My sheep cheese that I made at Valley Shepherd finally arrived! We all (at, wt, ms, na, a?) thought it was very good. It was not as firm as some of the other wheels, and a bit more earthy than the others.
Happy National Cheese Day
May All your Days be Gouda. We knew it was Dairy Month – but Ken sent us this great card. Thanks, Ken.
Making Sheep Cheese at Valley Shepherd Creamery
Valley Shepherd Creamery – Watch the Video. America’s Heartland PBS episode 415 Dec 10, 2008. New Jersey is home to a different kind of farming operation. The Valley Shepherd Creamery makes a wide variety of cheeses from sheep’s milk. (6:12 minutes)
Contraband Cheese?
AT & MS started out at the Chinatown Farmer’s Market, but walked past the convention center to Historic Morrison Clark Inn (1015 L St. NW). From the NBC4 Blog: Enjoy the hotel’s happy hour by relaxing on the veranda, sipping Big Easy-themed cocktails, and snacking on southern specialties. 5:30-7:30 p.m.; $8 cocktails. After a Mint Julep and a Steel Magnolia, Wendell made his way over with Cheese from Whole Foods at Tenley. Wendell ordered a basket of bread, and we tried to discretely sample the cheese. It was a sheep night, and all was good. The staff were all so nice, but MS idea: A blog on how to best get served at local restaurants / bars — Do you wait at the table? Look for the host? Belly up to the bar?
Pastore (14.99 a lb). Raw sheep milk: Pastore Sini is a semi-hard sheep’s milk cheese with a firm texture and a nutty finish. Pastore is covered in a brown wax, which is indicative of the tradition to preserve cheese by rubbing mud on its exterior. This cheese has been produced by Sini Fulvi for more than twenty years in the Village of Nepi, Province in Lazio, Italy. 4 Stars WWT.
Fiore Sardo: Raw Sheep milk: Siore Sardo is banded by a hard, black, natural rind. This semi-hard cheese is sharp and savory and the slightest shavings of it brings simple, olive oil-dressed pasta alive.
Persille Du Malzieu (from Hever Mons). Origin: Lozère, France. Raw sheep’s milk, the other Roquefort, months spent in the caves of Peyrades produces a salty edge, wild mushroom flavor.
Let Them eat Roquefort
Tariffs set to be levied on a range of EU products including Roquefort and bone-in ham are being dropped. “It’s a great thing,” said Liz Thorpe of New York specialty shop Murray’s Cheese, which — fearing a tariff increase — had ordered 300 extra pounds of Roquefort. Most of her stash sold as customers learned the venerable French blue might be priced off store shelves, Ms. Thorpe said.
Bringing Home the cheese quote
From T5: Never mind the bacon, always bring home the cheese
Cheesing it at Founding Fathers
We went to Founding Farmers — A restaurant run by a collective of 40,000+ American family farmers — to celebrate WWT’s birthday May 11 (even though he was out of town.)
The cheese was kept out in glass domes on the bar, so we figured the “local” cheeses must be good. We ordered an appetizer called: “We want the Funk, Give up the Funk!” $16. The bartender didn’t quite know which was which — though he says it’s hard because they get new cheese every week.
• Today’s special rind-ripened cow’s milk cheese:
We think this was: Thistle Hill Tarentaise, jersey cow cheese. North Pomfret, Vermont.
• Today’s special rind-ripened goat cheese — from NJ? Not sure about this one.
• HOLLY SPRINGS, Sweet Grass Dairy, Thomasville, GA
Holly Springs is our aged, raw goat’s milk cheese. Fresh milk from our herd of Saanen, La Mancha and Nubian goats is handcrafted into wheels and aged 2 months. With an ivory paste and a semi-firm texture, Holly Springs has a warm, nutty flavor that lends itself well to a variety of culinary applications.
• BAYLEY HAZEN BLUE, Jasper Hills Farm, Greensboro, VT
Bayley Hazen Blue is a natural rinded blue cheese. It is made with whole raw milk every other day, primarily with morning milk, which is lower in fat. Ayrshire milk is particularly well suited to the production of blue cheese because of its small fat globules, which are easily broken down during the aging process. Though drier and crumblier than most blues, its texture reminds one of chocolate and butter. It is aged between 4 and 6 months. Bayley Hazen is named after an old military road that traverses the Northeast Kingdom. The road, commissioned by General George Washington was built to carry troops to fight the English on a Canadian front. Though no battle ever took place, the road brought Greensboro its first settlers and continues to be used.
Since we still have some of this in the fridge from the Sheep & Wool Festival, we asked for a substitute: EVERONA PIEDMONT, Everona Farms, Rapidan, VA, sheep. They said it was some type of cheddar — we liked it, and it was sheepy — but we still aren’t sure what kind it was. It tasted familiar, and they think it was from NJ. Could it have been from Valley Shepherd — where we made cheese.
We think one was Mt Tam – one of our favorites from California’s Cowgirl Creamery: Triple cream says it all — like butter.
MS & LL & AKT
Sheep & Wool 2009
The Maryland Sheep & Wool festival this year was again very good. We went on Saturday, and there were a zillion people there. It didn’t rain, and thus was very nice. We found out that the cheesemonger that used to show up (Menhennet) has been replaced by Everona. We go there at 1pm on Saturday, and they had already old out of most of what they had brought, so we didn’t get any of their blues.
Smokey Piedmont
We’ve had their Piedmont before, so this was our chance to check out their smoked version. It was very good. (10/27/2010 update: I bought some Smoked Piedmont again at the Crystal City Farmer’s Market but over til next season. Once again, we liked it – went will with some fresh pears; easy to eat in your hand.)
Shenandoah
A milder sheep milk cheese, which was also very good.
Understanding the living foods we eat
The evening at the Science Museum was very interesting. The speaker, Dr. Catherine Donnelly, is a Professor of Cheese (well, actually ‘Professor of Nutrition and Food Science’) at the U. of Vermont. Her talk was quite technical. There is a law that you can’t sell cheese made from raw milk unless it has been aged for at least 60 days. Her talk was mostly about this law, and the papers and experiments that have been done on it: where bacteria in cheese comes from, what kind of pathogens survive past 60 days, how to detect Listeria in food, and a lot of other stuff about microbiological safety of raw-milk cheese. There were some pictures, and a few charts and graphs. But really, it was very interesting.
She is also a founder of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese.
And then we ate cheese: Mt Tam (Calif.), Montgomery’s Cheddar (England), Cabot Clothbound Cheddar (Vt.), Comte Reserve (France; we had a Comte at one of the Burlington tastings), Parmigiano-Reggiano (Italy), and Baley Hazen Blue (Vt). All of it cow.
Cheese we made arrives in DC
T&M came down to DC to visit and to celebrate his birthday. They brought one of the wheels of cheese we made last October at Valley Shepherd.
Our own wheel of sheep cheese
Valley Shepherd
milk: sheep
type: gouda
aged: October to March
Our very good sheep’s mild cheese that we made at the Vally Shepherd Dairy in New Jersey. It has been aged in their cave since October. Very nice, with comments of: rich, creamy, earthy, leather