December 2011
28 posts
11 tags
9 tags
As Supply Dwindles, Organic Milk Gets Popular →
With the price of organic grain rising, cows are being fed less — and are producing less milk. Meanwhile, the demand for organic milk is growing.
7 tags
"Sprocket", the troublemaking Maine cow
Photo © 2011 Bangor Daily News
In Maine, one man with one cow and a little bit of extra raw milk finds himself running afoul of state regulators.
EAST BLUE HILL, Maine — Officially, her name is Sprocket. But Dan Brown has a tongue-in-cheek moniker for the 4-year-old cow at the heart of his legal problems with the state of Maine: Troublemaker.
Sprocket, it turns out, isn’t just part of...
7 tags
7 tags
5 tags
Is Aged Gouda Underrated?
photo ©2011 Huffington Post
Is aged Gouda underrated? in HuffPo today, Martin Johnson of The Joy of Cheese asks the question, and takes other cheese writers to task for under-representing Goudas in their books:
Without breaking much of a sweat, I could make a pretty solid case that aged Gouda is the world’s most underrated cheese. That case rests on the following premises.
1. The flavor...
10 tags
9 tags
5 tags
3 tags
In Defense of Cottage Cheese
The Village Voice writes in defense of a disappearing food, Cottage Cheese.
No dairy product has sunken lower in the popular estimation than cottage cheese. Can you name a fancy restaurant that has cottage cheese on its menu? Is artisanal cottage cheese available at any bistro or gastropub? Is cottage cheese sold at farmers’ markets, or have you ever seen a speck of it at Smorgasburg,...
5 tags
5 tags
Stilton's coming home
Photo ©2011: PAUL FRANKS/Peterborough ET
From the Evening Telegraph: Stilton’s coming back to Stilton! Well…sort of. Despite being the namesake of the cheese, production left the village in the 18th century for neighboring towns, and a 1996 Protected Designation of Origin legal ruling limited production of Stilton to Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. But Stilton is...
6 tags
I'm in the Moos
The good folks at New England Cheesemaking Supply Company were kind enough to mention me in their December Moosletter! Yep, that’s me, red beard and all, and like it says, I live in Brooklyn and am eager to learn all I can about cheesemaking and cheese in general, including being available to volunteer in your cheese make, on the farm, behind the cheese table, or wherever else the curd meets...
6 tags
6 tags
Maine: a haven for small Dairy?
Interesting piece in the Boston Globe about the state of Dairy farming in Maine:
Making a living at dairy farming can be a struggle for both established farmers and newcomers as milk prices fluctuate while operating costs rise. To counter this, Maine has a tiered subsidy system that to some degree protects the farmers against unpredictable market fluctuations. Organic farmers have an edge over...
7 tags
8 tags
Red Goat, from Valley Shepherd Creamery. If I came across a whole wheel of this cheese in a field I’d probably mistake it for a chunk of sandstone or brick left over from a long-gone structure, given the beautiful, crumbly paprika-encrusted rind. In flavor it is a mild, creamy tomme with a nice grassiness and goaty bite.
Purchased at the new Valley Shepherd Creamery store in Park Slope,...
7 tags
9 tags
5 tags
Interesting video on the BBC about an expat cheesemaker/entrepreneur in Russia:
As part of a BBC series about entrepreneurs around the world, US-born expat Jay Close describes the challenges and rewards of running a cheese farm in the village of Moshnitsy near the Russian capital Moscow.
What began as an experiment has, in 18 months, become a business with an estimated turnover of US$40,000...
7 tags
4 tags
Gordon Edgar on the dark side of cheesemongering
Gordon Edgar reminds us that there’s a dark side to cheesemongering: when you taste cheese all day every day, you taste the good AND the bad. And sometimes the bad is really really awful.
It’s easy to romanticize the cheesemonger’s life: tasting cheese all day, hob-knobbing with cheesemakers, flipping and washing the wheels in your cave with loving care, spinning Julie...
7 tags
6 tags
9 tags
6 tags
A fresh batch of Mesophilic Mother Culture, the first step in the cheesemaking process. A few ounces will be used in my next make; the rest will be frozen in an ice cube tray and stored for future use.
Mesophilic Starter purchased at New England Cheesemaking Supply.