Ask A Cheesemonger: How Do I Eat My Rush Creek?

Rush Creek Reserve for the Holidays

by Austin Coe Butler

For many during the holiday season, cheese comes before or after a meal as its own distinct course. If cheese makes its way onto the dining room table or into the kitchen it is often grated over or whisked into a dish to be subsumed in a supporting role or as a garnish. But this Thanksgiving I’d like to invite you to bring one cheese to the table to take its rightful place as the centerpiece, Rush Creek Reserve.

Rush Creek Reserve is the perfect cheese for large gatherings because of its size and ceremony. Girdled in spruce bark and mottled with glaucous mold, it has an arresting aesthetic like a well composed holiday wreath. Many of you have likely had this cheese before, and what I’m going to tell you may sound perverse, but this year you should bake it and serve it alongside your Thanksgiving spread.

Heated, Rush Creek Reserve takes on an unctuous, velvety texture that reminds me of gravy, demi, or even more decadent jus gras with a syrupy, tacky mouthfeel that is lip-smacking. The “woodsiness” imparted to the cheese by its spruce cambium girdle is perfectly at home alongside traditional Thanksgiving herbs and seasonings like parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, or poultry spice. Served alongside or on lean white meat like turkey, Rush Creek brings needed richness. A tart cranberry sauce with citrus zest pairs perfectly with the savory, meaty flavors of the cheese, too. Gravy on your mashed potatoes? Why not Rush Creek for instant aligot? Fresh bread or crackers with this cheese? Use stuffing as your delivery vehicle of choice. A warm Rush Creek Reserve deserves your gravy boat’s spot on the Thanksgiving table.

To prepare your Rush Creek, set your oven to 150º or its lowest setting. Remove it from its paper wrapper, and place it on a small sheet tray lined with parchment. Bake it for just 5 to 10 minutes. There should be some resistance when you press the top with your finger, but it shouldn’t be bubbling or leaking. Score the perimeter right above the bark and peel back the top rind. Once you remove the top your can serve your Rush Creek as is or place it under the broiler or a hand torch to get some color on it. Take generous spoonfuls of the Rush Creek and drizzle it like honey over whatever you choose. For the uninitiated or unconvinced, try a warm Rush Creek over a sheet tray of roasted vegetables for a hearty, vegetarian meal that many of our mongers cook during this special time when Rush Creek is available.

When you’re in the shop to pick up your Rush Creek, be sure to buy an extra. You’ll want one for your leftovers, trust me.

Blakesville Holiday Cheeses

By Austin Coe Butler

Last week we were thrilled to announce the arrival of our classic holiday release cheeses: Comté Sagesse, Brabander Reserve, and Upland’s Rush Creek Reserve. This week we are ecstatic to announce the arrival of something brand new to the shop: holiday cheeses from Blakesville Creamery!

We’ve worked closely with Blakesville since they opened during the pandemic. Their Lake Effect, Afterglow, and Linedeline quickly became standbys of the case, and the addition of Sunny Ridge, their nod to St. Nectaire, immediately became a staff favorite. In April of last year I drove a few crowlers of Wooden Ship Brewing’s grapefruit and fennel saison to Veronica Pedraza, the head cheesemaker at Blakesviile, to have her custom wash one of their cheeses for us. It was a delicious showcase of what’s growing on 44th St. This past summer we carried their grilling cheese a puck of chèvre wrapped in grape leaves macerated in Maranksa, a Croatian plum brandy, that became soft and smoky when seared. Veronica is a determined and innovative cheesemaker. Her knowledge about cheese is only surpassed by her humor. She’s accompanied by an incredibly hardworking team of cheesemakers and marketers, of which Alisha Norris Jones of Immortal Milk recently joined. Blakesville has quickly garnered many awards for their cheeses, and I have to say that working with Veronica and her team has been one of the great pleasures of my time here at France 44.

When Veronica told me in April that she was working on some holiday cheese, I was immediately in, and these are the first year they’ve been released. We’ll have two with us through the holidays: Truffle Shuffle and Holiday Cheer.

Truffle Shuffle is a small, soft-bloomy rind goat cheese like Lake Effect but with a striking line of black Abruzze truffle tapenade running through the center. Truffle lovers rejoice! This is the cheese for you. The rich, earthy flavor of the truffles is well balanced with the brightness of the goat’s cheese, and the dash of Sicilian sea salt they add gives this cheese the perfect shimmer. I enjoy this cheese with a ribbon of speck, figs, and a nice Barolo, though a cider from Wild Mind or a chardonnay would pair nicely, too.

