The Cheese Blog
Making a Mother's Day Cheese Plate? Turn it up to 11.
If your mom is anything like my mine, she'd appreciate a Mother's Day cheese plate that rocks the dairy boat.
She'd like a Mother's Day cheese plate that was so unusual she'd have to ask twice if the cookies really were supposed to go with the cheese (yessss, Mom). One that featured fermented vegetables and preserved fruit. One that let her enjoy the many layers of her favorite cheeses in ways she never had before.
For Mother's Day, turn your mother's cheese plate up to 11.
Of course you can build a simple plate packed with cheese, and maybe a little honey or dried fruit. But a more contemporary option is pairing cheeses that you know your mother (or the mother-figure in your life) adores to exciting sides and condiments that she'd never cozy up to her favorite wedges on her own. Do the daring leg work for her.
My mom (isn’t she cute?)
Should you be afraid to go bold in your pairings? If you reach out of bounds, will flavors get too extreme or clash?
No, and maybe. In case you're wondering, I can now speak from with confidence that dried mango with chili powder does not play nicely with cheese. Play around after Mother's Day- here are some pairings that are good-to-go now
Tried and tested, these are my picks!
My Mother's Day cheese plate features the lovely Comté: Stepladder Creamery's Cabrillo, Tomales Farmstead Teleeka, preserved lemon, Oreo's or Newman's O's, and Cultured's gingery sauerkraut.
Full disclosure, the Comté Association sponsored my post and asked me to pick 2 more cheeses to feature on the plate. More disclosure, Comté was already one of my top 10 cheeses (so, yay!).
Comté with Cultured's "Super Sauerkraut Salad:" I've recently discovered the joy of pairing krauts and fermented cabbage with this Alpine-style cheese. This one is one of my favorite duos. The kraut's gingery and tangy flavor slices through Comté's richness like a bright acidity wine does a triple-creme, while allowing the cheese's brown buttery and hazelnut nuances shine through. Pair a gingery and bright beet-hued kraut with golden Comté, or go a little bolder and pair with Kimchee (really- it's not to spicy-start with a tiny piece and go as bold as you like it). Even more pairing, you ask? Throw an off-dry Riesling in the mix. But the next way I'm trying this combo is in a grilled Comté and kraut grilled cheese sandwich with buttered country bread.
You can read more about Comté's culture and history here.
Steppladder Creamery's Cabrillo: A goat and cow's milk hybrid, Cabrillo already shows light notes of lemon from its goat's milk so matching it to a preserved, salty lemon felt natural. It made it even more sunny and bright. I also tried it with goji berries, and... well, let's pretend I didn't. Together the preserved lemon and the Cabrillo offer a liveliness fit for a cheese plate, or light appetizers. Another cheese option? Garrotxa, Panteleo, or Pennyroyal Boot Corner.
Tomales Farmstead Teleeka & Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookies: Goat, sheep, and cow's milk- are you sensing a California theme here? Yup, when goat and sheep's milk cheesemakers don't have enough milk from the tiny producers (goat and sheep provide less milk during certain seasons), they often buy cow's milk from dairy farmer neighbors. This cheese is like a robiola, and the grassy hints of the goat's milk shine through while the sheep and cow's milk provide a thick, creamy texture. I've always loved fresh chevre with chocolate so I decided to test these cookies out here. Delicious. Bright and sweet and earthy. At one point I scraped out the cream filling from the cookie sandwich, replaced it with Teleeka, and liked the cookie even better. Another cheese option? La Tur, Tomales Farmstead Kenne, or Vermont Creamy's Crémont.
Enjoy your Mother's Day with an amazing woman in your life.
A Visit to Tomales Farmstead: When a Guild Class Means Baby Goats
Early December I had the lucky opportunity to visit this dear kid above. Just as snuggly as she looks, Sweet Pea (whose given name I may have forgotten) pranced up to the fence to demand head scratches and nibble on my fingers. Only a year or two from now, Sweet Pea will not only give snuggles, she will be a valuable milk supplier to Tomales Farmstead Creamery.
