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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

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    • About Janet
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    • Client List
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  • Planet Cheese
    • Planet Cheese Blog
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    • World Cheese Tour
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Cacio e Pepe Croutons? Genius.

May 16, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

Meg Smith Photography

Leave it to John McConnell, one of my favorite Napa Valley chefs, to dream up a new take on cacio e pepe. How did grated pecorino plus black pepper became America’s favorite flavor? It’s everywhere. Cacio e pepe potato chips. Cacio e pepe pizza. Cacio e pepe pasta sauce in a jar. (No, thanks.) McConnell anticipated this trend with his cacio e pepe croutons, which perk up the Caesar he serves at the Bruschetteria food truck in St. Helena.

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Tags Planet Cheese, cacio e pepe, Clif Family Winery, Caesar salad, croutons, Bruschetteria
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Buzziest Creamery in America

May 9, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

Top: Linedeline (left) and Shabby Shoe; bottom (l to r): Sunny Ridge, Afterglow and St. Germain

In last week’s post, I polled retailers around the country about their favorite new American cheeses. Laura Downey, who owns the Greenwich Cheese Shop and Fairfield Cheese Shop in Connecticut, replied immediately. “Veronica Pedraza is making some of the best cheese in the U.S. at the moment,” wrote Downey. Wow. I’ve written about Pedraza before but not since her latest career move: to a new goat farm and creamery in Wisconsin, where she has creative freedom and an employer with deep pockets. Time for an update on this rock-star cheesemaker and what seems like the “buzziest” creamery in America.

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In From: U.S., Milk: Goat Tags Blakesville Creamery, Wisconsin cheese, goat cheese, American goat cheese, chèvre, Veronica Pedraza, Lynde Uihlein, Shabby Shoe
18 Comments

Best New American Cheeses? Ask a Monger

May 3, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

Monger favorite: Alemar Cheese Apricity

After a long pandemic pause, American creameries are launching new cheeses again. Hooray! Optimism is trouncing uncertainty and yielding some exciting newcomers for our cheese boards. American Cheese Month—that would be May—is a great time to celebrate this creativity and encourage our cheesemakers to keep at it. I asked some of the nation’s leading retailers to name a new domestic cheese that they’re loving. Consider this your bucket list for the months ahead.

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Tags new American cheeses, American artisan cheese, American Cheese Month, Meadow Creek Dairy, Alemar Cheese, Mystic Cheese, Stony Pond Farm, Blakesville Creamery, Sartori, Sweet Grass Dairy, Sequatchie Cove, BellaVitano
12 Comments

Dutch Sheep Cheese for Gouda Fans

April 25, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

You don’t see sheep cheese from the Netherlands every day, so I leaped on this one as soon I learned of it. The Dutch make mountains of cow’s milk cheese—about 2 billion pounds a year—but not much else. Goat cheese amounts to less than three percent of the country’s production and sheep cheese is barely a blip. But maybe that’s changing. Ewephoria, a sheep Gouda crafted for the American market about 20 years ago, found an instant fan club (not surprising—it’s like cheese candy), and this newcomer deserves a warm welcome, too. Made with organic milk and matured for six to eight months in the Treur Kaas cellar, this Gouda-like beauty—christened Beppie—is as creamy as a caramel.

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In Milk: Sheep, From: Ireland Tags sheep cheese, Dutch cheese, Gouda, sheep Gouda, cheese from Holland, Treur Kaas, Ewephoria
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Rind Your Own Business

April 17, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

If there’s one question I can count on getting in every cheese tasting I lead, it’s “Can you eat the rind?” I used to have a convoluted answer. Then Mateo Kehler, the wise man behind Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm (along with his brother Andy), distilled it. “Rind your own business” is Kehler’s concise version of what I was trying to convey: Try the rind. If you like it, keep eating it. If you don’t, cut it away. Kehler also told me that he works harder on achieving a perfect rind than on any other aspect of his cheese.

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Tags cheese rinds, eating cheese rind, bloomy rind cheese, washed rind cheese, cheese classes
4 Comments

Corsican Treasure

April 11, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese - Fleur du Maquis

My husband and I spent three weeks in Corsica a few years ago (do it!), and our visit happened to coincide with a two-day cheese fair celebating the island’s shepherds. We ate a lot of rustic and wonderful sheep cheese and I met at length with Catherine Le Beschu, then the director of an organization that was trying to protect these vanishing cheeses. She told me, to my surprise, that Corsicans don’t eat the herb-coated sheep cheese that is the island’s most famous export. Fleur du Maquis (pictured above) and Brin d’Amour—so similar they’re often mistaken for each other—are insanely delicious so I don’t get why Corsicans disdain them.

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In From: France, Milk: Sheep Tags Fleur du Maquis, Brin d’Amour, Corsican cheese, sheep cheese, herbed cheese, maquis
2 Comments

Goat Cheese for the Big Leagues

April 4, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com

Gran Capra—"big goat cheese”—is certainly that. You rarely see goat cheeses in large formats, nothing close to an 80-pound Parmigiano Reggiano or Gruyère. But “rarely” doesn’t mean never, and here’s proof that hefty goat cheeses are technically possible. Weighing in at about 50 pounds, this one may well be in a league of its own and, flavorwise, I can’t think of another cheese quite like it. Some shoppers may look at Gran Capra and see a grating cheese—an alternative to Parmigiano for people with cow’s milk allergy or intolerance—but I view it as a compelling table cheese, especially with a few drops of fine balsamic vinegar.

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In From: Italy, Milk: Goat Tags goat cheese, aged goat cheese, Italian cheese, Cremonesi, Grancapra, Gran Capra, balsamic vinegar
2 Comments

Khachapuri at Any Cost

March 28, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Homemade Khachapuri

What’s your personal inflation marker? For a lot of folks, it’s the price of gas or, these days, the soaring price of a dozen eggs. In the Republic of Georgia, I was amused to learn, it’s the cost of khachapuri, the gooey cheese bread that is a daily staple in this small nation.

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Tags Georgian cheese bread, khachapuri, Imeretian khachapuri, Adjani khachapuri, cheese bread, Georgian food
7 Comments

Cook Something Cheesy!

March 21, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Flan with raspberries

Given that I own at least a thousand cookbooks and have files stuffed with recipes I intend to make “one of these days,” it can feel like a guilty pleasure to revisit a recipe. I should be expanding my repertoire, or scrolling Tik-Tok to see what’s trending. Instead I’m looking back and recalling some favorite spring dishes—with cheese, of course!—that have entered my personal Hall of Fame.

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Tags spring recipes, ricotta desserts, ricotta flan, flan, caramel desserts
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Burrata Gets a Spring Look

March 14, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Burrata & Asparagus on Toast

Are we tired of burrata yet? Nah. This luscious cheese keeps tempting us to find new ways to use it. With California asparagus season underway and spring imminent (at least the calendar says so), I’m reminded of a terrific burrata preparation that I enjoyed in—of all places—a beer garden. Asparagus loves cheese. 

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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,
Victoria Pearson, Sara Remington and Meg Smith
Design: Jennifer Barry Design | Props: Tangerine Prop Shop | © 2024 Janet Fletcher, All Rights Reserved