The Prairies are a Bloomin: Prairie Cheeses

Prairies here, prairies there, Prairies Blooming everywhere. It seems that every which way I turn these days, I get word of a prairie doing something. Active little buggers. Being the perfect home for succulent, tiny Pinnated Grouses -i.e prairie chickens- in Mark Twain's Feast. Offering mineral rich land for cattle to graze on in places like Nebraska. Offering its name up for a soft cheese called Prairie Bloom. Offering its name up for another soft cheese called Prairie Bloom.

Wait, two creamy cheeses with the same name?

At first I thought my week had gotten to me. On my four days off from my day job managing a wine bar, I wrote an article on soufflés for Cheese Connoisseur and created an original soufflé recipe for their spring issue. I might have gotten a cheese headache from how much I ate for recipe testing (and beyond). I'm writing up my first article for Kinfolk magazine. I had a call with my book agent about promotion and marketing and marketing and promotion (eek) and am expecting my manuscript back any day now (take your time, lovely editor). So, I thought, it was likely that I just thought there were two cheeses named Prairie Bloom because I was overwhelmed. I mean, hey, why, not? It's a great name.

Nope. There are two of them! Plus, another similarly named one mentioned below.

I've only tasted one of them (photo above). This one is made by Branched Oak Farm in Nebraska. They're an organic creamery run by the Dittman family, and you haven't heard the last about them from me- I'm featuring another one of their cheeses in my book. About six years ago they started out as a meat and poultry farm. Then, their CSA members asked them to start selling milk. They did. Next up? You guessed it. Cheese. They fell in love with being dairy farmers and cheesemakers so that that they almost entirely swtiched over from meat production (they only sell chickens now).

Their Prairie Bloom cheese is a camembert style that never fails to charm. It's cow's milk, spreadable, milky, clean tasting, and a little buttery. It's refined comfort cheese. It's going in the cheese club I run at Solano Cellars soon.

But I never tried the other Prairie Bloom from Goatsbeard Farm in Harrisburg Missouri. This one is goat's milk. There's even another goat's milk cheese called Little Bloom on the Prairie from Prairie Fruits Farm in Illinois. Haven't tried that one either.

Have you had a chance to try any of these beauties around you? Or, have you spotted another prairie themed cheese near you?

American Cheese for Independence Day

Three of my favorite American dairy morsels that, if I were having a grand fourth of July party, would be all over the cheese plate and maybe even on a burger or two. American Cheesemakers, I love you.

Jasper Hill's Constant Bliss

One of the few soft cheeses in the U.S. made with raw milk, Constant Bliss is based on a Chaource cheese recipe and, says Jasper Hill, is at its finest in the summer months, when the microflora are at most active in the aging process. Go 4th of July! Although it's not technically a double or triple-creme, Constant Bliss tastes nearly as buttery and sexy as the creamiest wedge of Pierre Robert out there.

type: bloomy rind

wine: creamy cheeses like this crave the bubbles and high acidity of a sparkling dry wine

Andante Dairy Crottin, Pyramid or Acapella

Of course you can't find these. That's right, the cheeses of SoYoung Scanlan are so in demand that unless you are dining at Chez Panisse or San Francisco's Ritz Carlton, they're practically unavailble. But its my imaginary party, and as they're three of the best goat cheeses available in this country, they're going on it. If you aren't related to Scanlan, Redwood Hill Farm and Pugs Leap's delicious goat cheeses are more readily on shelves.

type: natural rind goat

wine: Sauvignon Blanc, Gamay, or Cab Franc- choose high acidity, low-oak versions

Clothbound Cheddars

Most times I like to make sure my cheese plates have cow, goat and sheep cheeses, but it's Independence Day, and we want to stick some Cheddars on the platter that are as good as, if not better than, those cheeses made by the Brits we separated from on that noted July 4th. And I'm just picking three gems today (Bellewether Dairy rocks!), so here goes- 3 of my favorite cloth-bound beauties are made by : Shelburne Farms, Cabot Clothbound (aged by Jasper Hill), and Bravo Farms Silver Mountain Cheddar.

type: Semi-hard

wine: deep, spicy reds love the earthy nuances in Cheddars: Bordeaux & Rhone blends, Syrah, Sangiovese, Zinfandel, ++++

Some all American Hip Hop & Funk mixes to listen to with your cheese- an excellent pairing: 

DAM FUNK, Mixtape

DJ Numark, the Clipse, Mixtape

Georgia Anne Muldrow Mix, Mixtape

La Tur: A Cheese, a Girl, and a Spoon

* Kitchen Curd participants, see end of post*

Although numerous sophisticates allege that the firmer, aged cheeses are the most nuanced examples of fermented milk, I’ve always secretly preferred cheese that I can eat with my favorite baby spoon. One of the softies closest to my heart is La Tur.

In La Tur exists all the best characteristics of a soft goat, sheep, and cow’s milk cheese combined. Crafted with expert amounts of each animal’s milk, the flavors in La Tur miraculously highlight one another’s flavors without competing for attention. Grassy and lemony and tangy like a goat cheese, mildly nutty like a sheep’s cheese, and rich and buttery like a cow’s cheese, La Tur has more texture and flavor variations than Mariah Carey has pink stilettos.

About one-and-a-half inches tall and two inches across, La Tur has a rippled surface, reminiscent of a French natural-rind goat cheese crottin, that calms one’s heart like lapping ocean waves. Underneath this is a layer of pure cheese silk. When the cheese is young, the silky layer is thin, and the center is soft and slighty grainy like a chevre. Then, during the height of ripeness, the silk completely takes over the cheese’s interior so that the center becomes creamy, shiny, and soft, like the center of Old Chatham’s Nancy’s Camembert or Spanish Nevat. This is where the spoon comes in.

Produced in the Langhe region of Piedmont, Italy, La Tur is made by the Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa company, craftspeople of softer style Italian cheeses. The mixed-milk curds are ladled into molds, where they age for ten days before they makes their way home to our fridges. Where they then, of course, patiently await us. And wine.

Knowing La Tur is a fresh cheese from the Piedmont region of Italy helps with wine pairing. Try La Tur with a low-oak red wine like a Barbera, Dolcetto or Nebbiolo, from the same Piedmont region as the cheese. If you want to branch out, one could pair the cheese with a equally bright, low oak wine like a Cru Beaujolais (Gamay) or light Loire Valley Red (Cabernet Franc) from the Saumur Champigny or Bourgueil region. As for whites, try a punchy style, such as a  a Sauvignon Blanc, or an unoaked still or sparkling white from Italy.

Whatever you do, give the cheese a chance to shine. Let it come to room temperature, when it will charmingly stick to the cheese paper with which it’s packed.

And remember, La Tur is one of the classiest cheeses you can put on a baby spoon.

Cheese Category: natural/surface ripened

milk: cow, sheep, goat

* Kitchen Curders * Some friends and I tried making the mozz as directed in the Home Creamery book and had a problem towards the end, when the author said to heat the 8 cups of water to 108 degrees. I think she meant 180. Hello recipe testers? Anyhow, I would either suggest trying heating the milk to 180, using another recipe, or doing what we did after the mishap, which was instead of pouring the room temp 108 degree water over the curds, was to heat the curds in the microwave method following her recipe. Then, we'll discuss the outcomes and tribulations in the Kitchen Curd posts coming our way early July.