Monthly Archives: July 2011

Cheese of the Week

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 4 comments

My cheeses of the week

(I decided that every week after I work a Saturday behind the counter that I will make a post about my favorite cheeses of the week. This is not a promotional thing; sometimes they may even be out of stock by the time I write this. I just want to share the cheese love. There will be pictures if I remember to bring my camera. If I don’t there won’t. Basically, these will just be the cheeses that I most enjoyed sampling out to cheese lovers over the weekend.)

Bleating Heart Shepherdista:
It’s bee a long wait since the last time Seana had sheep cheese available, but it’s worth it. She toyed with the idea of calling it “Barely Legal” since it’s raw milk and just over 60 days, but this cheese needs no novelty name. You – the cheese public — do need to appreciate it more though. It’s amazingly complex for such a young cheese. Rich, milky-sweet, and lemony in a green peppercorn kind of way.

Consider Bardwell Manchester:
Washed rind, raw, goat milk cheese from Vermont. I actually haven’t had a cheese from Consider Bardwell that I don’t think its amazing, but this is my favorite. You can smell it’s there when you unwrap it, but it’s not too intense. Semi-soft, big flavor, earthy, slight pungency… just awesome. I am bummed that we will run out of this soon.

*It has nothing to do with the cheese, but saying “Shepherdista” so much put this great Clash song in my head:

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Wisconsin Day 4: I love Milwaukee

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 4 comments

I love Milwaukee.

I have loved Milwaukee since I went to the ACS conference there. Sheana and I stayed in the Presidential Suite, put on a party, went to the Spy Bar, we saw the pre-scandal John Edwards, I got food poisoning from someone’s bad cheese the night before I had to be on a panel… Good times!

As much as I love Milwaukee, I was worried about my reading there. The only two people who I am good friends with in the whole town (besides the folks putting on the event) couldn’t come so I was resigned to it being Steve and Patty from Larry’s Market and whoever would be trapped in the store when I started reading. I was counting on the Midwestern Nice thing to obligate people to stay and watch me so as not to be rude. After all, Madison was good, but there was only one person there who wasn’t a friend, or friend-of-friend.

Instead, Milwaukee was one of the best book events I’ve done.

Good product placement or editorial comment?
garbage only

Steve and Patty did a great job of promotion and lots of local food writers came out for it. Lucy Saunders, Jeanette Hurt (and her lovely child), Pam Percy and Martin Hintz were there. I got a nice blog post from Thomas Geilfuss. Arthur Ircink from Wisconsin Foodie interviewed me about Wisconsin Cheese and taped my whole reading (Boy I hope those California cheesemakers don’t hear what I said about them!).

US Champion Cheesemaker Katie Hedrich was even spotted in the audience. Someone managed to get a grainy paparazzi-like photo of her and her brother Greg.
Katie and Greg Hedrich @Larry's

But the whole crowd was fun. They asked interesting questions and laughed at all the right places. Since I had pretty much decided this would be my last reading, I just read the funniest parts of the book. I figured they could read the more narcissistic and political bits in the privacy of their own homes.

I can’t think of a better way to end my year of self-promotion.

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Wisconsin Day 3: Fromagination reading

Posted on July 18, 2011 | 1 comment

I’m pretty much at the end of promoting my book via readings – one can only milk this kind of thing for so long – but I really had to do some Wisconsin events before calling it a day.* I mean c’mon, Wisconsin… those people love their cheese. It means a lot to me when Wisconsin like me book.

Because really, I’m a Californian. Being a California cheese person among Wisconsin cheese people is like being a Californian in Oregon. At any gathering, someone in the Wisconsin dairy crowd will mock the “happy” California cows, a Californian will bring up the fact that California leads the nation in milk production, and it can get all West Side Story. Can’t we all just get along?

One person who I always get along with is Jeanne Carpenter of Cheese Underground and a million other cheese projects. She’s one of my favorite cheese people. How could she not be when she referred to me as the “Barbara Mandrell of the cheese counter”?** When I arrived at Fromagination for my reading she gave me an autographed copy of the Wisconsin Cheesemaker calendar. At the Cheddar Maker roundtable I had complained that we had been trying to get everyone’s picture signed at Rainbow but because we actively use the calendar, it had already gotten trashed. That’s the kind of person she is!

