cheeseunderground monona terrace, Wisconsin cheese

Taste 50 Cheeses at March 19 World Champion Cheese Charity Event

Hey cheese peeps: the world’s largest cheese competition is coming to Madison, and with it, an exclusive opportunity for you to taste 50 of the world’s most rare cheeses and witness judges from six continents execute the final round of judging to determine the 2014 World Champion Cheese.

On Wednesday, March 19, the World Championship Cheese Contest and Wisconsin Cheese Originals welcome the public to Exhibition Hall at Monona Terrace for the Champion Cheese Charity Event – A Benefit for Second Harvest Foodbank. Tickets are $35 and will be sold only in advance at www.cheesecontest.com.  The event hosts guarantee at least $10,000 from ticket proceeds will be donated to Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. Attendance is capped at 600 persons, and this event WILL sell out.

Cheeses for the evening will be selected by my cheese sister, Sara Hill, and myself, from 2,615 entrants into the 30th biennial World Championship Cheese Contest, arriving from not only across the United States and great European cheesemaking nations, but also from Australia, Canada, Croatia, Japan, Norway, Romania and South Africa.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the Championship Round of Judging to start at 7 p.m.  Attendees will be on hand for the final round of cheese judging, as 50 expert judges from 20 countries determine and name the Best of Show. At least 50 of the world’s best and most rare cheeses will be sampled until 9 p.m. Complimentary appetizers will be served and a cash bar available.

A BIG thank you to our event sponsors for their support: Belgioioso Cheese, Brennan’s Market, Holland’s Family Cheese, Larry’s Market, Metcalfe’s Market, and Sartori.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

cheeseunderground crave brothers farmstead cheese, Wisconsin cheese

Welcome Back, Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese

More than 7 months after suffering a voluntary recall of their Les Freres, Petit Frere and Petit Frere with Truffle cheeses, Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese in Waterloo, Wisconsin is back in business this week, resulting in a collective cheer of “whoo-hoo!” from mozzarella lovers everywhere.

Crave Brothers Farmstead Rope, Fresh Mozzarella Logs, Fresh Mozzarella Balls, and their many fresh mozzarella balls in brine – including my favorite, Marinated Ciliegine – are back in stores. As I stocked the shelves at Metcalfe’s Market Hilldale this afternoon (where I work as the specialty cheese manager), customers stopped and put packages of the cheese in their carts before I could even get them onto the shelf. I’m thinking I’m going to have to re-order before the weekend.

While the family has remained understandably quiet since the plant shut down in July, the industry has rallied around the Craves with virtual hugs, supportive emails and note cards, wishing them a full recovery and healthy road to get back on their feet. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted on their website that “this outbreak appears to be over” and the Craves posted a simple “We’re making Cheese!” on their website.

So here’s a hearty welcome back to Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese (insert giant hug here). We sure missed you guys.

cheeseunderground bletsoe's cheese, brian gunning, cheese crisp, cracker, decatur dairy, wausome wafers, Wisconsin cheese

Say This 10 Times Fast: Awesome Wausome Wafers From Wausau

You know that feeling when you discover a new food you never knew existed but after consuming twice the number of recommended servings in one sitting, promptly decide you can no longer live without it? Yeah, that happened to me this week with cheese crisps, courtesy of a man named Brian Gunning from Wausau, Wisconsin.

In between working more than a decade as a graphic designer, marketing consulting and mobile computing inventor (he holds a patent for a Batman-belt-like inventory device), Brian has been secretly cooking cheese into perfect circles of pure crispy bliss for years. He started in 2000, as a bachelor in downtown Madison, who for fun would fry cheese in a skillet until it turned crispy.

