I was so busy getting ready for the worker co-op conference that I didn’t even get a chance to talk about my new favorite cheese. Here’s a teaser:
Feel free to talk amongst yourselves until I get back.
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Jasper Hill Farm – Harbison
When I first started working in cheese, one of the first cheeses I fell in love with was L’edel de Cleron. It’s a soft-ripened cheese, wrapped in bark. It’s in the class of cheese known (at least back then) as “faux Vacherin” because it’s based on the Vacherin Mont D’or, one of the world’s greatest cheeses. The L’edel was not a raw milk cheese and was produced year round on a much larger scale than the seasonal Vacherin but to me it was a revelation. Seventeen years ago I hadn’t tried the real thing and had no idea that soft cheeses could have more flavor than rich and luscious. It may be hard for newer cheese folks to understand this, but there just weren’t as many options back then.
When I wrote my book and credited Antique Gruyere with being the cheese that provoked my cheese love, and that was true. But L’edel was close behind. The reason that I decided not to write about L’edel, however, is that it tastes nothing like it once did. I don’t remember what year – but it was definitely the one where I pre-ordered like 20 cases for the holidays – the cheese began coming in completely stripped of any original flavor. True, the big problem with the old L’edel was that it went bitter very quickly and it was an oft-returned cheese. But it was so good, when it was good, that we kept buying it.
The year the L’edel went bland was very sad. Not only did we have to slog through all those cases when 4 out of 5 of us preferred the Fromager D’affinois (at half the price) but we had lost one of our favorite go-to cheeses. Sure, we’d get real Vacherin or a closer facsimile from time to time, but the L’edel had its own customer too: people who wanted complex flavor in a soft-ripened cheese, but who didn’t want to get too close to the edge.
I had forgotten how much I loved the L’edel until I tried the new cheese from Jasper Hill Cellars called Harbison. In a mini wheel wrapped with bark it is the same size as the L’edel minis. This cheese is hard to come by and I fear even by mentioning it I am making things harder on myself. I recently made a facebook comment about how nice it is that the cheese business is largely bereft of (human) rock stars*, but this cheese is a rock star for sure. Elusive on the West Coast, it may be even harder to get after the positive reviews come out. Harbison will be too busy hanging out with Beyonce at the Grammys to come to a store near you.
But man, it is AWESOME. While not getting as intense as the real Vacherin Mont D’or, it certainly surpasses L’edel, old and new. Rich, oozy, earthy, meaty, mustardy, and just plain old satisfying. How oozy? You cut off the top and spoon it out, that’s how oozy. Buy it if you see it. Seriously. This is the best new cheese to come to market in the US in years.
You thought I was exaggerating about this cheese being a rock star but look, it has its own music video!
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Consider Bardwell Rupert
I’m going to pick another Consider Bardwell cheese as one of my cheeses of the week. Rupert is awesome. Made from raw Jersey milk, it’s an Alpine-style cheese that combines the pungency and bite of a well-aged Gruyere with a richness and sweetness not often found in this style cheese. We won’t have this cheese often – since it’s not really distributed out here — so I really enjoyed sampling it out.
My apologies for not getting a picture of the beautiful wheel. We just went through it too quick.
One thing I did find surprising about this cheese – and my only negative in what is otherwise and American masterpiece (Indeed, the Rupert tied for 3rd Place at the 2009 ACS competition where I was a judge) – is that is dried out very quickly. It’s a hard, pressed cheese and usually we can leave a piece of this class of cheese out all day and it just gets better. The Rupert, after a couple of hours of exposure to air became a little grainy and waxy. I would say this is a great cheese plate cheese (as well as an awesome melter) but I actually wouldn’t leave it out unwrapped for too long before serving.
Harley Farms Fresh Chevre with Honey and Lavender
The other cheese that is always super fun to offer out is the Harley Farms fresh chevre with honey and lavender. Just like what it sounds like, the great thing about this cheese is the light hand the cheesemaker had. Lavender is kind of an “it” ingredient theses days but in a lot of food it just tastes like you’re eating at your hippie friend’s house who didn’t rinse off his plates after washing them with Dr. Bronner’s. The chevre has a great milky tang, the honey a rich sweetness, and the lavender just enough floral aroma and flavor to compliment everything else.
$3.99 is definitely not the price for these. Do not get confused by the picture.
After more than a decade of eating Harley Farms cheese (and Sea Stars before that) I didn’t think I could have a new favorite from Dee’s farm, but I do.
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Tagged american cheese society, cheese of the week, consider bardwell, harley farms, rupert
Today is clearly send-out-the-press-release-announcing-we-won-a-ribbon-at-ACS day. Three in the last hour! Keep ’em coming.