Classes at Tomales Farmstead mean baby goats.
This post is a photo dairy of my recent visit to Tomales Farmstead, where I taught a class to some amazing cheese lovers who bid on a class with me at the creamery to raise money for the California Cheese Guild. Bless you, cheese lovers.
After a farm tour and tasting (which anyone can arrange) I taught the class how to make cheese: whole-milk ricotta from the farm's goat milk and Straus cow's milk, traditional ricotta from leftover whey, and queso fresco with milk from the creamery's goat herd. Raw milk, ya'll. This was one of my favorite classes to teach.
Not only did I get to team up with Hadley, one of the Tomales Farmstead cheesemakers (below) and ask her geeky cheese questions, I got to cuddle with her baby between culturing and pressing the queso fresco. Classes at Tomales Farmstead can mean human babies, too.
We visited the growing babes, attempted to herd some goats to the pastures after being milked, peeked in the creamery, and made and likely each ate more cheese in three hours than one should in a week. That's all to say that we left very happy.
Thanks for the opportunity, Tomales Farmstead! I look forward to joining you again soon.
Baby Tomales Farmstead Atika
As a heads up, if you, like me love the combo tour and class events, I'll be teaching a Cheesemaking 101 class nearby at Point Reyes Creamery's The Fork on Saturday, January 13th. We'll tour the farm, visit the creamery, taste Point Reyes's lineup, have lunch, then make cheese with the same milk and cream used for beauties like Bay Blue. Queso fresco, creme fraiche, cultured butter, and ricotta. Tickets up.
Fort Point Beer: Schnebeck on Cheese, Grain Sacks & Natural Wine
The previous week I had visited Mill Valley Beerworks with my beer-loving Aunt Susan. Mill Valley Beerworks was the spot that gave birth to Fort Point Beer.
A couple months ago I spotlighted at Mission Cheese for a special dinner featuring beer and cheddar stuffed sausages. The Mission folks needed some help plating salads. I wanted cheddar sausages. it was a perfect combo and I came in to work very happy.
Then, I learned that not only were they serving housemade brauts, they were pairing said cheese-packed meats to Fort Point beer, and I was even happier.
The previous week I had visited Mill Valley Beerworks with my beer-loving Aunt Susan. Mill Valley Beerworks was the spot that gave birth to Fort Point Beer. It's a small little restaurant in Marin with three to five brewing tanks where brothers Tyler and Justin Catalana launched the venture that would become Fort Point (and serve great food right next to a redwood park). And It was there that I tried.... Manzanita, which inspired what some might call a beer epiphany.
This is what they say about Manzanita on their website:
Manzanita is a deep ruby colored ale with strikingly complex campfire smoke and firewood aromas. Beechwood smoked malt contributes an upfront roastiness while charred manzanita branches add hints of perfume and a slightly tannic woody finish.
In short, it's awesome. Rich yet bright with just the right amount of smokiness and herbal notes. It also just won a Good Food Award. Because it's damn good (as a side note, a lovely man I was dating brought a growler home from at the Good Food Awards marketplace a month ago and treated me to it. Now he's my boyfriend. Coincidence? A little. But worth noting).
This January, Fort Point opened a retail shop and tap room in the Ferry Plaza too.
Anyhow, at the lovely dinner, I made friends with the head brewer, Mike Schnebeck (pictured above), who not only let me visit the brewery and take pics galore, he poured me beer while I asked him an insane amount of questions about yeast and sugar (I'm a little fermentation obsessed), talked to me about his love of cheese (he worked at Cheese Plus years ago), and let me pet the brewery cat. Then he let me email him even more questions and pick his cheese and beer pairing brain. Following are the interview questions. Spoiler: He also likes sandwiches and natural wine.
Thank you Mike, and Fort Point, for your time!
