Even dinner guests who tell me they detest goat cheese tend to devour the goat Gouda I serve. “This is goat cheese??” they’ll say, astonished by how sweet, silky and mellow it is. Yay! Another convert. How can you not love a cheese that tastes like it’s halfway down the path to candy? A fine goat Gouda like Brabander deserves to be loved by everybody, not just people with cow’s-milk allergies. Dutch rock-star retailer Betty Koster oversees the long aging, so no wonder it’s fabulous. Grab your cheese plane and a jar of fig jam and get to know one of The Netherlands’ tastiest exports.
Read moreSleeper Hits of 2017
Seasoned greetings: Deer Creek The Blue Jay
American cheese merchants know they can sell triple-cream Brie without lifting a finger. But what fun is that? The best merchants take risks, bringing in new creations and unfamiliar cheeses that required some hand selling. And every year, a few of these newcomers click with customers and sprint away from the pack. I asked several top retailers from around the country about the new (or newish) cheeses that over-delivered for them this year.
Read moreYour Cheese & Beer Checklist
Here they are: the five cheese-and-beer pairings to try before you die. No rush, right? You have time. But please don’t wait to try these duos. They are fall-weather friendly, and each is practically a religious experience. Let’s just say these are no-fail, road-tested, unimpeachable pairings, and I want to share them with you in time for the party season. So you have homework to do, but here’s the study guide. You’re welcome.
Read moreCheese Raises Dollars for Napa Disaster
It has been quite the week here in smoky Napa. The least of my worries was that I had to cancel a cheese class, leaving me with 12 pounds of fabulous cheese in the fridge. Nothing to do but donate it to an evacuation center or to the nearby first-responders’ station.
To my chagrin, neither would take it. “We can’t take perishables,” the evacuation center worker told me. “We have a caterer,” the guard at the first-responders’ camp said. Okay, then. Reject my cheese. I have a better idea.
Read moreFired-Up Feta
My own sweet pepper crop was largely a failure this summer—voles, sunburn and other excuses. Backup plan: the farmers’ market. The heaps of fleshy red bells at the Napa market made me hungry for kopanisti, the Greek feta spread with sweet and hot peppers. I sort of knew how to make it, and there are plenty of recipes online, but I wanted input from my go-to Greek-food authority, Sotiris Kitrilakis. And that’s how I learned I didn’t know anything about kopanisti.
Read moreBrave or Foolish?
What does it take to get American cheese into a European cheese shop? And will anybody buy it if you do? Raymond Hook, a New York City-based specialty-food broker, is close to someanswers. Working with partners, Hook is attempting to build a global audience for cheeses from Oregon’s Rogue Creamery, Virginia’s Meadow Creek Dairy and Georgia’s Sweet Grass Dairy, among others. The export learning curve has left a few bruises, but Hook is an optimist. Today: London. Tomorrow: the world.
Read moreRisk-Taking Rancher Reaps Rewards
The question I wanted to ask Jack Rudolph and didn’t was what his father thought about his career change. None of my business, but still. I know what MY father would have said if I had had a fancy private-college education and opportunities in high-tech and then chosen to milk goats and make cheese.
Read moreWaiting for Ripe
It has been many years since Judy Schad released a new cheese, and here’s the three-word review: Worth the wait. Flora, the newbie, joins the other distinguished goat cheeses from Capriole, Schad’s pioneering Indiana creamery. Maybe you think the planet already has plenty of soft-ripened goat cheese, but I’m willing to bet that Flora floats to the top.
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 moreUncommon Vision
Several years ago, at the American Cheese Society conference, I met a young woman who told me she planned to open a shop in San Francisco selling only domestic cheeses. Not smart, I thought. How could a cheese business survive without the European classics? Well, six years in, Sarah Dvorak’s Mission Cheese is so successful that it now has a Berkeley sibling—bigger, more ambitious and likely to launch a national trend. Shouldn’t every community have its own cheese bar?
Read more