Holiday Cheer is inspired by the Wisconsin Old Fashioned. For those of you who haven’t had a Sconnie Old Fashioned, they do things a little differently over there. Instead of whiskey, they substitute brandy. After all, Wisconsonites consume half the world’s brandy. Angostura bitters is used to muddle a sugar cube, and it can only be Angostura. The folks on Washington Island consume a shot of the stuff straight at Nelsen’s Hall, the single largest consumer of Angostura bitters in the world. Then you have to decide whether to have it “sour” or “sweet,” in which case it’s topped either with grapefruit or lemon-lime soda, respectively. A Door Co. cherry and orange half-moon skewered with a cocktail pick (ideally a plastic sword) is the garnish. Blakesville’s take on this is to start with a puck of chèvre that is flecked with orange zest and hand wrap each in Japanese Sakura (cherry) leaves. These cherry leaves have been macerated in Korbel Brandy. The flavor of this cheese is refreshing, a little sweet, bright, and citrusy. A bit like our signature chèvre, a customer favorite. It’s excellent paired with our house-made blends of spiced nuts, torrone, American Spoon brandy soaked cherries, a hot mug of Glühwein or, of course, a Wisconsin Old Fashioned.

I love the lightness, the playfulness, that Veronica brings to her cheeses, and these two are no different. The label on Holiday Cheer depicts a goat standing up on a table like a nosy dog going after a cooling roast. It’s got its tongue in a punch bowl with the ladle on the bench and a broken glass on the floor. Be like this goat and stop by the shop this weekend to get some cheese that you can get into some raucous holiday cheer with alongside your friends and family!

Rogue River Blue

by Austin Coe Butler

In the autumn, cool, Pacific air pours into the Rogue River Valley. After a dry summer, rain falls like a benediction. The landscape, parched and increasingly blacked by wildfires, brims again with green, and a kind of second spring unfurls. It is at this moment that the cows at Rogue River Creamery dine on fresh, green pasturage again and Rogue River Blue is made.

Rogue River Blue is about as big a deal as there is in the contemporary world of cheese. It was awarded the prestigious title of “the best cheese in the world” after winning the 2019/2020 World Champion Cheese Contest. Rogue River Blue winning first place was remarkable for many reasons, but most notably it was the first time an American cheese had ever won this global award. Thirty, maybe even only twenty, years ago, it could be argued that Europe was producing “better” cheeses than the United States. But, speaking plainly, the US is now producing some of the best cheeses in the world, cheeses on par with European merits of excellence.

But you can’t eat a title, and they don’t make cheese taste better. I invite you to put that title aside and instead taste it for yourself, enjoy it for what it is, and learn about what makes this cheese phenomenal and inspire excitement.

Rogue River Creamery is located in Central Point, Ore., just north of Medford in the rugged Rogue River Valley. It was originally founded by Tom Vella as Vella Cheese Company. Tom ran the creamery until his death at the age of 100 and his son, Ig (Ignazio) took over. David Gremmels frequented the creamery often. He had a long history in specialty foods and had plans to open a wine bar in Ashland, Ore. He knew he wanted to serve Ig’s cheese, and when he approached Ig about the business, he realized how much he and Ig had in common, how much respect they had for artisan producers and products. A deal was struck that David and his partner, Cary Bryant, would take over the creamery with the understanding that the Vella family cheeses would continue to be produced according to tradition. They shook on it, and in 2002 David and Cary took over the creamery. That same year, the first batch of Rogue River Blue was made.

Rogue River Blue is made with that rich, autumnal cow’s milk precipitated by the first rains. This milk is special because it has equal parts butter fat and protein. Once the cheese is made, it spends its first 30 days in a cellar designed to mimic the Combalou caves where Roquefort is aged, 98% humidity at 50º Fahrenheit. It is then moved to a different cellar where it is inoculated with Penicilium roqueforti (blue mold) at three months and aged a further eight to ten months before being wrapped in Syrah leaves from neighboring Cowhorn vineyard, which have been macerated in pear eau de vie. Rogue River Blue is produced seasonally and the voracious demand for it means its availability is limited. It is released on the autumnal equinox of each year (September 22nd this year, September 23 in 2023 for those of you already planning ahead) and is usually sold out by Christmas.

