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.

Worth the Wait

July 5, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

It’s hard to imagine how pitiful the American cheese scene would be without immigrants. No Spanish, Dutch, English, Swiss, Italians or Germans? All right then: no cows, goats or sheep. Europeans introduced them all. We would have no Dutch Holstein, English Jersey or Brown Swiss cows. No Spanish La Mancha or Swiss Saanen goats. No Vella Dry Jack or Calabro hand-dipped ricotta (Italian), no Widmer’s Cheddar (Swiss), Cacique Cotija (Mexican) or Marieke Gouda (Dutch). How sad is that?

Almost Perfect

June 28, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

How do you make the world’s best cheese? For one answer, I turned to Marc Druart, master cheesemaker and senior director of R&D for Emmi Roth USA. Roth’s Grand Cru Surchoix scored highest (98.882 points) at this year’s World Championship Cheese Contest, which makes it the World Champion Cheese. I wanted to know how you transform cow’s milk into a wheel that’s just one point shy of perfect.

Wild Kingdom

June 21, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

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Get a hand lens ready. You’re going to want to take a closer look at this astonishing cheese rind. It is quite the wild kingdom, a thick crust of colorful, coexisting microbes. I’m not sure I have ever seen a more riveting surface on a cheese: suede gray, dusty brown, ivory, powdery yellow and rust.

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.

Red Alert

June 7, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

The gems from Switzerland just keep on coming. This latest, Vully Rouge, debuted in the U.S. last fall, although it has a 20-year history in Switzerland. Unlike Gruyère, Emmental, Appenzeller and other well-known Swiss cheeses, Vully Rouge is the creation of a single cheesemaker and it has thrived outside the PDO (protected designation of origin) system.

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.