Wisconsin Cheesemaker Calendar: A Good Cheese Cause

Before I head off for a week of dairy epiphanies at the American Cheese Society Conference in Seattle, I thought I would share a little something that celebrates our country's dairy artisans. Say hello to your new calendar.

Jeanne Carpenter of Cheese Underground and photographer Becca Dilley have crafted a calendar that celebrates twelve of the best cheeesmakers in Wisconsin. Each artisan gets a month to themselves, accompanied by a picture of them with their cheese at their farm, or with their animals.

It is a gorgeous calendar, with beautiful pictures of the makers in their element. Fourth generation cheesemaker Chris Roelli is pictured in front of his Dunbarton Blue, the first female Wisconsin Master Goat Milk Cheesemaker Katie Hedrich is featured with nearly the cutest baby goat possible, and Andy Hatch of Uplands cheese is shown holding a wheel in his green pasture.

There are two other benefits to owning this calendar besides having cheese wheels and baby goats grace your walls.

1. It may certify you as a cheese geek. I'm not promising that the calendar comes with a certificate, but, hanging a Portrait of a Wisconsin Artisan Cheesemaker calendar up in your bedroom will be a fine conversation starter and will certainly separate the cheese meek from the cheese geeks right at the get-go.

2. A portion of the proceeds will support dairy. Jeanne Carpenter hosts a yearly Wisconsin Licensed Cheesemaker Scholarship, and $2,500 of the profits from the calendar go towards helping a new cheesemaker certify themselves. This is not an inexpensive or easy endeavor, and the scholarship goes a long way towards helping someone realize their dairy dreams.

The calendars will be available in September, at cheese shops, at the Wisconsin Original Cheese Festival, and most likely through Cheese Underground.

Leaves me wondering....... where's Cali's calendar? Might have to get on top of that!

Cheese Events: Fromage Hits the Town

You hear that summer is the slow time of the year, when everyone is lounging on porches and taking their time sipping mint juleps or sweet tea, but so not so with cheese events. Summer is when the big whammies are taking place, being announced, or crafted for fall or winter.

Cheese is painting the town red.

Holding the fullest bucket of scarlet paint is cheese in Seattle. Next week I'll be heading to the large and magical American Cheese Society Conference in Washington's fair capital, and join thousands of cheeseheads in eating pounds and pounds of fermented milk. If you don't hear from me in a while after that, blame a lactose daze.

But the cheese events don't stop there. The wheels keep rolling into November and beyond.

Here are some upcoming events that caught my eye.

Vermont Beer and Cheese Tasting: Against the Grain. Jasper Hill and Hill Farmstead Brewery team up in New York City on August 21st to taste through Greensboro artisan goods. Some rare, all delicious

The American Cheese Society Conference in Seattle, Washington, August 25th-29th. Learn about everything from blue cheesemaking to transhumance to beer and cheese paring. Expect a happy lactose coma. See you there!

Home Cheesemaking with Sheana Davis of Delice de la Vallée on September 1st. C'est le Cheese in Sacramento brings in some of the region's best cheese instructors. This time, the powerhouse Davis who owns Epicurean Connection, makes Delice de la Vallée, and runs the inspiring Sonoma Cheese Festival teaches home cooks how to harness the power of fromage in their own kitchens.

Star Provisions in Atlanta, Georgia holds cheese tasting the first Thursday of every month. September 2nd rings in the next one with harvest beers and cheddars. Navigating the website is a little difficult, so call 404-365-0410 x132 for reservations. Plus, it's Cheese Week at Star September 16 through 18th, made happy and shiny with tastings from Jasper Hill, Sweet Grass Dairy and more.

Cheese Politics Class with Carlos Yescas at Murray's Cheese, September 11th. Cheese is more than just milk and rennet- it is history, culture, family, and politics in edible form. This tasting pits red states against blue states and takes a fresh look at cheese anthropology and politics.

A Whey a Day Cheese Tour . Thee uber- knowledgable cheesemonger and educator Anne Saxelby, September 11-12th, takes you to Washington County, New York. There, you'll visit and taste at small cheese farms, go to a harvest festival, attend a Farm to Fork Dinner, and stay in a small in overnight. A fabulous deal.

Fromager's Favorites at Artisanal Cheese, September 14th in New York. Maitre Fromager Max McCalman takes you through his favorites. Get your tummy ready to taste classics and cheeses you've never heard of before.

