It’s Back!

December 13, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Two years (and then some) without the luscious Gabriel Coulet Roquefort. How did we survive? Now this much-missed Roquefort is back in the U.S., armed with all the lab analyses and clean bills of health that the FDA requires. If you were worried about consuming France’s most famous blue cheese (I wasn’t), worry no longer. Imported raw-milk cheeses like Roquefort get more scrutiny than raw chicken, and you can guess which one has the better safety record.

Three's No Crowd

December 6, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Does the world need another truffled cheese? Probably not, in my estimation. Too often, these cheeses seem gimmicky to me, with a heavy-handed or artificial truffle scent and unremarkable cheese underneath. Oh, but wait. I think I’ve just found the star of your New Year’s Eve cheese tray.

Acclaimed Cheesemaker Calls It Quits

November 29, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Recently the husband-and-wife owners of Georgia’s acclaimed Many Fold Farm posted a dismaying announcement on Facebook: On January 1, they would cease making cheese.

The news rattled the cheese world because the young creamery seemed to be thriving, with a blue ribbon for Condor’s Ruin at the American Cheese Society competition, a second-place finish for the aged Peekville Tomme, and a growing presence for its sheep’s milk cheeses in influential shops.

You Could Look It Up

November 22, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Franklin Peluso, maker of Teleme (pictured above), is profiled in the new Oxford Companion to Cheese. — Franklin Peluso, maker of Teleme (pictured above), is profiled in the new *Oxford Companion* *to Cheese*.

Some key facts about the new Oxford Companion to Cheese: 3-1/2 pounds, 325 contributors, 855 subjects (including my entry on Franklin Peluso, creator of the Teleme pictured above). “We hope readers will dip into one entry, only to emerge someplace else entirely,” writes Catherine Donnelly, the project’s editor-in-chief. That certainly happened to me when I first cracked open this tome on tommes and skipped from “bread pairing” to “Piave” to “pregnancy advice.”

Before the Turkey, A Little Cheese

November 15, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Looking for an American cheese for Thanksgiving? Of course you are. You could set out a fine bandaged Cheddar, or maybe some fresh local goat cheese with olives, but if you want to put the most smiles on the most faces, serve pimento cheese. Or as we say in my home state of Texas: puh-menna cheese. It’s so retro, it’s in again.

Secret No Longer

November 8, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

It would be impossible to name a favorite cheese, but a favorite style? That’s easy. Aged sheep’s milk cheeses---from anywhere—are the ones that disappear first at my house. They get more savory as they mature, not sweeter, so they’re like salted peanuts to me. One bite and I need another. Good news for like minds: we have a new cheese to love.

Home on the Tuscan Range

November 1, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

If mozzarella di bufala has been your only experience of water-buffalo cheese, you have homework to do. Of course that’s where most of us started—swapping out cow’s-milk mozzarella in our tomato salad for the more gamy and exotic bufala. Then came burrata di bufala with that luscious cream filling. Could cheese get any sexier?

First Cut is the Sweetest

October 25, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

Cheese never tastes better than from a fresh-cut wheel, so my introduction to Goat Lady Dairy’s Providence was about as good as it gets. I had stopped into San Francisco’s Cheese Plus just as the monger was making the initial cut into this crusty aged North Carolina goat cheese. What sweet, nutty, caramel-like aromas. I took home a big chunk.

Double Vision

October 18, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

The Kalish twins, Michael and Charlie, have been building credentials in the artisan cheese world since their college days at U.C. Santa Barbara. Now 34, they are on the cusp of celebrity.

Tiny Cheese, Giant Buzz

October 11, 2016 janet@janetfletcher.com

“I don’t know if we’ve ever introduced a new cheese that has had this much instant acclaim,” said Vermont Creamery owner Allison Hooper about the recent debut of St. Albans. “We didn’t anticipate it.”