For the last ten days of the year I will share some of my favorite 2013 cheese photos. You ready? Here we go!
Delivery of Valley Ford Cheese. Much of it made on my birthday in 2012!
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Tagged cheese, cheese pics, the year in cheese pictures 2013, valley ford cheese
1. Isn’t this just about the most gorgeous cheese label you’ve ever seen?
2. I love that Rush Creek is now a Thanksgiving tradition. I wish we could get enough Winnimere to make that an Xmas one, but I get it! I get it! Rush Creek for xmas too!
3. Here’s one of my Thanksgiving cheese plates. My family got the more American plate.
(From front left, clockwise: Anton’s Peppered Ass Cheese, Cremeux de Bourgnone, Camembert di Bufala, Scharfer Maxx Extra, Molleux du Revard)
4. Still collecting Cheesemonger Selfies. More are being posted all the time. Email me your pics and I’ll put em up. (gordon.zola.edgar at gmail dot com)
5. If you are local and are not on the invite list for the monthly cheesemonger gatherings, go here, or hit me up at that email as well and I’ll put you on the list. It is not exclusive!
6. I really cannot create any real content you know… it’s that time of the year.
7. I should be able to officially announce my book contract in my next post though. I would be able to now except for a couple of e-book details that weren’t in my last contract. Things have changed!
8. I am going to post a picture a day starting tomorrow. My cheese memories of 2013. You likely have seen ‘em before, but whatever. True beauty doesn’t fade.
I can tell I am in full holiday rush mode because when a customer asked, “What does ‘Bonne Bouche’ mean?” I replied, “It means Fucking Awesome!”
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Clearly I do not have enough time to make consistent blog posts. I think I will have to resort to lists until the end of the year.
1. I got asked again by a customer “Who ghost wrote your book for you?” Because I know you are curious, usually people ask because they want a recommendation on who to hire to help them develop a personal brand. And no, they usually have not read my book.
2. Not that there’s anything wrong with not having read my book. Most Americans have not read my book.
3. We adopted an Alp from the awesome Caroline Hostettler. Program info is here. Basically, this is a program to support cheesemakers who are still doing the traditional seasonal migration of animals up and down the Alps (also known as transhumance). Our cheese is awesome. Made between 6500-8000 ft, it is buttery, grassy, nutty, and milky sweet. It is on the younger side so it doesn’t have the onioniness pungency of a more aged Swiss Alp Cheese, but it is much more complex than most of the young Swisses that come into the US.
4. We got the party Alp, Obern Galm. Here’s the party alp theme song (I don’t know why I cannot get it to embed)
5. Here’s cheesemonger Andreas with the first two wheels:
6. Here’s my selfie with the adopted Alp cheese.
Don’t forget to post your cheesemonger selfie here:
7. Cheesemonger gatherings are awesome. I think cheesemongers everywhere should have them. Cheese is not necessary for the event.
8. It is feeling like the holidays in the cooler.
9. Here is one of my current favorite cheeses. Amazingly low price for what you get:
10. Here’s some more cheese pr0n for you filthy people:
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Tagged alpine cheese, caroline hostettler, cheese, cheese pr0n, lists
Oh what the heck. I am too busy to write anything about cheese these days. You probably are too. But why don’t we collect Cheesemonger selfies with cheese. It will amuse us all during the coming craziness:
Here’s mine. In the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative cheese prep area with Alpkaese from Obern Galm, Switzerland. Cheese was made between 6500-8000 ft.
Post yours in the comments! (or send me yours via email if you can’t figure out how to post them gordonzolaedgar at gmail dot com)
Forever Cheese table at the Food Matters Again holiday show:
I know I haven’t had a chance to update here much but I was kind of shocked when I saw my last update was from the ACS. That feels like a million years ago. I mean, geez, the holiday pre-orders are rolling into the store already.
So, I think I’m going to just photo dump on you all this week. Here are some cheese highlights of the last few months:
Let’s start with Saxon Creamery in Wisconsin:
Hennings in Wisconsin. We get our Cheddar curd from here:
They have an awesome cheese equipment museum too!
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Tagged ACS 2013, Henning's, saxon creamery, wisconsin 2011, wisconsin cheese
In addition to the cheeses previously mentioned in my Best of Show entry – all of which I loved – These are the other cheeses that caught my tongue at this year’s conference:
During the judging, I tasted this one and was blown away even though I had no idea who made it (and I assumed it was a Oaxaca). Braided Caciocavera from Loveras Market in Oklahoma? Ok, I see why I didn’t already know it. To make it even more special, I keep reading it as “Lovers Market” which seems extra sweet.
Next, a cheese we already carry and think is awesome, Boonter’s Blue from Pennyroyal Farmstead in Boonville, CA. A mix of sheep and goat milk (though not always) this is the kind of blue I think of as “Basque Style” even though I don’t know if it’s really true. Fudgy, medium-strength blue and you can taste the tang of the goat and nuttiness of the sheep milk.
Ten years ago, everyone would have been raving about the Florry’s Truckle from the Milton Creamery in Iowa. Now – with Jasper Hill, Fiscalini, Beecher’s, Avonlea, etc. – we expect North Americans to make amazing traditional style Cheddars. Still this is an awesome cheese from the folks who brought us Prairie Breeze.