Fromagination is right on the Capitol Square in Madison, the site of all the huge protests against the coming corporate fascism. I spent the day in Madison walking around and having an old friend show me around the battlegrounds. “That’s where we snuck into the Capitol Building through the window…”***

My reading was full of friends and friends of friends… worker-owners of Union Cab? Hello! … WMMB acquaintance? Good to see you! … Quince and Apple? Welcome! … Writer friend of my ex’s sister? Great to meet you! My old cheese friend Steven was there too, working the counter. That was really special since I got to find out he worked for a company whose cheese book I mocked during my reading. It’s a small cheese world.

Oh Wisconsin, I love you.
reading at Fromagination

(If this entry seems a little out of date since I’ve been back form Wisconsin for a few weeks now, let’s just say that between losing multiple unposted blog entries and installing a new operating system on my computer, I’ve got a backlog of stuff. Timely writing is overrated in my opinion anyway. 😉 )

Written while listening to Flamingo 50

*Just for the record, I’m not seeking out more book events – 40+ is a lot – but I’m still happy to hear offers. I’m deeply sad that I can’t do this year’s Southern Festival of Cheese, for example, so Nashville, I owe you one. And NYC, I wouldn’t turn you down either.
**If I have a tombstone someday, this is what I’d like to have on it, please.
***It goes far beyond this – in every state in the union – but the Recall elections are coming. Do the right thing, Wisconsin.

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Things I’ve been meaning to share

Posted on July 11, 2011 | 2 comments

Just a little linky housekeeping today…

1. Congrats to Steve Jones for winning the 2nd Cheesemonger invitational. He was part of a team that one the first ACS competition as well and seems to be a very nice guy. West Coast Mongers represent!

2. Gianaclis Caldwell (like myself, a Chelsea Green author) wrote the kind of blog post I love to write, exploding the urban myth of goat milk as “nature’s most complete food”. She raises goats and makes goat cheese so this isn’t cow-laden propaganda.

3. The food punks article finally went up on Saveur online. Check it out. There’s a hilarious old picture of me in the gallery.

4. The Splendid Table interview of me was replayed, almost causing a high school friend to drive off the road when she heard my voice on NPR. You can check it out here. I think it’s funny that the biggest media thing I did for my book was on a program that doesn’t air in the Bay.

closing time tableau

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Wisconsin Day Three: Bleu Mont Cheddar

Posted on July 5, 2011 | 4 comments

After hanging out at Uplands Cheese I got back in the car and in less than an hour was at one of the most impressive human-made cheese caves I’ve ever been to. What an embarrassment of riches Wisconsin has! I said this at both my readings and it’s true: The Dunbarton Blue, Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Blue Mont Cheddar are not just good Wisconsin Cheeses, not just good American-made Cheeses, but stand up with any cheese in the world. And you can visit them all before lunch if you leave early enough in the day!

Willi Lehner makes a great traditional Cheddar even though he doesn’t even have a cheesemaking facility on premises. Heck, there’s plenty of places to make Cheddar in Wisconsin, but there’s only one cheese cave built into the hill of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin.

I just wish I had moved the shelf out of the way before I took the picture.
DSC00421

And check out the inside! It’s beautiful!
DSC00423

Longtime readers have seen me mock the use of “cave” (or “caaaaaaaav”) many times. It’s hard to resist when “cave-aged” often means “aged in a modern, strip-mall, temperature-controlled warehouse where the cheese may be cryovac’d anyways.” But caves — even ones built, not found, by cheese-agers — do have a lot of value. They prevent excess airflow, thus maintaining the environment of beneficial microbes that help the cheese develop flavor, and they control the temperature and humidity efficiently.

Willi just makes and ages amazing cheese. His Cheddar is grassy, bright, earthy, sharp, shardy, and milky sweet… one of my absolute favorites. There’s not a lot available – it’s hard to find even in Wisconsin – but if you see it, grab it.

Plus it’s the only cheese aging facility I’ve ever been to where Crocs are mandatory footwear.
DSC00430

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