Rogue River Blue’s flavor is phenomenal. Flavor conveys in an instant what words can only do at length. There is the sweetness of pears poached in port, salty, smokey, and meaty flavors like bacon or guanciale, and a gentle yet piquant blue tingle reminiscent of Roquefort. You’ll find that depending on where you eat from this cheese, near the rind, the center, or elsewhere, different flavors will wane and come to the fore. I’d encourage you to try the leaf, too, which David and his team painstakingly pick in June and July. It lends the cheese a lovely balanced vegetal and fruity flavor. The texture is rich and fudgy, and studded with many different types of fine crystals like calcium lactate, tyrosine, and brushite, all of which are flavorless but add to the textural experience.

This cheese can be savored on its own, but if you’re looking for a pairing, try it on an Effie’s oatcake with a pear gastrique, or on a rosemary cracker. For beverage pairings, enjoy Rogue River Blue alongside a glass of Villainie or Gewürtztramminer. Naturally, Syrah or an Oregon Pinot Noir is a welcomed accompaniment. This cheese can hold its own against stronger beverages like Basel Hayden’s bourbon, Dampfwerk’s pear brandy, or, a personal favorite, the French desert wine Banyuls.

We have six wheels of Rogue River Blue, and this is the only time of year this cheese is available, when the autumn rains return to the Rogue River Valley and the cows are grazing on the preternaturally green grass to make next year’s batch of Rogue River Blue. Stop into the shop this week and buy a wedge. Whether it’s to see what all the hype is about or enjoy an old favorite, you’ll leave with a great American blue cheese.

Gruyere Alpage

Désalpes et le Gruyère d’Alpage Chenau!

by Austin Coe Butler

Last weekend, one of the most singular and exciting events in the world happened in the Alps—a celebration known as Désaples in Switzerland. After a grueling summer of labor and isolation, shepherds descended with their cows from the mountains to the safety of the valleys in the time honored tradition of pastoral transhumance. Pastoral transhumance is the seasonal, rotational grazing of animals, and shepherds around the world from the Basque Country to Mongolia and even Wisconsin follow this ancient practice. But in the Alps, there is a heightened drama and revelry brought to the event. Farmers march their animals into the remote heart of Alps like Hannibal to make cheese for the summer. On their descent, they are fêted by entire towns and villages.

Dèsalpes is not just a gastronomic celebration where cheese is a gustatory pleasure, but a communal event where cheese is at the heart of culture, society, and economy. The shepherds and townspeople are dressed in Tracht, traditional clothing like Dirndl and Lederhosen, while the cows are crowned with plumes of feather grasses, antlers made of fir branches streamed with ribbons, and wreaths of bright, brilliant marigolds bearing massive, clangorous bells. The bells sound less like cowbells and more like the belfries of a town all ringing out in celebration. Cows that have produced the most milk are honored with the largest bells and most magnificent crowns. Cows are also adorned with religious iconography, consecrating milk as a primordial liquid like so many other religions and civilizations. The crowds cheer and applaud the farmers and cows like returning seafarers, and this last moment of the summer becomes a celebration of food and drink, community and tradition, which by night turns raucous with dancing and carousing. I’ve written before of the time I watched this procession in Piedmont (known in Italian as the Tranzhumanza), but I am often reminded of the German woman standing next to me who whispered in wonderment, “Unglaublich, unglaublich…. Incredible, unbelievable…”

Our current wheel of Gruyère Alpage comes from Chenau. Alpage, which refers both to the high altitude pastures and the diversity of grasses and wildflowers the animals graze on, signifies that this Gruyère was made during the summer months at a high altitude from the milk of cows who ate wild forage. Chenau overlooks the Col de Lys, and Guedères, where last year’s Gruyère Alpage was made, is just one valley over, a few miles away as the crow flies. Father and son, Pierre and Christian Boschung move to five different chalets throughout the summer, ascending to a peak elevation of 5,500 feet(!) elevation before descending at the beginning of autumn. These chalets are spartan in their amenities. High above the cloud line, they are removed from the world, like Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. There is no cell service, no electricity, so a small generator is lugged up the mountain for essential tasks like milking. Pierre and Christian conduct the grueling work of making Gruyère by hand in a cauldron over wood fire like the old gruyiers of the 13th century as their aprons, smudged with soot from leaning into the cauldron to stir and cut, attest. The wheels are brought to Fromage Gruyère S.A., the only remaining affineur of Gruyere in Fribourg, where Gruyère was born..

