Cheese Blog

The cheese trips that I've been going on lately have made be thankful for many things. 1. The cheesemakers. Whether they devote their lives to tending animals and making cheese, or focus primarily on making cheese and leave animal husbandry to others, they make our delicious, daily lives possible. Plus, if they weren't making cheese, I'd have to write about... beans... or .... radicchio.

And I’m here (a little late, for sure, but I’m okay with blaming the internet) to give you a little taste of recent “It’s Not You, it’s Brie” flavor. Next week, expect a photo tour of a recent California cheese trip or two. Shortly thereafter, you’ll see an interview with the uber-nice and talented Liam Callahan of Bellwether Farms. Yay...

While its eastern neighbor tends to get the lion's share of attention when it comes to the dairy industry, Minnesota is quietly establishing a reputation for artisanal cheeses. However, if you don't live in the Midwest, chances are you haven't been exposed to these fine specimens yet.

This salad recipe is an accompaniment to my "Spring Cheese: Keepin it Fresh" post. Give in to the urge to put fresh cheese in everything this spring!

As a seasonal spring cheese class I'm teaching draws near, I find myself thinking of freshness. Milk, fresh with the flavors of green grasses and young flowers growing on the spring Sonoma and Marin hills. Young cheese, un-aged and meant to be consumed with days to a short week or two from production. And perhaps needless to say, I'm also thinking of Doug E. Fresh's mad beatboxing skills. But that's another hip hop cheese story.

While it doesn't provoke questions as perplexing as the recent discovery of a lamb-puppy in China, Mt Townsend's Seastack also leaves people with their eyebrows raised, wondering "which animal is it?" A cheese made in Port Townsend, Washington, Seastack weighs in at eight ounces and reaches an inch and a half high. It's creamy, buttery, tangy, and has a thin coating of ash beneath its plush white exterior.

As mentioned previously on “It’s Not You, it’s Brie,” cheese has a wide circle of friends. It’s a social animal. Circulating only amongst its own kind has no appeal to cheese; it knows that it is only as well-rounded and nuanced as those it keeps in its company and that discriminating against non milk-based products would ultimately make life less tasty.