Wine Family's Awesome Cheeses

July 12, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Nothing makes cheese taste better than seeing the place where it’s made. Alas, most American creameries don’t welcome visitors. Sanitation is the main issue, and few small producers have the staff for tours. But in California’s scenic Anderson Valley, Pennyroyal Farmstead Cheese is charting a different course. In March, the three-year-old Boonville creamery opened a tasting room and began offering tours. From anywhere, it’s worth the journey.

The Other Grilled Cheese

June 14, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

The typical grilled cheese sandwich never sees a grill. A panini press, maybe. Or a cast-iron skillet. Or a griddle. But for that flame-kissed taste, you need the grill.

Off Like a Rocket

May 31, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

When several merchants I admire recommend the same new creamery, that’s all the word-of-mouth I need. I may be slow to part with my cheese money but I’m not stupid. After hearing about Boxcarr cheeses for the third or fourth time, I bought a Boxcarr cheese. Then I tried another, and another—all of them good. Who are these people?

The Cowgirls' Next Act

May 24, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Last week, Cowgirl Creamery co-founders Sue Conley and Peggy Smith announced the sale of their business to Swiss dairy giant Emmi. Emmi bought everything: the two retail cheese shops (in San Francisco and Point Reyes Station); the two creameries that turn out Mt. Tam, Red Hawk and the rest of the Cowgirl repertoire; and Tomales Bay Foods, the affiliated distribution company. Conley and Smith will continue to run the enterprise.

It's Now or Never

May 17, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

My fava bean crop was a disaster this year—diseased leaves, low yield. I have no clue why, but the best gardener I know had the same issues so I’m not taking it personally. The upshot is that I have had to be miserly with the favas and the harvest is ending way too soon. In my garden, it’s now or never.

Slumping Beauty

May 10, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

New York’s Meadowood Farms specializes in sheep’s-milk cheese, which means the creamery is idle for several months each year. Sheep don’t produce milk year-round in any case, and Meadowood’s practice is to milk them only when they’re on pasture. In Cazenovia, just east of the Finger Lakes, that’s a lot of down time.

No Trivial Pursuit

May 3, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

If ever a cheese had promising genes, it would be this Wisconsin goat Cheddar. Introduced earlier this year, Trivium has more than two parents, actually—but that hardly raises eyebrows these days. “It’s the love child of our threesome,” claims Arnaud Solandt, one of the dads.

Raw Milk Manifesto

April 12, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Always Raw: (clockwise from top) 5 Spoke Tumbleweed; Meadow Creek Grayson; Matos  St. George; Grafton Village 2-Year Cheddar — Always Raw: (clockwise from top) 5 Spoke Tumbleweed; Meadow Creek Grayson; Matos St. George; Grafton Village 2-Year Cheddar

Aged cheeses made with raw milk are dwindling in number, in part because FDA scrutiny makes the future uncertain for cheesemakers who choose to work in this traditional way. Even so, some persist. I’ve asked several leading cheesemakers who work exclusively with raw milk to tell us why they bother.

Why So Expensive?

April 5, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

(left to right) Oveja Negra Manchego ($30/lb); Pecorino di Filiano ($20/lb); Bellwether Farms Pepato ($40/lb)

“For years, we’ve held our price down,” the cheesemaker told me. But he couldn’t hold the line any longer. The economics of aged sheep’s milk cheese was forcing him to bump up prices, and not by a little. What I didn’t understand, and what the cheesemaker convincingly explained, was why comparable wheels from Europe often cost much less.

A Century in the Making

March 29, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

I’m always intrigued to learn how a cheese goes from idea to reality. This luscious newbie from West Marin can trace its roots back more than a century, to the day when 17-year-old Fredilino Lafranchi left his home in the Swiss canton of Ticino to try his luck in the U.S. He had $35 in his pocket