Whereas the Guedères Alpage was marked by a fruity, alpine strawberry aroma, the Chenau Alpage has more savory, cured meat notes like sugar cured bacon with a subtle smokiness. At times it is reminiscent of Parmigiano Reggiano with its tyrosine crunch and brothy savoriness.

Come celebrate Désalpes and the fruits of the summer at the shop with us and a hearty wedge of Gruyère Alpage from Chenau this weekend!

Basque Cheese Blowout

by Austin Coe Butler

I’ve written previously about Ossau-Iraty and the Euskadi, or Basque, people’s incomparable relationship with their local breeds of sheep. Millenia ago, when the Basque arrived in Europe before any other living European ethnicity, they entwined their fate with their sheep by choosing to live the timeworn way of the shepherd, feeding, housing, and caring for their sheep while the sheep provide them with milk, meat, and wool. Instead of keeping their sheep in barns, the Basque keep their sheep in their homes. Traditional Basque homes are three stories with the sheep living on the ground floor heating the shepherds and their families on the upper stories. In Euskada, the Basque language, there is no distinction between speaking about locally made cheese and sheep’s milk cheese; they are both ardi-gasna. It’s from this culture that Ossau-Iraty, the staff favorite sheep’s milk cheese, comes. I’m thrilled to introduce two more sheep’s milk cheeses from the Basque Country that have recently arrived in our case: Tommette Brebis, from Onetik, the Basque cooperative that makes Chebris, a customer favorite, and Tomme Brûlée, from Beillevaire.

Tommette Brebis, literally “little wheel of sheep’s milk cheese,” is a mild, adorable cheese weighing in at a little over a pound. At just two months of age, it is the youngest of our Basque cheeses and has an appropriately gentle, buttery paste with the delicate brightness of lemon curd and the richness of buttered popcorn. The small “tommette” format (think P’tit Basque) is common in Basque cheese markets as sheep produce very little milk and as a result shepherds with smaller herds make these daily, practical tommettes. You’ll often see these tommettes coated in Espelette pepper or smoked.

Tomme Brûlée is another small sheep’s milk tomme with a twist. After several months of aging, the affineurs at Beillevaire step in to brûlée the rind of this cheese, giving it a striking mottled appearance like the side of a brook trout. While I suspect this brûléeing is more for visual appeal, some people swear they can taste a broiled marshmallow or burnt caramel sweetness to it. Tomme Brûlée has rich notes of coconut milk and lime zest, more of that sheep’s milk tang than the Tommette Brebis.

Our wheels of Ossau-Iraty are tasting phenomenal right now. In addition to their classic rich, roasted chestnut savoriness and sweetness, these wheels have a delightful blueberry fruitiness.

Basque sheep cheeses are united by a remarkable creaminess. There’s none of the gritty, granular, or gamey qualities you can sometimes get in sheep’s milk cheese that can turn people away. If you’re new to the world of sheep’s milk cheeses or a long-time fan, this weekend to try these three Basque cheeses, some of the best sheep’s milk cheeses in the world!

Cheese Profile: Capriole Dairy

By Austin Coe Butler

It’s remarkable that you can walk into an American grocery store and buy goat cheese. Until even just recently, you wouldn’t be able to find chèvre in a Cub or artisanal goat’s cheeses made here in the US in a shop like ours. And much of this is owed to the hard work of a few people who started to make goat cheeses back in the 70s.

Enter the American “Goat Ladies.”

The “Goat Ladies” refers to a group of women who came to goat cheese making usually by traveling abroad to western Europe or were inspired by the back to the land movement. Mary Keehn of Cyprus Grove, Laura Chenel, Allison Hooper of Vermont Creamery, Chantal Plasse, Paula Lambert, and Judy Schad of Capriole all are included in this movement of “Goat Ladies.” These women learned from and inspired each other at a time when travel to France or knowledge of goat’s cheesemaking and herd management wasn’t widely available. In 1976 Shad was a PhD candidate in Renaissance Literature at the University of Louisville when she and her husband, Larry, in search of a more sustainable life (and more room to garden), moved their kids to the small town of Greenville, Indiana. On their new farm overlooking the Ohio River, Judy had plenty of room to grow vegetables and acres of flower gardens. She also kept a few goats, but her kids weren’t fond of goat milk. And just like cheesemakers for centuries, Judy fell into cheesemaking out of abundance and necessity.

