we’ve had forever.

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Tags raw milk cheese, raw milk, Slow Food, Camembert de Normandie, Rogue Creamery, American Cheese Society, Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day
10 Comments

Tough Times on the Left Coast

July 27, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com

Drought. Wildfires. Record-breaking heat. Not to mention a pandemic that’s upended the supply chain. For dairy farmers and cheesemakers on the West Coast, this is one tough summer. Triple-digit temperatures and lack of water are stressing pastures and dairy animals. If such conditions are the new normal in California and Oregon, is dairy farming even viable? David Gremmels of Oregon’s Rogue Creamery and Reggie Jones of Central Coast Creamery in California shared their thoughts on these trying times. I have edited their comments for brevity and clarity.

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In From: U.S. Tags Rogue Creamery, David Gremmels, Oregon cheese, Oregaon dairy farms, Central Coast, Central Coast Creamery, Reggie Jones, California dairy farms
4 Comments

100-Point Cheese

October 29, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 53 _DSC9940.jpg

Perfection. You can’t do better than that. For Rogue Creamery’s Rogue River Blue, the perfect score rocketed it to the top of the World Cheese Awards in Bergamo, Italy, earlier this month. A grape leaf-wrapped cow’s milk wheel from Oregon, this luscious blue is now the 2019 World Champion Cheese, the first time a U.S. cheese has earned that honor. Created less than 20 years ago, it vanquished international cheeses with decades of history. Ironically, the winning wheel was not the one that Rogue president David Gremmels intended to enter.

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In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Rogue Creamery, David Gremmels, Rogue River Blue, World Cheeses Awards, Oregon cheese, blue cheese
6 Comments

Rogue Creamery’s Next Chapter

June 12, 2018 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 60 _DSC4898.jpg

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. 

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In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Rogue Creamery, David Gremmels, Oregon cheese, Savencia, blue cheese, American blue cheese, Flora Nelle, Caveman Blue, Oregonzola, Rogue River Blue, American Cheese Society
14 Comments

Brave or Foolish?

September 12, 2017 janet@janetfletcher.com
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What does it take to get American cheese into a European cheese shop? And will anybody buy it if you do? Raymond Hook, a New York City-based specialty-food broker, is close to someanswers. Working with partners, Hook is attempting to build a global audience for cheeses from Oregon’s Rogue Creamery, Virginia’s Meadow Creek Dairy and Georgia’s Sweet Grass Dairy, among others. The export learning curve has left a few bruises, but Hook is an optimist. Today: London. Tomorrow: the world.

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow, Milk: Mixed, Milk: Sheep, Milk: Goat Tags Raymond Hook, Fine Cheese Company, Rogue Creamery, Meadow Creek Dairy, Sweet Grass Dairy, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Humboldt Fog, FDA and cheese
4 Comments

The New Pub Grub

May 20, 2015 janet@janetfletcher.com

Across the country, creative cheese professionals are helping upgrade the image of pub food. Who would have thought you could sell beer without burgers? But in some new beer-centric establishments, artisan cheese platters are getting top billing.

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In From: U.S. Tags Cheese Bar, Cheese Annex, The Commons, Cascadia Creamery, Fern’s Edge, Ancient Heritage Dairy, Thirsty Bear, Rogue Creamery
Comment

Running the Numbers →

July 30, 2014 Douglas Fletcher

Which cheese will take Best of Show in the American Cheese Society’s annual competition this week? We’ll know soon enough (award ceremony is July 31 in Sacramento), but in the interim, I gathered some stats on prior winners. Could the judges’ past preferences help us predict who might get the gold?

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Tags American Cheese Society, Planet Cheese, Janet Fletcher, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Rogue Creamery, Teleme
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Welcome to my world: a fragrant, fascinating universe devoted to great cheese. In this and future Planet Cheese posts, you’ll find profiles of the world’s best cheeses plus insights into everything cheese: shops, recipes, interviews, pairing discoveries, classes, videos, travel. If you haven’t already done so, sign up here - it’s complimentary - and join me in learning something new about cheese every week.


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