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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

Remember Morbier?

February 5, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

After a nine-year absence, real Morbier is returning to American cheese counters. If you didn’t realize it was missing, that’s probably because multiple faux Morbiers have attempted to fill in the gap. The photogenic cheese with the ash ripple in the middle has been MIA since 2014, victim of the uproar we’ll call Ashgate. Thanks to our vigilant FDA, Americans have been protected for the past several years from a cheese that the French have been enjoying for two centuries. Are you ready to take a risk and eat some raw-milk Morbier again?

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In From: France, Milk: Cow Tags Morbier, raw-milk cheese, FDA and cheese
6 Comments

Your Raw-Milk Cheese Roster

October 16, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

The trend line for American raw-milk cheese is not what I wish it were. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of creameries producing cheese from unpasteurized milk, according to member surveys commissioned by the American Cheese Society. Cascadia Creamery’s Glacier Blue (above) remains among those cheeses made the traditional way, with milk at the temperature it comes from the animal. But the niche is shrinking.

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Tags raw-milk cheese, raw milk, Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day, unpasteurized milk
59 Comments

Curl Up with This Cheese

December 27, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com

The ruffles are eye-catching but you don’t need a special scraper to appreciate Tête de Moine. It’s a delightful cheese even when not curled into frilly rosettes. That said, I’m going to treat myself to a girolle—the shaving device—one of these days because, well, what a conversation stopper. The girolle’s Swiss inventor died four years ago, at 91, aware that his clever tool had sent sales of Tête de Moine soaring. Annual production is now 150 times what it was when his girolle debuted in 1982. I just listened to an old interview with the inventor and was charmed to hear about his lightbulb moment and be reminded of how good this cheese is.

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In From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow Tags Tête de Moine, Swiss cheese, raw-milk cheese, Nicolas Crevoisier, girolle
6 Comments

The Cheeses to Beat

November 9, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com
Cheeses from Gourmino

Gourmino board: (l to r) Ur-Eiche, Emmentaler AOP, Bleu de Combremont, Le Gruyère AOP

The wins just keep coming for Gourmino. This Swiss marketing co-op has 13 cheesemaker members who seem to have a lock on the top prize at major international competitions. Last week, a Gourmino Gruyère prevailed at the World Cheese Awards in Wales, besting 4,433 entries. Earlier this year, a Gourmino Gruyère from cheesemaker Michael Spycher was named World Champion Cheese —for the third time. I can’t overstate how remarkable that is.

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In From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow Tags World Cheese Awards, Gourmino, Le Gruyère AOP, Gruyère, raw-milk cheese, Swiss cheese, Emmentaler, Michael Spycher, Urs Leuenberger
10 Comments

Before You Travel with Cheese, Know the Regs

September 6, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com
Paris Cheese Shop

Fromagerie Laurent Dubois, Paris/Photo: Susan Sturman

Ever wondered what cheeses you can legally bring back from Europe? Would you take a risk on any of the French cheeses pictured above? Maybe you would bury a couple of beauties in your suitcase and “forget” to declare them? I’ve covered this ground before, but with so many people traveling internationally again, it’s worth a refresher. Even a cheesemonger friend of mine who’s headed to Switzerland soon didn’t know the regs.

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Tags raw-milk cheese, traveling with cheese, cheese and U.S. Customs, bringing cheese home, Salers, Reblochon, French cheese, bringing cheese home from Europe
13 Comments

Cheese for the Witching Hour

October 12, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 229 _DSC4811.jpg

We have so few trick-or-treaters on my quiet street. We fill a bowl with candy and we’re lucky if the doorbell rings twice. This year, I’ll be waiting for the little gremlins and goblins while enjoying my own candy: a fat slice of Red Witch and a bottle of Dead Guy. This Swiss raw-milk cheese may sound like a gimmick, but it’s made by a master and it’s hauntingly good.

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In From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow Tags Red Witch, Swiss cheese, raw-milk cheese, Rogue Ales, Rogue Dead Guy
6 Comments

When a Cheese Dies

February 2, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 118 LANDAFF.jpg

“No more Landaff” is not a phrase I wanted to read this year, or ever. I loved this cheese. But New Hampshire’s Landaff Creamery is closing, and its signature cheese—Landaff—will soon live only in memory. It makes me sad to lose a farmstead producer and to realize how quickly and quietly a unique cheese like Landaff can essentially go extinct. You might want to snap up a wedge while you can; you’ll find a mail-order source in my post.

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In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Landaff Creamery, New England cheese, New Hampshire cheese, raw-milk cheese, farmstead cheese, Cellars at Jasper Hill
2 Comments

Peak Season

October 27, 2020 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 39 _DSC2324.jpg

If you enjoy Swiss mountain cheeses, get yourself to a shop in the next few weeks for some of the best cheese we get from Switzerland all year. Retailers across the country are just starting to receive wheels from the Alp they “adopted” several months ago, sight unseen. The eight-year-old Adopt-an-Alp [http://www.adopt-an-alp.com/learn#Abou] program links traditional Swiss cheesemakers—the kind who make cheese only in summer in remote high-elevation huts—with American merchants who want to support these practices. We consumers get to experience phenomenal raw-milk cheeses that hardly ever left their region before. Don’t procrastinate; these gems go fast.

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In From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow Tags Adopt-an-Alp, Caroline Hostettler, alpine cheese, raw-milk cheese, transhumance
12 Comments

New Cheeses from Old Ways

April 9, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 80 _DSC8326.jpg

The most persistent defenders of raw-milk cheese are, in my view, the cheesemakers of Switzerland. “They see pasteurizing milk as a risk,” says Joe Salonia, a U.S. marketer of fine cheeses from Switzerland. “Why would you do that? Why would you hurt the most precious part of your milk?” With Raw-Milk Cheese Appreciation Day approaching (on April 20), I’ve been thinking about why it’s so critical to defend the right of cheesemakers to work with raw milk. Making the argument for me are the phenomenal cheeses from Gourmino, a Swiss marketing co-op that represents exclusively raw-milk cheeses. You don’t need to know the name Gourmino, but you do need to know its cheeses.

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In From: Switzerland, Milk: Cow Tags Gourmino, raw-milk cheese, Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day, Hornbacher, Emmentaler
8 Comments

Already a Winner

February 12, 2019 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 166 _DSC7888.jpg

The number of American creameries making raw-milk cheese from their own grass-fed animals is minuscule and not likely to climb. It’s a risky business model given the unpredictability of the FDA and its rule-making around raw-milk cheese. Plus, there aren’t that many places in the U.S. where livestock can be outside, eating grass, all year. So you have to applaud those who still take this traditional path and (the “and” is important) consistently produce distinctive, well-made cheeses. In that light, it’s time for a shout-out to Georgia’s Sweet Grass Dairy and its newest creation, Griffin, a recent Good Food Award winner.

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In From: U.S., Milk: Cow Tags Sweet Grass Dairy, Griffin, Thomasville Tomme, Southern cheese, Georgia cheese, Good Food Awards, raw-milk cheese
6 Comments
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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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     Photographs: Douglas Fletcher, Ed Anderson, Megan Clouse, Faith Echtermeyer, Eva Kolenko,
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