Now, over thirty years since founding Capriole in 1988, Judy and her team make almost a dozen bright, playful cheeses. We carry two of them, the stunning ash-ripened Sofia and Wabash Cannonball, and both abound with bright, citrusy goat zing. If you’ve come to the counter, odds are we’ve sent you home with a piece of Sofia, or you were captivated by the brainy sphere of a Wabash Cannonball. Sofia is inspired by classic Loire Valley goat’s cheeses and is a gorgeous ingot of goat’s cheese with an ash rind and another layer of ash running horizontally through it, creating a striking visual contrast and appeal against the bone white goat cheese. Wabash Cannonballs, with their brainy, geotrich appearance, are singular in their appearance and have also been dusted in ash.

Ash is common in cheeses like Valençay and Morbier. It has been used for centuries and was likely first used as a way to protect the rind of cheese from insects or prevent the premature formation of a rind, as in Morbier. For fresh goat cheeses in particular, which tend to be lactic set cheeses, their delicate, crumbly texture is too fragile for common preservation techniques like washing, brushing, or oiling to be applied. Particularly in the Loire Valley, which is regarded as region producing some of the best goat’s cheeses, an abundance of grape vine clippings that were incinerated provided a the cinders, although nowadays cheesemakers use food grade vegetable ash or activate charcoal is used.

While the use of ash may have began as a preservation method though, overtime it was found to encourage beneficial surface mold to bloom and ripen the cheese. Ashing makes the surface of goat’s cheese less acidic (more basic), which creates an ideal environment for beneficial molds like Penicilium candidum and Geotrichum to bloom and thrive, and these molds have a big impact on flavor. Those beautiful, gooey cream lines on your piece of Sofia or Wabash Cannonball that run and drip from a baguette or cracker? All the result of molds and bacteria breaking down the proteins in cheese through their metabolism. Without them, these cheeses would be much more similar to the cakey, crumbly chèvre that tops your salads or beets.

Judy and her team no longer manage the goats. Judy still keeps some of her favorites around. Now all the time that went into managing the herd and its health goes into the cheese! Capriole is a clever play on the Latin capra, or goat, and also the leap or caper performed in classical dance or horseback riding. These leaps are also seen in these playful, gregarious goats gamboling across the fields and jumping off one another and into trees. It’s a reminder that, in Clifton Fadiman’s words, cheese is “milk’s leap at immortality.”

Alemar Cheese Apricity

by Austin Coe Butler

Apricity. The warmth of the sun in the winter. An evocative, if obscure, word, and a feeling we’re all familiar with here in the north. It’s often felt in moments of stillness and clarity. It’s also the name of Alemar’s newest cheese, an aptly named orb of lactic-set cow’s milk cheese with a warm, tangy flavor and glowing rind. Where does this flavor come from, and what is a lactic-set cheese?

When milk is left to its own devices in an ideal, warm environment, (or in the back of your fridge well past its best by date) the bacteria and microbes naturally present in milk begin to consume its component parts. Lactobacillales or lactic acid bacteria (LAB) consume and convert the milk sugar lactose into lactic acid. The increase of lactic acid makes milk more acidic or “sour,” causing the proteins in milk to tangle into curd. The discovery of this was a two-fold revolution, firstly, because most people (still) can’t process and digest lactose after infancy without gastrointestinal distress, and, secondly, curd forms the basis of cheese. Those curds can be drained from the whey and what was once a seasonal, indigestible, bland, and highly perishable liquid that was oftentimes a vector for diseases is transformed and preserved into a delicious, valuable, and safe food that could be enjoyed at any time.

Many of the steps we associate with cheesemaking are absent from lactic cheese making. Making lactic cheese can be as simple as warming milk, allowing the indigenous cultures and lactic bacteria to curdle the milk (or adding lemon juice or vinegar), and then gently ladling the curd to a form or cloth to spontaneously drain. Lactic curds are not cut or stirred like rennet curds. They are also not pressed. Lactic cheeses have a weaker curd as the acid drives off much of the calcium into the whey and the curd has to be handled gently. This weaker curd is why you won’t see larger cheeses that are lactic set–they are usually small crottins or logs–but this weaker curd is also the secret to their delicate, mousse-like texture. Many ripened or aged lactic cheeses have a little rennet added to them, as Apricity does, to assist in forming curd.

You’ve no doubt had lactic-set cheeses before like cottage cheese, cream cheese, and goat’s milk chêvre, all defined by their fresh, bright lactic tang. The world of lactic cheeses is also fascinating and complex, and lactic cheese can be found throughout the cheese eating world like Indian paneer, Italian ricotta, Tyrolean Graukäse, and Georgian dambalkhacho. Lactic cheeses tend to be fresh cheeses like chêvre or cottage cheese, though there are some ripened or aged lactic cheeses like Valençay, Chaoruce, and Apricity, which develop a tantalizing cream line.