Testing bacteria and yeast activity at Fort Point (like all the time)
What are your favorite 3 cheese and beer pairings? Fort Point beers, please.
Our Professor IPA goes really well with Fiscalini Bandage Wrapped Cheddar. I love how two super intense flavors combine into one new kind of sensation. Professor's hop profile has a tropical slant that accents some of the fruitier cheese tones.
Westfalia and Bellwether Farms San Andreas is a pretty fun party too. That was one of the first cheeses I had that made me go wow! and Westfalia provides just the right amount of cut and complimentary flavor.
Manzanita and Jasper Hill Winnimere is an explosive combo. The spruce adds a nice touch to what is already a very woodsy/campfire combination.
What do you miss most about working with cheese from Cheese Plus?
The sandwiches. I mostly made sandwiches but did some cheese counter work too. I really like making sandwiches. If I wasn't making beer I would probably be making sandwiches. The cheese counter side was great because I was constantly learning and tasting new flavors. Being able to taste is extremely important in brewing too. The broader your palate the better. So in a sense I guess I was training for this job without knowing it. Cheese, like beer, is a vast ocean on the way to distant lands. I miss exploring all of that.
What convinced you that you wanted to be a brewer?
I'm still not entirely convinced. I enjoy brewing beer but I am interested in many things. Lately natural wine has been calling very strongly. I know very little but the things I have learned have really sparked my interest. That's good for brewing though too, having outside interests I think makes you more creative and changes the way you view the job you do every day. If I had got a job at a famous college wine bar when I was 21 perhaps things would be different but then everything would be different because what college would have a wine bar??
Bryce Tyranski, brewer at Fort Point checking out yeast activity in the microscope
Have a favorite style of beer to make? Why?
Lower alcohol beers require less lifting of sacks of grain -those beers can be nicer to make. I have enjoyed making more aromatic, hoppier styles lately. I enjoy the progression of those beers, tasting at different times and being able to detect how the aromas are changing. The biological and chemical side of hops in fermentation is very fascinating.
The scene from Fort Point Brewing’s back door on a misty day
What are you excited about learning next?
Hop aromas. I did a brief experiment with my friends at Cerveceria de Mateveza a few months ago and discovered some very promising results. It feels like we are awash in hoppy beer but I think we have merely scratched the surface. There are many new techniques that will be developed that will change the way we use and think about hops. I am excited to be a part of these innovations. I am also excited to learn about lighter-style beers and hopefully create something that people never knew they loved.
The cuddliest fastest brewery cat ever.
Thanks again, Mike!
Next Weekend, Artisan Cheese Festival Party in San Francisco!
Traditionally cheese festivals are in rural areas. Maybe on a farm, likely within walking distance of animals so kids can milk a goat or two, and wearing field-ready footwear is often encouraged. For the first time ever though, the California Artisan Cheese Guild is throwing its own cheese festival in San Francisco, Saturday, September 19th. I couldn't be more excited. And not a meet-and-greet bring your favorite cheese type of thang, this is a full blown gala.
While I love the romantic idea of people wandering around a farm with a beer in one hand, and gazing into the eyes of the cow that gave the milk for the wedge of cheddar in their hand just five or six months prior, I also like the idea of an urban cheese PAR-TAY (Another sexy one coming up, by the way, is the Southern Cheese Festival in Nashville this Saturday). Why? Because with so many people in San Francisco who love cheese, why not celebrate it where they are?!
If the people love cheese, I say, bring the cheese to the people. Also bring beer and wine to people. Some of my favorite cheesemakers will be at the main Meet-the-Cheesemaker delicious party Saturday night, as will Magnolia Brewing Company, Fort Point Beer Co., and Harmonic Brewing and Sutton Cellars.
The main event is :
Saturday, September 19th, DogPatch Wine Works
- CheeseMaker Celebration with live music, cheese (with the cheesemakers who made it), wine, beer, local jams, and Josie Baker Bread.