Speaking of Jasper Hill, the Willoughby (this is a correction from the original post) right now…. Amazing. Rich, pungent, buttery, yeasty. Definitely in the running for Best of Show by my count.
And, made by Landaff Creamery and aged in the Cellars at Jasper Hill, the Kinsman Ridge is also pretty darn good. As you can see by how little is left.
And, last year I told you how awesome the Arabella from Jacobs and Brichford was. This year, their Overton blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever had a US cheese that tasted so much like a well-aged Comte. I guess it blew me away so much that I forgot to get a picture so here’s the Arabella again.
Also, pretty much everything from Baetje Farms is can’t-miss. I do not think they can make a bad cheese.
That’s it for now. I am still going through my notes, but these are the cheeses that stuck with me, post-conference.By the way, this tag will let you see the cheeses I have written about as my favorites over the years: American Cheese Society Favorites.
The Jasper Hill folks only sent three wheels in for judging so, in what will surely become an ACS legend, when they won Best of Show Vince Razionale hopped in a car, bought back the only other currently existing Winnimeres from their distributor and then drove straight from Vermont to Wisconsin to deliver the last remaining wheels just in time for the Festival of Cheese. This was not a quick trip:
(Corrected map below. Vince thought it was prudent to avoid crossing the Canadian border at 2 AM with a case of raw milk cheese)
Thanks Vince! We appreciated it.
The Festival of Cheese is all about abundance and the beauty of cheese. Here are some pictures of the nearly 1800 cheeses on display.
Tables of deliciousness:
A bounty of blue:
Championship Cheddars:
Boulders of Bismark!
Big stacks of Brie:
Some displays seemed like warnings:
And the evening winds down:
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Tagged ACS 2013, american cheese society, cheese, cheese pr0n, festival of cheese, jasper hill, pictures of cheese
ACS 2013 is fading away now. We’ve all gone back to work. The rarefied atmosphere of Cheese Camp is something I think we all try to hold onto a little, but real life intrudes. But… I have a few more posts about ACS to make before I let it go away completely. I mean c’mon, I haven’t even talked about the award ceremony yet.
In an earlier workshop someone tried to hand me a California flag.* As a judge, who would be sitting in the judge’s area, I felt like I had to refuse but I have to admit it amused me that every time a California cheese won a ribbon, Californians yelled and waved their flags. Doing this in the heart of Wisconsin definitely struck a nerve because I was later pointedly informed by Wisconsinites that Canada took more ribbons than California.** I was also told that they would “take the high road” and not visibly display Wisconsin pride at the awards ceremony in Sacramento next year. We’ll see.
When I was judging for the Best of Show I did what I usually do. I narrowed it down to about eight cheeses and then gathered a piece of each, sat in a corner of the room, and tasted them off against each other. While entries are anonymous, they have codes on them so that we can place our votes. The cheese company code is always the first number. Imagine my shock when I realized that three of my top six cheeses were from the same company!
My clear #1, though, was Winnimere from Jasper Hill. It’s a seasonal cheese, but they made a special batch just for the competition. It was perfect. Perfectly ripe, grassy, beefy, mustardy, rich, oozy, and complex. This has long been a favorite of mine anyway and it was nice to see it arrive for judging tasting as good as it does in the store. Congrats Jasper Hill folks! This was a well-deserved win.
And no, you cannot have any until November-ish.
#2 in the Best of Show voting was Bear Hill from Grafton Village Cheese Company. Not just a Cheddar-maker anymore, Grafton has been working on sheep cheeses and different styles. I didn’t vote for Bear Hill but I had it (unofficially) ranked 4th or 5th in my head. 100% “Alpine Style” sheep milk cheese… we are getting some in, but again, not for a couple of months.
Tying for 3rd place were the two cheeses I ranked 2nd and 3rd.
Both of these were Willi Lehner cheeses. Willi had built amazing caves to age cheese but makes his cheese with other Master Cheesemakers like Kerry Henning and Chris Roelli. The Cheddar was, as always, amazing. One of the best traditional Cheddars made in the US: earthy, grassy, dank, fruity, and sharp. Bleu Mont Cheddar:
The Big Sky Grana surprised me. Sweeter than I would expect for that style but probably the best US-made hard Italian cheese I have ever had. The Cheddar is available, but the Grana was an experiment (like Willi’s 3rd cheese that I had in my top rankings, the Alpine Renegade) and also not available right now. Still there’s hope for all you folks who “only carry American cheese” but make an exception for Parmigiano Reggiano.*** This cheese is awesome:
Amazing cheeses people. Amazing…
(I mention the unavailability of these cheeses in the top 4 because, once again, I am teaching a cheese class on the judging. You’ll have to wait on three out of four of the Best of Show winners but the class will be great. You should totally sign up for it. We will talk about the judging process, discuss what judges look for, and taste a lot of 1st place cheeses.)
*Have any of you ever heard this pear thing? I don’t know if I am buying it.
**Let’s pause to remember than Canada is a country, not a state, for comparison purposes.
***cough, cough — cop-out — cough cough.***
****I’m just kidding you guys! I still love you.
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Tagged ACS 2013, american cheese society, Best of show, bleu mont, cheese, grafton, jasper hill, winnimere
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 