Cheese Blog

I just came back from a cheese curd-filled, sweet milk blessed and L’Etoile-studded Wisconsin adventure. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing board contacted some of us cheesy media folks to see if they could take us to their land of milk and corn, wine and dine us, and take us to some of the best creameries around the state. I said hell yes.

Part II: Bleating Heart is one of the best sheep’s milk cheeses available today, and cheesemaker Seana Doughty, who has the determination to drive from California to Wisconsin during winter to buy sheep, and the humor to name her wheels ”Fat Bottom Girl,” is a force to be reckoned with. After tasting her samples at Cowgirl Creamery and being blown away by the flavor produced by this first-time cheesemaker, I knew I wanted to interview her for “It’s Not You, it’s Brie.”

Bleating Heart is one of the best sheep's milk cheeses on the market today, and cheesemaker Seana Doughty, who has the determination to drive from California to Wisconsin during winter to buy sheep, and the humor to name her wheels "Fat Bottom Girl," is a force to be reckoned with.

Some might write off a cheese that has been weaned on walnut liquor, fearing perhaps that the booze got to its head or affected its ability to know itself as a cheese first, and as a partner to alcohol second. With so many boozey cheeses out there exuding scents of cheap bars rather than buttery milk and balanced liqueurs, spirits, or wine, this is understandable. A cheese is easily influenced.

My favorite of the many sessions I attended at the American Cheese Society Conference late August was a love letter to transhumance. It was a damn good love letter, and I'm going sum it up for you.

I felt like I was prepping for a new school year when I was packing for my first American Cheese Society conference. Cheese notebook? Check. Favorite pens? Check? Achandinha Capricious aged goat and Roth Private Reserve cheeses to say thank you for a host? Check. I politely explained to my stomach its need to respect my educational quest, packed sneakers to wear to farms and cheesemaking sessions, then boarded the plane ready four days of cheese fever.