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Tagged american cheese society, american cheese society awards, hype
Rogue Creamery — Rogue River Blue:
So, with the results of the American Cheese Society Competition coming through, it would be impossible not to name Rogue River Blue as a Cheese of the Week. Rogue River just became only the second cheese to win the ACS Best of Show (Pleasant Ridge Reserve has won three times) and, while variety of winners is nice, this cheese is one of the elite American cheeses. It could be named Best of Show every year and it would be hard to squawk about it.
Seasonally made, wrapped in pear brandy-soaked grape leaves, Rogue River Blue is simply a tremendous cheese: Raw milk, sweet, earthy, fruity, grassy, rich and with a perfectly balanced amount of bluing. It’s just amazing; a cheese that you taste and say, “Now I get why people go crazy about cheese.” I was a judge when Rogue River won the first time so – since I wasn’t in Montreal this year – here’s the post I made about that year’s awards ceremony.
Also, it’s a wonderful tribute to Ig Vella’s continuing influence that this wonderful cheese won best of show again.
Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery – Coupole
My other cheese of the week is one that we almost always carry. It sells steadily and many people know it well so we don’t push it as much as other, less established cheeses. However, I had a distributor call me with one of those OMG-we-have-too-many-cases-of-this-and-they-are-about-to-expire phone calls so I bought about four times as much as we usually get.
We all know that – much of the time — a distributor’s “about to expire” is a cheesemonger’s “almost perfectly ripe”.
This cheese can get neglected because Bonne Bouche – its sister cheese made by the same company – is stronger, creamier and demands more attention. But the Coupole is just as good in a quieter way. Tangy, lactic, earthy and substantial. It’s a classic ripened goat cheese in a French style (think round mini Bucheron – but with the ropey geotrichum mold that makes it look like a little brain), one of the best examples of its style available in this country. I sampled this out all day on Saturday and heard nothing but love. Sometimes — when you work with cheese all the time – you have to take time to remember the cheese that kind of sells itself.
Hi Coupole. Sorry if you felt unappreciated. You’re awesome and I really like you. I’m sorry I took you for granted.
Here is a pantheon of great cheese in the back of our rental car in 2006. (L-r: Franklin’s Teleme, Bonne Bouche, Coupole, and Bijou) I forgot that the Coupole was originally ashed on the outside!
In both French and English of course!
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Well, a lot of the cheese world is headed to Montreal right now for the annual American Cheese Society Conference. Sadly, I just couldn’t afford to go this year. It almost seemed like a relief at the time I decided to not attend; I’d been running myself ragged doing cheese things the last couple of years. But now that its here I am really sad to miss it.
Especially judging.
The judging to me is the purest part of the conference.* Just two days spent with technical and aesthetic cheese experts evaluating cheese. While one can question whether the award winners will be that spectacular in a retailer’s cooler or on a cheese plate, the integrity of the process is the best part of the cheese world. It is one of the things that makes me proud of what I do for a living.
I mean, look how serious these dudes are:
So have fun in Montreal** everyone. I’ll see you next year in Raleigh.
* I wrote about judging in 2010 and in 2007 if you want a behind the scenes look.
**If you are in the Bay Area you may want to come to the ACS Awards party that Sheana and I are putting on. Comment for info if you don’t have a facebook.
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Tagged acs 2011, american cheese society, cheese judging, epicurean connection, Montreal
Avalanche Cheese Lamborn Bloomers
One of the best new (to me) cheeses that we’ve had in a long time is the Lamborn Bloomers from Avalanche Cheese in Colorado. Seriously, this is one of the best U.S.-made, soft-ripened goat cheeses I’ve ever tasted. Basically it’s a goat Robiola: oozy, milky, fattily satisfying, but it has a depth and complexity not often found in this type of cheese. Lamborn Bloomers is grassy, vegetal, potato-y, and has just enough goaty-tang to remind you what you are eating. Seriously awesome cheese.
Unfortunately – outside of Colorado – the name is somewhat baffling and is one of the ones that makes customers laugh at you when you recommend it (See “Ewephoria”, “Ewe-nique,” and “Fromage-a-Trois”). Using “lamb” in any cheese name will make people assume it is made with sheep milk, especially with the mandatory pun-names assigned to sheep milk cheeses according to the CFR.* Secondly, it sounds like something you would put on baby sheep to ensure their modesty. Third, I was also secretly worried that perhaps the cheese was named after Colorado’s idiot Tea Party Congressman. If it was, I didn’t want to know. The cheese is just that good.
But no, half a minute of internet research shows that the dairy and farm have beautiful “views of Lamborn Mesa”. Whew… I can eat it without worrying again.
*Just kidding. And I don’t mean that as a goat pun.
**I think I’ll just break down and get a new charger for my camera battery instead of just hoping I’ll find it soon. I think this would be better with pictures, don’t you?
(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 cheese that I most enjoyed sampling out to cheese lovers over the weekend.)
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Tagged avalanche cheese, cheese, cheese of the week, goat cheese, lamborn bloomers, robiola
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?
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.
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.
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 