“I remember being really excited and taking my first batch of cheese to work one day, and the people I worked with were absolutely revolted that I would do such a thing. So needless to say, I gave up on it for awhile,” he said. Luckily for us, he perservered. Fast forward a few years, now married with children, Brian started packing his kids’ lunch and including the ever popular Goldfish crackers. “Have you ever looked at the nutritional value of Goldfish? They’re terrible for you,” he said. “So instead, I put some cheese on the griddle, and the kids liked it. So I started packing cheese crisps in their lunches instead.”

Today, Brian is still cooking cheese, and as it turns out, he’s gotten incredbily good at it. After setting up an 800-foot commercial kitchen near Wausau using stainless steel equipment he scored from a bankrupt Krispy Creme (thank you failed donuts!), he’s unveiled his new Wausome Wafers (Wholesome + Awesome = Wausome) to a select number of specialty food stores in Wisconsin, where they’re taking off like an out of control grease fire. Well, maybe that’s not be best way to put it, but you know what I mean.

So what exactly are Wausome Wafers? Pure and simple, they are fried cheese (well, actually baked, but they seem fried – I got sort of lost in Brian’s scientific cooking explanation – there’s a reason I’m an English major). No gluten, no carbs, and sugar free. Think Parmesan crisps, only better, using different kinds of cheese made only in Wisconsin.

The first two Wausome Wafer flavors to hit the market are Clever Cheddar and Hug & Kiss Colby/Swiss. The Clever Cheddar is made entirely from cheddar crafted at Bletsoe’s Honey Bee Cheese Factory near Wausau. It’s a straight-forward cheese crisp that’s surprisingly addictive, containing the perfect amount of cheddary goodness. Then there’s the Hug & Kiss Colby/Swiss. The cheese is made by Decatur Dairy (Colby Swiss was invented by Master Cheesemaker Steve Stettler) and it’s sweet, with a bite of swiss, “right in the kisser.” It comes out lacey but marbled, smooth but sharp, a true Wisconsin original.

Brian has four more flavors in development, including Soupa Gouda, Party Havarti, Such Bliss Swiss, and Forever Cheddar (an aged cheddar crisp). When I asked about his recipe development process, he said his market research is simple.

“I take them to church and put them out at the potluck and stand in the background. Then I watch the expressions of people who eat them. Typically, if they turn out well, the little old ladies devour them. They gather them up in a napkin and run off to someone else and say, ‘You have to eat this!’ Then I know I’ve got a winner,” he said.

Each crisp is 1-1/2 inches in diameter and packaged in just about the cutest, best-ever designed packaging you’ve ever seen. Because the crisps are fragile, the boxes are triangular, with each lid acting as a spring cushion. And in a novel marketing concept, each box tells the story of the cheese and the cheesemaker, not the story of the product creator.

“I wanted to tell the stories and celebrate the cheeses and cheesemakers, because without them, this product would not exist,” Brian says.

And what about the name? Turns out it’s a combination of factors. The first was the City of Wausau’s attempt to rebrand itself with the ever-creative tagline of: “It’s Wausome.” Shockingly, the slogan failed, but a local high school kid did adopt “wausome” as his Twitter handle and made a few t-shirts. It was Brian’s mother-in-law who suggested Brian adopt “Wausome Wafers” as the product name, and it was a mentor at the county entrepreneurial center who gave him the tagline: “Wholesome + Awesome = Wausome.”

“So basically, I stole the name from a high school kid, my mother-in-law and a teacher. I’m surrounded by creative people. It’s a good thing,” he said. “I added my skills of knowing how to brand something to make it personable and effective, then added my background in supply chain and an obsession with eating fried cheese late at night.”

Wausome Wafers are shelf-stable with a 6-month shelf life. Brian encourages consumers to not only enjoy the wafers, but to then visit the cheesemakers’ websites and also purchase the cheese from which it was fried to a crisp. “I’m just helping cheese realize it’s true potential,” he says. And I would argue he’s accomplished that goal.

