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

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

New Year, New Artisan Cheese

January 13, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com

Getting the year off to a promising start, this new cheese makes me hopeful that America’s small dairy farms can find a way forward. We are losing these enterprises at an alarming rate—down 95 percent since the 1970s. Is that trend line irreversible, or are there viable models for young people who want to milk cows and make cheese?

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Stony Pond Farm, Vermont cheese, Vermont travel, Swallow Tail Tomme, raw milk cheese, rotational grazing
5 Comments

New Blue for the Holidaze

November 12, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

A debut from Jasper Hill Farm is always newsworthy on Planet Cheese, but this recently launched blue could be a supernova. The Whole Foods monger who alerted me to it called it “lovely to say the least” and cradled the package in her arms like a baby. Even my husband enjoyed it, which, when it comes to blue cheese, is not a bet I ever make. It’s fruity, winey and moist, with an offbeat shape and novel packaging. Everything about this Vermont newcomer screams “holiday cheese boards.”

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Withersbrook Blue, raw milk cheese, Eden ice cider, Jasper Hill Farm, blue cheese, American blue cheese, raw milk blue cheese, Vermont cheese
8 Comments

Raclette Your Way

February 7, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com
Raclette with Jasper Hill Highlander

When I asked Swiss cheese importer Caroline Hostettler whether she ate raclette as a child in Switzerland, she had no trouble resurrecting a memory. “Everyone had raclette machines at home but us,” recalled Hostettler, sounding still a bit aggrieved several decades later. Her mother refused to make it (she preferred fondue), so the annual raclette at an aunt’s house was the highlight of the year. Hostettler still remembers being almost overcome with excitement.

Read more
In From: U.S., From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow, Milk: Goat Tags raclette, Swiss cheese, Vermont cheese, Jasper Hill Farm, Highlander, Caroline Hostettler, raclette machine
4 Comments

Hello Gorgeous!

May 11, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 578 _DSC4104.jpg

Could cheese get any prettier? This new beauty from Jasper Hill Farm gets top marks for appearance (from me, at least) and extra credit for being made with raw milk. Plus, it’s a mixed-milk blue—half cow, half goat—a rare taste experience. Jasper Hill has already proven its blue expertise with the exquisite Bayley Hazen. Has this Vermont creamery nailed yet another one?

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow, Milk: Goat, Milk: Mixed Tags Jasper Hill Farm, American Cheese Month, blue cheese, American cheese, American artisan cheese, Vermont, Vermont cheese, mixed-milk cheese
6 Comments

Double Your Pleasure

February 15, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 158 _DSC3251.jpg

A cheese debut from Jasper Hill Farm is always a news event, but when the debutante is a crowd-pleaser like this one, I can almost hear the stampede. If you love buttery, silky double- and triple-cream cheeses—and retailers say you do—this Vermont beauty should go on your bucket list. It launched only last November so shops are just getting their first shipment, but you can probably locate some Sherry Gray now, before its fame spreads. Peculiar name for a cheese but, as always with Jasper Hill, there’s a back story.

Read more
In Milk: Cow, From: U.S. Tags Jasper Hill Farm, Sherry Gray, Vermont cheese, triple cream cheese, double cream cheese, ash on cheese, ash rind, cheese and sparkling wine
13 Comments

After the Recall

November 12, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Photo: Craig Jordan

Photo: Craig Jordan

his past summer, Consider Bardwell’s Goatlet catapulted to glory. For the third time in three years, it placed first in its category at the prestigious American Cheese Society judging. Four months later, the Vermont farm has ceased cheesemaking and its future is in doubt. A positive Listeria test in late September, every cheesemaker’s nightmare, led to a voluntary recall that could doom this 18-year-old enterprise. I didn’t really think co-owner Angela Miller would want to talk about this painful episode, but she surprised me. “I would very much like to help others by telling our story,” she said in an e-mail.

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Goat, Milk: Cow Tags Consider Bardwell, raw milk cheese, cheese recall, Vermont cheese
9 Comments

Rind by Design

July 30, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 271 _DSC9323.jpg

For me, the standout cheese at last year’s American Cheese Society competition was a new hay-covered Vermont beauty named Calderwood. Entering for the first time, Calderwood placed second in a field of 1,800 entries. An auspicious debut, but frustrating for its new fans because almost nobody could get the cheese. One year later, distribution has improved; I have a big piece in my kitchen. (We’ll taste it in my upcoming cheese and beer class.) And I’m headed for this year’s ACS conference in Richmond, VA, where we’ll see if lightning strikes twice for Calderwood.

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Vermont cheese, raw milk cheese, Calderwood, American Cheese Society, Saxelby Cheesemongers, Anne Saxelby, Di Bruno Bros
1 Comment

Top Five States for Cheese

April 30, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Left to right: Bellwether Farms Pepato, Roth Grand Cru, Von Trapp Oma

Left to right: Bellwether Farms Pepato, Roth Grand Cru, Von Trapp Oma

Can you name America’s top five milk-producing states by volume? Let me help you: California, Wisconsin, New York, Idaho and Texas. Are these also the top five states for artisan cheese? Not if you ask me. Considering not only the quality of what’s produced in the state but also how enlightened its retailers are, I’ve compiled a different list. See if you agree with me.

Read more
In From: U.S. Tags Vermont cheese, New York cheese, California cheese, Wisconsin cheese, Oregon cheese, American cheese, dairy states, American dairy, artisan cheese
11 Comments

Cheesemaking’s Existential Moment

October 16, 2018 janet@janetfletcher.com
Photo: Colin Clark, courtesy of Jasper Hill

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.

Read more
In From: U.S. Tags Mateo Kehler, Andy Kehler, Vermont cheese, Jasper Hill Farm, raw-milk cheese, heat-treated milk
13 Comments

Blue Plate Special

August 7, 2018 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 138 _DSC5173.jpg

Some of the blue-ribbon winners from the recent American Cheese Society competition in Pittsburgh will never make it to your local cheese shop. They are small-production cheeses that hardly leave their region. On the bright side, many do travel. Why not treat yourself and guests to a blue-ribbon cheese board this week? Your area’s best cheese merchant will likely have at least three of the victors, possibly even those pictured above. Alas, to get the winning cheese I want most, I’ll have to go to Colorado.

Read more
Tags American Cheese Society, Bellwether Farms, Hook’s, Spring Brook Farm, Vermont cheese, California cheese, Wisconsin cheese, Colorado cheese
2 Comments
Older Posts →
 

Subscribe!

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!
Planet Cheese RSS

Browse the Archive:

Planet Cheese Blog

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.


NEW!
2025 World Cheese Tour Class Schedule


Monthly
through November

June 10: SOLD OUT
Reserve for July
Reserve for August
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Winston’s Café
1517 Third Street
Napa


Order signed copies
Free Shipping!

Just received a new shipment of Gather. You can order signed copies here. Third-class shipping is free.

Cheese&Wine
Cheese-Beer
BS-Yogurt.jpg
BS-Wine Country Table.jpg
EatingLocal
BS-FFFM-New1.jpg

Powered by Squarespace
     Photographs: Douglas Fletcher, Ed Anderson, Megan Clouse, Faith Echtermeyer, Eva Kolenko,
Victoria Pearson, Sara Remington and Meg Smith
Design: Jennifer Barry Design | Props: Tangerine Prop Shop | © 2024 Janet Fletcher, All Rights Reserved