Apricity has a gently yeasty tang, reminiscent of cultured yogurt, tart white grapes, or natural, unfiltered white wine. It’s a perfect accompaniment on these cooler nights as fall begin to tinge the tree tops. If you’re a fan of some of our Italian softies like Il Nocciolo, La Tur, or Robiolina, or a Fromagophile who loves fresh chêvre, or you just like to sit down with a bowl of cottage cheese, Apricity is the cheese for you.

La Cabezuela

La Cabezuela Tradicional Semicurado

by Austin Coe Butler

Juan Luis Royeula and Yolanda Campos Gaspar needed a change. The couple was doing well in their respective careers in communications and journalism, and Spain in the 80s and 90s was marked with a certain optimism after Franco’s death opened the country economically and culturally, but the two were dissatisfied. Juan Luis, uncertain, searching for his life’s passion, took a cheesemaking workshop on a whim, and in an instant he recognized his life’s passion. Juan Luis and Yolando quit their jobs, and in the process of making their passion their profession, they not only found themselves, but brought a local breed of goat from the brink of extinction, revived a failing, rural dairy, and preserved a rare, traditional Spanish cheese.

First, the Royuela-Campos family had to find a dairy to make cheese. In the small, rural town of Fresnedillas de la Oliva, which Juan Luis describes as “close to everywhere and far from anywhere,” they found the ailing Quesos La Cabezuela. Quesos La Cabezuela was a small, family run quesería specializing in goat’s milk cheeses that had fallen on hard times. It was on the brink of foreclosure when Juan Luis and Yolanda found it. Fresnedillas de la Oliva is on the western border of the Madrid region, and Quesos La Cabezuela is a tight, rustic operation. All of Juan Luis’s cheese making, aging, and selling happen within just a few footsteps. But that was all the space Juan Luis and Yolanda needed.

Next, the goats. Juan Luis learned of the Guadarrama goat that lives in the sierras, or mountains, surrounding Madrid, and are found nowhere else in the world. These elegant goats, streaked black and white with thick tufts of hair, are hardy yet graceful on the rocky terrain of the dehesa landscape, where they graze on pastures of thyme, heather, and grasses studded with acorns, imbuing their milk, and the cheese, with the region’s unique terroir. They easily endure the cold and rainy climate of the Guadarrama. Despite their hardiness, the Guadarrama were on the brink of extinction. They are not a meat breed, and they produce very little milk—whereas most goats produce between 3 to 4 liters of milk per day, the Guadarrama produces a mere 2 liters. For these reasons, the goats were rarely bred. In the mid-90s though, thanks to an association of farmers and cheesemakers like Juan Luis, the Guadarrama goats have been brought back from the brink of extinction. Juan Luis fell in love with these gregarious creatures and decided to make all of his cheeses exclusively from their milk. La Cabezuela works only with shepherds who have 100% Guadarrama goats. Despite these conservation measures though, there are still only 10,000 at present.

At last, there is the cheese. La Cabezuela Tradicional is remarkable for many reasons, but there are two features that are especially unique. First, it is maybe the only historically Spanish soft-ripened goat cheese. Other Spanish soft-ripened or bloomy-rinded cheeses like Veigadarte or Cana di Cabra were imported from France in the immediate post-Franco years. Few traditional Spanish cheeses survived the Franco years, with the functional ban on artisanal cheese production. The recipe for this cheese dates back to 1750, when it was a family farm cheese, and was kept alive by only a few cheesemakers through those dark decades of repression.

What’s equally unique is that La Cabezuela Tradicional Semicurado is really old for a bloomy rind cheese. Spanish cheeses labeled semicurado, or “semi-cured,” are aged between four to six months, and curado cheeses are anything past this. Manchego and Mahón, those firmer, more well-known cheeses are often aged at these profiles, but four to six months is a long time for a soft, bloomy rinded cheese! For context, think of having a piece of brie, camembert, or a Chabichou for six months. It would be pretty crusty and unpalatable. Instead, La Cabezuela Tradicional is able to retain moisture and its soft bloomy rind while developing flavors often found in older cheeses. It’s able to mature for this long because of its larger size and brining. Once the cheese is removed from the brine, it is delicately hand salted and allowed to mature for two months, creating an ideal environment for Penicilium and Geotrichum molds to bloom, binding the cheese together, and developing delicate white mushroom flavors. Some of our wheels of La Cabezuela Tradicional have a really unique cadmium orange mold called Sporendonema casei, which is only found on cheese and in cheese caves. While orange mold may instill fear in some, this mold is beneficial and is actually considered a desirable trait by cheesemakers, including Juan Luis, and cheese connoisseurs as an indicator of superior flavor. Cheeses with this mold often have a complex nutty and mushroomy flavor.