To get your very own box of Wausome Wafers, visit Vino Latte, Lil Ole Winemakers Shoppe, and Downtown Grocery in Wausau. They’ll also be available in Madison at Metcalfe’s Market-Hilldale starting Saturday, and at Fromagination early next week. Once you have your very own box, you’ll be saying it with me: Wausome Wafers are awesome!

cheeseunderground LaClare Farms, Landmark Creamery, Rose boero, Wisconsin cheese, wisconsin cheese originals

Want To Be A Wisconsin Cheesemaker?

Good news aspiring cheesemakers! Wisconsin Cheese Originals announced today applications for its 2014 Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship are available. The $2,500 award will help one aspiring cheesemaker earn his or her Wisconsin cheesemaking license and make new artisan, farmstead or specialty cheeses.

As you know, Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to require cheesemakers to be licensed, a lengthy process that can take as long as 18 months, requires the attendance at five cheesemaking courses, and 240 hours of apprenticeship with an existing licensed Wisconsin cheesemaker.

Applications for the 2014 Wisconsin Cheese Originals Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship are available for download at www.WisconsinCheeseOriginals.com. Applications are due March 20. The recipient will be chosen by a review committee and notified by April 7.

Wisconsin Cheese Originals has awarded $10,000 in scholarship monies to beginning cheesemakers since 2010. Past program scholarship recipients include:

2013: Jennifer Digman owns and runs Krayola Sky Dairy, a goat dairy in Cuba City. She successfully obtained her cheesemaker’s license in 2013 after earning the Wisconsin Cheese Originals scholarship. She works at both Uplands Cheese and Roelli Cheese as a professional affineur (cheese aging specialist). Digman has dreams of building her own on-farm creamery to craft fresh, hand-dipped chevre, aged mixed milk artisan cheeses, and hand-washed Alpine-styles. She hopes to pass the operation down to her two young daughters.

2012: Anna Landmark owns and runs a small-scale sustainable farm with her husband and children in Albany, Wis. In 2013, Anna successfully launched Landmark Creamery and began making seasonal sheep, cow and water buffalo cheeses, using the facilities at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, Wis. At the 2013 Wisconsin Cheese Originals Festival, her Bawdy Buffalo, a water buffalo Taleggio-style cheese, was named one of the best up-and-coming American Original cheeses in the nation.

2011: Rose Boero, a dairy goat breeder in Custer, Wis, successfully obtained her cheesemaker’s license after receiving the scholarship in 2011. Today, she makes a variety of goat’s milk cheeses at Willow Creek Cheese and teaches beginning cheesemaking classes in her home for amateur cheesemakers. She is developing plans to build her own cheese plant at her dairy goat farm, where she and her husband have raised Toggenburg dairy goats for 25 years.

2010: Katie Hedrich Furhmann, a goat’s milk cheesemaker, obtained her license after receiving the first Wisconsin Cheese Originals Scholarship. At the 2011 U.S. Champion Cheese Contest, she took Best in Show for her goat’s milk cheese, LaClare Farms Evalon, and was named the 2011 U.S. Champion Cheesemaker, the youngest cheesemaker to ever earn the title. In 2013, she and her family built a new farmstead cheese plant on their farm near Pipe, Wis. She launches new cheeses annually.

For those of you not in the know, Wisconsin Cheese Originals is an organization I started in 2009. Our motto is: Have Fun. Do Good. Eat Cheese. We are a membership organization sharing information about Wisconsin artisan cheeses through a variety of events, all in the spirit of celebrating Wisconsin cheesemakers. You can join for just $35 a year and be invited to tours, dinners, classes and super cool tasting events. More info on becoming a cheese geek here: Wisconsin Cheese Originals.

cheeseunderground artisan cheese, juustoleipa, Wisconsin cheese

Screw Velveeta, Eat Juustoleipa

Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board

As Kraft continues to perpetuate its “Velveeta Shortage = World is Ending” public relations campaign to drive sales for the Super Bowl — seriously, show me a store where the shelves are bare of processed cheese — I say it’s time to start a new trend here in Subarctica and eat warm cheese that does not consist of milk and whey protein concentrate. 