The Cheese School of San Francisco kicks off their Three-Day Intensive Cheese Curriculum on September 26th, and it runs through the 28th. It is a serious cheese program taught by instructor, writer, importer, and all-around cheese muse, Daphne Zepos. Also, don't miss the school's Harvest Beer & Cheese Fest on October 28th, with from 8-10 cheesemakers, 2 brewers, and other local culinary artisans. All proceeds benefit the California Cheese Guild.

The Riverbank Cheese and Wine Expo, in Riverbank California on October 9th and 10th has wine in the title, but the cheese is where it's at. With top awards handed to queso fresco and Oaxaca string cheese makers, this is one festival not to be missed if you're in SoCal.

The Wisconsin Cheese Festival: Tickets go on sale in September for this November 5- 7 th event, and like last year, they will sell out. Taste cheese from 35 artisan dairies like Uplands and Carr Valley, go on a "Green cheese" day tour, and hit up seminars Rise of the Woman Farmstead Cheesemaker.

You may have noticed that most events are from my neck of the woods. Please, expand my cheese event geography in the comment section, or email me at itsnotyouitsbrie@gmail.com for me to add your events to the list!

Cheese is a Social Animal: Its Circle of Friends

Sure, cheese will go to movies alone, taking pleasure in having the box of Reeses Pieces to itself. It's happy to sit solo at a lunch counter with a slice of bread and revel in the simplicity. But at the end of the day, it likes conversation, an exchange of ideas and flavors, and maybe a drink or two. It craves company.

Cheese is a social animal.

Of course, people debate cheese's social nature. Many have mixed feelings about whether cheese should be served with friends at all (or in other words, with accompaniments).

A great cheese is perfect on its own. Plus, a  jam or sweet thing slathered on without consideration to pairing or flavor can muddle an experience. If you're serving cheese with wine, a too tart or too sweet accouterment can knock the pairing out of balance.

My preference? If the point is wine and cheese pairing, go light on the sides or serve none at all. Wine can get anxious when forced to mingle with cheese's more vibrant friends.

But when the point of tasting cheese is to have a layered, rich experience, don't limit yourself. If the wine or drink you're serving with the cheese clashes with the cheese's buddies, mix it up. Alternate between tasting the beverage and the accoutrements. And relax, the party doesn't need to happen on your tongue all at once.

Though I like many  types of cheese accompaniments, this week I'm focusing on two: honey and preserved walnuts.

Honey is basic. But so is bacon and no one ever complains that it's not enough.

Although delicious enough to serve with nearly everything, honey likes certain flavors best: salty and funky. Think of it as the yin to your yang, the peanut butter to your chocolate.

Not surprisingly, I love a little dab of honey with blue cheese. Blue cheese's salty, tangy, meaty, and sometimes sharp flavors can benefit from a little subtle sugar.

I also like honey with funky cheese, like a super sheepy cheese or a fierce washed-rind. One of my favorite pairings is the Marcelli Family Pecorino Parco with chestnut honey from the same area in Abruzzo. The pecorino is meaty, nutty, and sheepy as hell. The honey highlights the chestnuts flavors in the cheese and coaxes out a little more of the wheel's sweetness.

Pairing with preserved walnuts is not so different. Preserved walnuts are an Armenian delicacy that requires the nut be picked when very young, then cooked in a spiced sugar syrup, shell intact. The first time I tried one was at a class I taught at the San Francisco Cheese School, and I fell in love.

Like honey, preserved walnuts like to shake it up a bit. They would be fine with a nutty cheese like Comté, but they like it a bit funky.

Last month I paired preserved walnuts to Montagne de Jura, a washed-rind mountain cheese from western France. I had two different wheels of the cheese. The youngest was fresh and funky, and the older was a little sweeter and nuttier. Both were amazing with slices of the preserved nut. I also tried nut slices with Point Reyes blue, Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen and Roquefort. Score again and again.

What do you like to pair with stronger cheeses? Do you like to make your own accompaniments?

Cheese Education: Cheese Books that Rock

I work in a wine bar, cook for winemaker events, and cater on occasion, so I am no stranger to people asking about my favorite wine or cookbooks. After all, writers have penned so much on the topics that one could build a stack of books at least as high as a a hundred Empire State buildings. Recommendations are also especially helpful when some wine books out there have the power to kick start a sleep session faster than a bottle of NyQuil.

But only recently have people started to ask me about my favorite cheese books. This could be because there have been a smattering of volumes released within a year or two that have caught the public eye, or it could be because the cheese bounty in the United States is growing and people can't help but  rejoice and notice. Either way, this is good.