Eating La Cabezuela Tradicional is kind of like eating three cheeses in one. The delicate mushroomy, brassicaceous rind is reminiscent of a farmhouse brie, while the cream line has a malty, buttery flavor that gives way at last to a sherbert-like center that is bright, tangy, and herbaceous. La Cabezuela Tradicional Semicurado is many lofty things: a cultural and gastronomic expression of a tradition in a modern and sustainable way; the discovery of a life’s passion. It’s also simply a phenomenal cheese.

L'amuse Signature Gouda

by Austin Coe Butler

No doubt you’ve seen the stack of dark orange wheels on our counter, simply standing at room temperature, likely with the cross-section of a half wheel or wedge spangled with crystals. Customers seem to gravitate towards it, mesmerized. This enchanting tower of cheese is built from wheels of L’amuse Signature 2-Year Gouda, and there is no gouda crunchier, or more crystally that L’amuse Signature in our case. Its rich, butterscotch, burnt sugar sweetness and creamy paste studded with crystals have us refer to it lovingly as “cheese candy.”

But what are those craveable, crunchy crystals? In cheese, crystals are typically either calcium lactate or tyrosine.

Calcium lactate is formed as cheese ages and lactic acid comes into contact with the latent calcium in cheese. It’s most often found in aged cheddars, where it is seen on the surface, and doesn’t concern us at the present moment. Tyrosine is an amino acid found in many well-aged cheeses like Alpines, goudas, cheddars, and Grana style cheeses. It is the tell-tale sign of the bacteria Lactobacillus helveticus hard at work. L. helveticus is highly proteolytic, meaning it likes to break down proteins into amino acids like tyrosine. Proteolysis is central to cheese making, as it happens primarily when rennet is added to liquid milk causing casein proteins to break and unravel, and thus coagulating milk into curd, the foundation of cheese. Proteolysis can also happen secondarily, though, through the microbial metabolism of bacteria, yeast, and mold endemic or introduced to the milk, and as the microbes continue to break down proteins, deposits of tyrosine begin to form. (We could also call this by another name: fermentation, as cheese is a living, breathing food.) Calcium lactate and tyrosine are often erroneously called “flavor crystals” or “salt crystals,” but neither calcium lactate nor tyrosine have any flavor, and instead they are great indicators of flavors.

Why call them that then? Simply, marketing. But their presence almost always means you’re about to crunch on a piece of cheese that has had time to concentrate big, complex flavors.

L’amuse Signature 2-Year Gouda has all of these big, complex flavors like aged soy sauce, roasted hazelnuts, or brown butter as the result of a daring, unorthodox process that pays off big. Fromagerie L’amuse is Amsterdam’s premier cheese shop run by Betty and Martin Koster and they provide many of our favorite goudas like Wilde Weide and the goat’s milk Brabander. Betty and Martin buy young wheels of gouda from the Cono Cheesemakers, best known for Beemster, and then their team of opeleggers, the Dutch word for an affineur, or cheese ager, “finish” or mature the cheeses at their own facility by aging them in ideal conditions, and here that big risk, high reward comes in.

What distinguishes L’amuse Signature 2-year gouda is the temperature at which the wheels are aged. Most goudas are aged at a fairly cool temperature, between 45–50ºF, and the Koster’s age most of their goudas at this temperature. But for L’amuse Signature they age the wheels at a warmer temperature, much closer to Parmigiano Reggiano’s maturing temperature than to other goudas, around 55–60ºF. Higher temperature means more microbial activity, more fermentation, more proteolysis, more tyrosine crystals, and more of those big, sweet flavors. The risk is that if there’s anything amiss with the cheese, or if there are any “off” flavors to begin with, they will be accelerated and exacerbated, and the investment of two-years into that wheel of cheese while taking up space and not paying rent was all for naught.