- From 6 (if VIP tickets) or 7-10pm. Get your tickets here.
Additional ticketed festival events:
• Friday, September 18, from 6:30-7:30pm, famed local cheesemonger, Emiliano Lee, will host “Preview of Cheese Fest,” a cheese and beer pairing workshop at Eat Real Fest in Oakland. Ticketed on-site.
• Friday, September 18, from 5-7pm, a hoppy happy hour of brews and cheese celebrating these friends in fermentation, will take place at Smokestack at Magnolia Brewing Co. featuring Magnolia beer and cheese from California Artisan Cheese Guild cheesemakers.
• Friday, September 18, from 6-8pm, urban winemaker Carl Sutton will host a cheese and wine evening at Sutton Cellars featuring his wines paired with cheeses from California Artisan Cheese Guild members.
• Saturday, September 19, from 10am-1pm at Dogpatch WineWorks, the San Francisco Milk Maid will teach a hands-on cheesemaking “Curd Nerd” seminar where attendees will learn the basics of cheesemaking, the stages of fermentation, and how to stretch mozzarella and fill burrata.
Hope to see you among all the fermentation!
Birthday Cheese, Thirty-thrive, and beaches
My birthday normally sneaks up on me. Most times I'll be sorting through mail, responding to a text, deeply entrenched in a new episode of Orange is the New Black, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or re-watching Fargo, and then a little timer goes off, chiming (very loudly), "Kirstin, you will officially be a year older in two and a half weeks- you should do something about that." And then I normally arrange a drink or dinner or three.
Not this year, though. I remembered months ahead of time. I asked three close friends to join me at Stinson Beach and Bolinas with me for my thirty-fifth birthday. Oh, or as some people put it, thirty-thrive.
I've been thinking about what turning thirty-five means to me. When I was a little girl I had a vision, seemingly influenced in equal parts by Saved by the Bell fashion and the film Wall Street, of what my life would look like at this age. I'd have long and fluffy permed hair, I'd be tall- all legs, obviously-, wear a lot of red power suits with big shoulder pads, and live in a high rise overlooking Central Park. I'd also be heading a very important company from a corner office with glass walls that overlooked basically everything, and I'd live in a high rise apartment in Manhattan with my very witty and handsome husband who greeted me after work at night with a martini in hand.
Luckily it's okay to re-envision because the only thing that applies from my glittering eighties girlhood fantasy is my long hair (and hey hey, I don't need a perm anymore, my hair has turned curlier every year!). I was, but no longer am married, I never made it past five foot four, and I have no, repeat, no, power suits in my closet.
Despite turning thirty-five and encountering the expectations, mainly my own, that come along with it, I'm happy with where I am. I travel a lot. I live within eight miles from an ocean. I get to play with my friend's babies but get to sleep a full night through. I published a book. I'm working on a writing sample for a second. And I have awesome friends, and my family is super supportive. Also, I accidentally ran into Francis McDormand and her hubby while in a bar on the Marin coast on my birthday (!!!!), so, my life is pretty much complete. Which is probably good because I'm not sure if I could handle martinis every night- this aforementioned future witty husband will have to mix it up with beer or wine too.
The things that I appreciate more about being the age I am is the opportunity it's afforded me to learn the following. I don't always remember these things, but when I do, I'm happier.
- Don't get upset if you don't fulfill your own unrealistic expectations. You'll constantly have more chances to dream, and an even better opportunity will pop up when right later.
- Surround yourself with people who care as much about you as you care for them.
- Go to the ocean, mountains, lake, and visit cheesemakers as much as possible!
- Give yourself at least day off a week.
- Bring only aged cheeses on a hiking trip or to the beach (see realistic expectations- don't make a soft, young cheese feel bad because it wants a little extra refrigerated love, just eat a young cheese later when the time is right). There will always be more burrata later.