Here are seven books about or related to cheese that I love. While this doesn't begin to cover all of my favorites, it does divulge some books that have recently caught or have always kept my attention. I hope you enjoy them too.

Cheese Books Galore

Mastering Cheese is the big daddy. It has the basics, and much, more more. It's one to which I refer back when I need a reminder why triple-creme cheese has less fat than their labels say (bonus!) or to find out which milking animal has more of which vitamins in their milk. Or to read about Capriole or Jasper Hill or...  Here's an interview with author Max McCalman from "It's Not You, it's Brie."

The Cheese Chronicles trails Murray's cheesemonger, buyer and educator Liz Thorpe's visits to some of the best cheesemakers in the United States. It says a lot about American cheese and the devotion of its cheesmakers to perfecting their craft, as it does about Thorpe's expertise and love for the subject. It's lively and inspired, and also a fantastic culinary memoir.

Cheesemonger, by Gordon Edgar, is one of my favorite books, period. Using humor as a guiding force, Edgar links his love for cheese to social activism and explains how what many see as nothing more than fermented milk can inspire a full and aware life. And it's flippin funny.

An oldie but a goodie, Home Cheese Making is a great guide to making cheese in your own kitchen. I've tried to make cheese with other books and have found a wrong temperature in a recipe or two that has thrown off my efforts. Then I end up frustrated. This one is exact. And has abundant recipes inside for the gorgeous cheeses on the cover.

I know, it's kind of cheating. The River Cottage Preserves Handbook is not about cheese. But it loves cheese. The recipes within it, like Melissa's chestnut jam and apple-flower jellies want to be paired with Sierra Mountain Tomme and Garrotxa, for example. So does the ale chutney. Expect to see some trial recipes from this book on the blog in the future.

Laura Werlin's The Cheese Essentials covers, well the cheese essentials. It breaks down why a washed-rind is called a washed-rind and how to find other varieties like Époisses if you are hooked. It also has some great recipes for cheese accouterments, like pan forte. It is simple, friendly, easy to use, and Werlin does a great job in explaining why certain cheeses are how they are (nature vs. nurture?).

Goat Song tells the story of novelist Brad Kessler's move from the city to the Vermont countryside to make cheese and raise goats, in vivid detail. Seriously, goat mating is described down the italicized T. It's real, honest, and a great book. Kessler's a skilled writer who explains his devotion to husbandry, why he and his wife moved from Manhattan to make goat cheese, and the profound impact the decision and the animals have had on his life.

Some local book stores that I like to buy these beauties from are: Omnivore, Walden Pond, Diesel, Pegasus books. Please share your favorites shops, especially if culinary-themed!

What are your favorite cheese books?

Barinaga Sheep Ranch: Marshall Matters.

Cows dot hills in California, not sheep. So when a new wheel rolls around with a pretty ewe on the label, people notice. When the cheese it produces rivals Vermont Shepherd in complexity, people start running after the wheels to chase down a taste.

Take a drive down the Pacific coast highway 1, past the signs draping the Sonoma hills with Swiss and Italian dairy names, and if you're lucky, you'll run into the Basque-inspired Barinaga Sheep's Ranch. Located in Marshall, it is the fourth of five certified sheep's milk dairies in California.

After finding that their successful careers in biology and journalism weren't completely fulfilling their passion for the shepherding life to which Marcia Barinaga's Basque family is devoted, the Barinagas headed to Marin. Marcia returned to her family's sheep farms in the Basque country, studied with her shepherd and cheesemaker relatives, and toured creameries until she had a firm grasp of the Pyrenées cheese methods. Upon her return she focused on making two Basque style cheeses- Basseri, and Txiki. The pictured cheese is Txiki.

I was taken even before slicing into it.

The rind is an orange-brown that recalls the coppery tones of the Grand Canyon. It is rippled and rough from basket draining and graced by an occasional pocked depression or two, an affect of aging. Underneath the rind, the Txiki's golden colored layer leads to a cream colored center. The paste is somewhat smooth, with a texture a little like a young pecorino.

The flavors are vibrant. The milk is sweet and buttery like a cow's, lemony and lightly grassy like a goat's, and nutty and earthy like a sheep's. It's sweet and tangy and spicy and shows the beauty of  farmhouse cheeses that impress because they never try too hard- they're stunning in their simplicity and are made from beautiful milk. Tasting the rind (remember, this is Spain, not France) too packs an even earthier punch.