Signature 2-year is phenomenal for all occasions, but it is especially at home for dessert. Served alongside chocolate and espresso at the end of a meal, the bitterness rounds and complements the sweetness. There’s a complex flavor like deeply browned, tantalizingly burnt meat at play in L’amuse Signature that is right at home with a strong, dark Dutch beer or snifter of peaty whiskey that make for an unforgettable experience after dinner pairing. Absolutely inundated with tomatoes during late summer? Try this recipe for “Snow with L’amuse Signature,” a tart made with tomatoes seasoned in balsamic vinegar and black pepper on crisp phyllo dough topped with dusting of L’amuse Signature and enjoy alongside a glass of crystal clear beef-stock. Or just eat it on its own. When was the last time you paired a Butterfinger?

Cheese Profile: Shepherd's Way Farm

by Austin Coe Butler

Steven and Jodi Ohlsen Read knew they would buy the farm in Nerstrand after a series of coincidences so conspicuous and convincing that we often attribute them to fate. They mistakenly received a response to their advertisement searching for a farm by a man who had meant to call the advertisement above theirs. The real estate agent’s last name was Hope, and when the three of them took a tour of the property, upon exiting the barn, a rainbow stretched across the fields and a sudden gust of wind blew the FOR SALE sign down. A moment of silence passed as Jodi and Steven understood that they had arrived at the new home of Shepherd’s Way.

Jodi and Steven were kind enough to open their farm to us as we picked up our cheese order this past Tuesday. Upon arriving at Shepherd’s Way we were greeted by Beep, an old barn cat who happily received our scratches as we waited for Jodi to change out of her work clothes. Starlings alighted on wires and ducks huddled in the shade. Steven and Jodi took us on a tour of the barn, which houses the whole operation, including the milking parlor, make room, and several aging rooms. Steven started making cheese back in 1994, but now handles the herd, milking, and pasteurizing.

Jodi was drawn to cheese making through an innate curiosity. In a previous life, she had been a professional journalist and editor, writing articles for publications that ranged from food and children to science and medicine. She would help Steven make the cheese and pester him with questions about the process to which he would respond with tight, technical responses replete with scientific terms. Jodi would unwind these into a way she could understand them just for the pleasure of knowing. Twenty years later, Jodi has made every single pound of cheese that has left Shepherd’s Way. The writer’s inquisitiveness is still there, though. She compares the tangible satisfaction of holding and tasting wheels cheese to seeing a magazine come together for print.

Under the shade of a great Burr Oak that recalled why French trappers called this part of Minnesota the “Grand Bois” or Big Woods, Jodi and Steven sat with us while we enjoyed a selection of their sheep’s milk, skyr (an Icelandic yogurt), and cheese. We spoke of the farm’s founding, the creation of a Cheese CSA that began in response to a devastating fire that destroyed 500 sheep and all the animal housing, and their long tenure at many of the Twin Cities farmers markets. We spoke, too, of the common misconceptions around sheep’s milk. Sheep’s milk is uncommon in the United States for a variety of reasons, and as such it is misunderstood. One misconception people have about sheep’s milk and sheep’s milk cheeses is that they are “gamey” or “animally” like goat’s milk and goat’s milk cheeses with their capric tang and billy-goat funk. We’ve had customers who respond to the offer to sample a sheep’s milk cheese, “No, thank you, I don’t like goat’s milk.” Steven, amused, mentioned the surprise verging on disappointment of market goers who try their fresh sheep’s milk expecting something feral and sour remark, “It tastes like milk…”

Sheep’s milk cheeses can have a tang to them, if the cheesemaker chooses to draw those qualities out, but even then it has a more lactic, lemony tang as opposed to the more bracing, gamey bite some people find off-putting about some goat’s milk cheese. Most sheep’s milk cheese have a rich, butteriness that is nutty and sweet, owing to the larger percentage of fat and solids in the milk than goat’s or cow’s milk. Think of the richness of Manchego, Ossau-Iraty, or Verano, not to mention the celestial creaminess of soft sheep’s milk cheeses like Brebirousse, Fiorita, or Shepherd’s Way’s Hidden Falls.

We currently carry two of Jodi and Steven’s cheeses, the soft, bloomy-rinded Hidden Falls, which is delicate, buttery, and the perfect introduction to sheep’s milk cheese, and Sogn Tomme, a firmer sheep’s milk cheese that just won a gold medal from the American Cheese Society. Sogn is bright, the perfect cheese to enjoy on a late-summer picnic.

What’s happening at Shepherd’s Way is what we love about American farmstead cheese. Great cheese made by great people from great milk.