The cheeses I brought on our hike and beach trek were L'Amuse Gouda from Holland, Bleating Heart Funky Bleats from Sebastapol, and Hubaner from Switzerland. They were all aged just enough where they held up deliciously in our backpacks until we found a shady waterfall to sit next to for lunch. And that top pic? Chocolate pot de creme on Stinson beach, brought by my lovely friend Joen (non cheese photos also by Joen).
Favorite New Finds at the California Artisan Cheese Fest
The last couple of weeks have been particularly tasty. The weekend of the 14th I drove to the Santa Cruz mountains to man the cheese station at Ridge's Montebello release, chat up collectors and sippers, and share and sample the California cheese love. Early last week I stopped by the UC Alumni Travel Association to talk about a future culinary trip to Ireland (news en route!) and worked on a little writing from my recent UK and Irish trip. Later in the week I got to taste through some newer Oregon wines - Teutonic and Fausse Piste at work. Then, this Sunday I headed to Petaluma for the California Artisan Cheese Festival. My taste buds have been thoroughly charmed.
Here are a few of my favorite finds from these recent roamings.
Gypsy Rose Cheese
A family of three living in Valley Ford, Gypsy Rose has been making goat cheese since 2013. Yet it wasn't until this cheese fest that I actually got a chance to try their goods (pictured at top). They generally focus on raw goat's milk cheese- washed rind. Made with goat milk from their neighbors, Pug's Leap, Gypsy's wheels are wonderful. Goat's milk washed rind cheeses can easily take over one's tongue, but theirs finish clean and bright. Two that especially warmed my cheesy heart was their Django, a mixed cow and goat's milk citrusy semi-soft cheese, and their creamier, all-goat Rosebud. Miss Cheesemonger took some lovely pictures of the family during a visit lately.
Though I looked longingly through the windows while passing by a shop selling sheep's milk ice cream before when traveling through Wales (this was at the point in my trip where I was eating near a half-a-pound of cheese per day and thought it maybe wise that I didn't go in) , this was the first time I've actually tasted sheep's milk ice cream. It's damn tasty. Sheep's milk is very high in butterfat, meaning that the ice cream tends to whip up a little richer than with cow's milk, and it coats your tongue in a velvety layer as it melts.
The ladies of the Adiego family who milk the sheep. If this picture isn't proof that ice cream gives you a glow, I don't know what is. Eat up. Organic milk, eggs, and sugar.
Teutonic & Fausse Piste Winery, Oregon
Teutonic focuses on Germanic varieties and Fausse Piste specializes in Rhone grapes. Teutonic winery was launched by a sommelier responsible for the largest German wine list in the Pacific North West who generally narrows their scope to wines grown on the Mosel slopes. Their Pinot Noirs are lovely, but their Pinot Meunier (the third Champagne grape) and their Edelzwicker blend- Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, Sylvaner, Pinot Noir and Blanc- were my favorites. Fausse Piste was started by a chef who wanted to make food friendly wines who honors hands-off methods, lets his grapes spontaneously ferment, and ages in old or large-format barrels. If you're of the mind that natural wines are more austere than flavorful, Fausse Piste offers a opposite example. I loved their Roussane and Syrah. These I tasted at Solano Cellars, not the cheese fest.
Sonoma Cider
Dwight is the cider-maker for Sonoma Cider. He and his wife launched the company in 2013 and have been pressing apples into dry, off-dry, and sweet cider ever since. They're about medium-sized in production and have a tasting room in Healdsburg that will let you taste their basics, and their seasonal blends like Sasparilla Vanilla.
Baeltane Brewing
A micro-brewery in Novato, California, Baeltane makes Belgian, French, and west coast ales. And their skills show especially in the Belgian, where subtle flavors aren't masked by over-sugaring. Their porters are just as solid, and their Biere de Garde is fresh and session-style. Tasting room open five days a week.
Those were just some of my favorite finds from this past week!
Did you taste something new at the Fest that you loved?