Txiki is a little over a pound and small enough to slip into a cloth bag for a shephard's lunch. Or an Oakland picnic near my house. I saw some at the Pasta Shop Market Hall in Oakland, conveniently also near my house, next to the picnic. If you bring the cheese, I'll bring a spicy Tempranillo or Grenache for us to share. Might as well pick up some salami and olives while you're at the market too.

Have you tried Barinaga?

French Cheese: Nine Things I Learned.

While sitting in my room in a French bed and breakfast in the Jura region of France, I compiled a list of what I learned about France and cheese. It is longer than the following nine items, but I won't share them all. I don't want you to think that I actually spent one of my nights in one of tastiest countries in the world writing a cheese list. I spent part of the day too. That is, when I wasn't hanging out in the restaurant, drinking espresso and wondering if most regional B & Bs played American soft rock on the stereo.

Here are Eight Things I Learned About French Cheese (and one about butter)

1. Fondue is delicious. It can also be painful. If you have slight problems digesting vast amounts of cow's milk cheese but are so excited to be eating fondue in The Fondue Region of France that you ignore your digestive system, retribution may be fierce.

2. Some people of the Savoie say fondue has to contain Beaufort to be real fondue. Others in the Jura say unless it is all Comté, it's "just" melted cheese. Texans seem to make their own fondue out of melted pimento cheese. I opt for A or B, but I'll taste a good pimento cheese if someone delivers.

3. Unlike it is suggested among many cheese sophisticates, most French people do not eat the rinds of hard cheeses. They cut them off. If you eat them in front of French children, they will look at you funny. But they'll secretly like it.

4. French children love Comté and my American friend who is thirty thinks it smells like feet. It's all about warming the palate at a young age.

5. When one is a guest of a wine importer visiting his winemakers, they will be served a lot of beautiful cheese by sweet French families. I have counted and determined it's required to serve at least one to five cheeses per person who visits. Preserve the presentation of the cheese. Cut wedges out of the wheels and neat slices from the blocks. You don't have to finish it all.

6. The French do not find it odd that you've come to their land to learn about cheese. Why wouldn't you? In fact, you should probably put down that other book you're writing and focus one entirely on French cheese. It just makes more sense.

7. Unless in Paris, you will be served the cheese of the region you are in. It goes well with the wines you buy at the nearby store. It's fresher. And it just flippin rocks there.

8. People in cheese and wine equally appreciate the other. It is understood that both manifest the terrior of the region from which they come and neither one is considered less important or more "snobby." They hold hands and respect each other's contributions to one other.

9. Butter is not generally served with bread in France. Except in Normandy and near the Italian border. You should visit Normandy and the French-Italian border. Raw-milk butter sprinkled with fleur de sel? Yes.

10. I need to visit again.

Links du Fromage: News & Cheese Loveliness

Because the world of cheese is wide and vast and I can’t possibly meet all your dairy needs, here are some of my favorite Links du Fromage this month. Feel free to leave links to your own favorites that I missed in this post’s comment section.

If you need even more reading, check out  Gordon Edgar's Cheesemonger book. I highly recommend it. I attended a tasting with Edgar and author Laura Werlin at 18Reasons in San Francisco, and loved the selections he choose to read from his book, and that he introduced the class to Cobb Hill's Ascutney Mountain. Cool points. Do taste and read.

News

New Writing on the Dairy Crisis:

Dairy Fundamentals Keep Milk Prices from Rising

Whisky’s for drinkin’, Milk is for fighting?

Cheese Fests:

There are still tickets for the American Cheese Society's Cheese-topia in Seattle, starting August 25th. This is the first year that I'm going, and I am super excited! I've heard the sessions fill up soon, so sign up quick.

If you're in the area, don't miss the Vermont Cheesemaker's Festival this July 25th. No wait, it's SOLD OUT! Congratulations, wow.

The first Cheesemonger Invitational rocked the east coast recently, when mongers from San Francisco to New York gathered in Queens and battled cheese wits. They plated, sliced, wrapped, paired, made sexy eyes at the cheese, and professed their love to the dairy world with style galore. Read more here:

The Cheesemonger Invitational: Cheese Nerds Like to Party Too

The First-Ever Cheesemonger Invitational

Winner, Culture Magazine

Links

Wisconsin Cheesemaker's Calendar, Cheese Underground

La Fête du Fromage - le Pécalou, Chez LouLou

A Dairy Goddess Preparing for Cheesemaking

Cheese is Alive on the new Caveman Blue by Rogue Creamery.

The House Mouse, Review: La Clochette Chevre Affinee Rings a Bell

What did I miss? Add a link in the comment section below!