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Pink ribbon cheese
Beemster Cheese is joining the fight against breast cancer. Throughout the month of October, Beemster will donate fifty cents for every pound of special edition Vlaskaas Cheese sold to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the world’s largest breast cancer organization. Beemster has promised to donate a minimum of $10,000 to help find a cure.
Beemster’s Vlaskaas is a smooth mild Gouda, perfect for eating with fruit and crackers, or pairing with light, fruity wines. It also melts beautifully, so add it to your favorite macaroni and cheese recipe, or broil it over toast. (The name Vlaskaas means “flax cheese” because it was originally created to celebrate the Harvest Festival of the Flax - but don’t worry, there’s no flax in the cheese.) You don’t need to buy a full pound to be part of Beemster’s donation program; every little bit adds up. We have the cheese pre-cut in various sizes here in the Cheese Department. Hopefully, we can help push Beemster way past their minimum while enjoying a really delicious cheese. Come by and make a difference.
Blue Ribbon Cheese
The 26th Annual American Cheese Conference and Competition was held this August in Austin Texas, and I was lucky enough to be there for four cheese-filled days of cheese classes, cheese speakers, cheese tours and cheese tasting. Cheese people came from all over the United States as well as Canada, Mexico and Europe, and I got to meet makers, retailers, distributors, academicians, and plain old enthusiasts for all things cheese. The culmination of the conference is its annual “Festival of Cheese” where an entire ballroom is filled with over a thousand types of cheeses to taste and savor. Over thirteen hundred cheeses were entered in 88 categories of competition and, as usual, the Bay Area brought home its well-deserved share of honors.
To the surprise of none of its aficionados here at Woodlands, Cowgirl Creamery of Pt Reyes and Petaluma won First Place in its class and Second Place for Best in Show for their classic Red Hawk Washed-Rind Triple Cream. This amazingly complex cheese, with its buttery creamery center and a smelly sticky orange rind, delights all who try it and is a fantastic introduction to the world of washed-rind cheese. Eat it with a sparkling wine and marconia almonds and prepare to be impressed.
Bellwether Farms won in sheep milk categories for its Pepato and San Andreas cheeses while also picking up an award for their cow’s milk Crème Fraiche, proving that quality runs deep with this Petaluma-based cheese maker.
Best in Class San Andreas, a raw sheep’s milk aged cheese, has a wonderfully rounded lightly nutty flavor that works great as a table cheese or shaved over pasta. Their Third Place-winning Crème Fraiche adds rich flavor in both savory and sweet dishes; with chives, it tops salmon, or mixed with sugar, it makes a delicious topping for fresh berries.
We also carry many other Bellwether cheeses here at Woodlands, and they all show the same care and style as their ACS award-winners. Try Bellwether’s Fresh Ricotta in either cow’s or sheep’s milk (we carry both) in your favorite lasagna recipe; feature their buttery, Gouda-style Carmody on your cheese tray; spread their Fromage Blanc on your bagel as an alternative to cream cheese or sprinkled it in your salad as you would a chevre. You won’t be disappointed.
Arcata’s Cypress Grove brought home enough ribbons for a Maypole dance, with their fine goat’s milk cheeses seeming to win in every category entered. Their truly original Truffle Tremor really wowed me with its bloomy rind and soft creamy center flaked with black truffles. If you are fan of their Humboldt Fog (who won in its category as well), you will become an instant BFF to this First in Class winner.
A little (okay, a lot) further east, Iowa’s Milton Creamery won a First Place ribbon for their new Prairie Breeze Cheddar. Made from the milk of local Amish farmers that allow pasture-grazing in season and use no rBST, the Musser Family’s head cheese maker, teenage son Galen, has fashioned a creamy, sharp and nutty cheddar that reaches deep savory notes while retaining a smooth finish. Sliced up and tucked inside a torn-open baguette, this cheddar lets you relish in the craftsmanship of a true farmhand lunch.
Best In Show
Oregon’s Rogue Creamery has a long legacy of excellent cheese making, and it is no surprise to those of us who follow cheese that their Rogue River Blue was crowned this year’s Best In Show. Produced only during the time of year between the fall equinox and the winter solstice, when the local milk is considered to be at its best, and then hand wrapped in grape leaves that have been macerated in Clear Creek’s pear brandy, the new cheeses are aged for up to a year in special rooms made to simulate the ancient caves in Roquefort, France. Silky smooth and full flavored, this pride of the Rogue River Valley is considered by some to be the finest blue cheese ever made. Eagerly anticipated, look for it to be available sometime in early October. Paired with a well-aged Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Port or Gewürztraminer, you'll taste why, out of 1327 cheeses, the judges in Austin gave Rogue River Blue the top prize.
Thanks for reading.
Octavio Saez de Ibarra, The Cheese Department. |
