If you’re a Gouda fan, add this crystalline beauty to your must-try list. Produced by an Amish couple in upstate New York with the milk from their 200-acre farm, it has everything I want in aged Gouda: a seductive toffee and pineapple aroma, a creamy interior dotted with crunchy bits and a deep, salted-caramel flavor. Some Goudas are so cloying that one bite is enough, but this cheese I couldn’t stop nibbling.
Read moreWhen a Cheese Dies
“No more Landaff” is not a phrase I wanted to read this year, or ever. I loved this cheese. But New Hampshire’s Landaff Creamery is closing, and its signature cheese—Landaff—will soon live only in memory. It makes me sad to lose a farmstead producer and to realize how quickly and quietly a unique cheese like Landaff can essentially go extinct. You might want to snap up a wedge while you can; you’ll find a mail-order source in my post.
Read moreTrouble in Paradise
Sarah Marcus photo (right): Christine Hyatt
How quickly cheesemakers’ livelihoods can crater, especially when they make mostly perishable cheeses or care for animals that have to be milked twice a day. What are you supposed to do with that milk when nobody’s buying your cheese? I checked in with two West Coast cheesemakers I greatly admire to see how they’re faring in this crisis and how they plan to climb out of the pit. Because they will.
Read moreLightning Strikes Twice
Really, what are the chances? Two thousand cheeses in a competition and the Best of Show is a repeater? But that was the case in Denver last weekend when the American Cheese Society judges, tasting blind and scoring independently, awarded top honors to the same cheese that prevailed in 2014. I was among this year’s group of judges so I know the winner was worthy. But I tasted several other newcomers that impressed me almost as much.
Read moreWine Family's Awesome Cheeses
Mostly goat: Velvet Sister
Nothing makes cheese taste better than seeing the place where it’s made. Alas, most American creameries don’t welcome visitors. Sanitation is the main issue, and few small producers have the staff for tours. But in California’s scenic Anderson Valley, Pennyroyal Farmstead Cheese is charting a different course. In March, the three-year-old Boonville creamery opened a tasting room and began offering tours. From anywhere, it’s worth the journey.
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