Yes, I made up the term Subarctica to represent where I live in Wisconsin, even though we appear to be on the tail end of an arctic polar vortex blitz featuring temps of minus 20 degrees F for the past week. So it seems to be a good time to talk about something warm. And what’s better than warm cheese?

People, I give you the best warm cheese outside fresh curds from a vat. Called Juustoleipa (pronounced oo-stah-lee-pah, with the first syllable rhyming with the word who), this cheese originates from Scandinavia, where the fine folks in northern Finland have been making it from reindeer, cow and goat milk for 200 years. 

In Wisconsin, you’ll sometimes see it labeled as Bread Cheese, because a) that’s how Juustoleipa translates in English, and b) the cheese is actually baked (like bread) during the cheesemaking process. Made without a starter culture – a process similar to making feta – Juustoleipa is merely fresh curds pressed into blocks. It it then briefly baked. The result is a squeaky cheese with a mild, buttery flavor. The best part is the splotchy brown crust, formed when heat from baking caramelizes the sugars on the outside of the cheese. The cheese is made to be grilled in a skillet or warmed in an oven (it doesn’t melt when heated) and eaten for breakfast with coffee and maple syrup or honey, or after a meal with jam or jelly.

Juustoleipa first came on the scene in Wisconsin back in 2002, when scientists at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research (CDR), via funding from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, worked to recreate the original Finnish recipe in an effort to preserve a traditional, ethnic cheese and develop a safe manufacturing method to share with small Wisconsin cheese factories and farmstead operations. Cheese Scientist Jim Path, now retired from CDR, traveled to northern Michigan, where he found an elderly couple producing it in tiny quantities, and then to a farmstead in Finland just 150 miles from the Arctic Circle where he studied the manufacturing technique.

In September of 2002, CDR hosted a seminar attended by 28 Wisconsin cheesemakers and 10 Wisconsin Master Cheesemakers that included a hands-on demonstration of making Juustoleipa. The idea was that the cheese would be ideal for a small factory or start-up.

Today, you’ll find six different Wisconsin cheese companies crafting it under a variety of names.

  • Carr Valley Cheese Bread Cheese (in Traditional, Garlic, Chipotle and Jalapeno flavors)
  • Babcock Hall Juustoleipa and Jalapeno Juustoleipa
  • Pasture Pride Cheese Juusto (in Traditional, Italiano, Jalapeno, Chipotle flavors, as well as with Nueske’s Bacon), Guusto (goat’s milk version) and Oven Baked Cheeses filled with 5yr cheddar, Parmesan, and aged goat cheese
  • Bass Lake Cheese Juustoleipa (Cheesemaker/Owner Scott Erickson is the only certified master cheesemaker in Juustoleipa)
  • Brunkow Cheese Brun-uusto Cheese
  • Noble View Creamery Juustoleipa (in Traditional, Jalapeno and Habanero flavors, and with bacon)

So while here in Wisconsin we enjoy all the taste of Juustoleipa, we haven’t yet adopted its cultural practices. Legend has it that in Finland, mothers of “eligible women” – I love that phrase – used to offer suitors a cup of coffee with the cheese and, if the man liked the cheese, he married the girl. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Who wouldn’t want to marry a man who didn’t like cheese?

As a side note, if you’re looking for a way to taste all of these Juustoleipas, I’ve created an “Juustopalooza” event in the specialty cheese department at Metcalfe’s Market-Hilldale in Madison on Saturday, Feb. 1 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. We’ll be frying up 3 different Juusto cheeses for you to sample with many more available for sale. See you then!

cheeseunderground carr valley, hook's cheese, LaClare Farms, Landmark Creamery, lavon brie, Roelli Cheese, sartori, uplands cheese, Wisconsin cheese

Top 10 Wisconsin Artisan Cheeses of 2013

So if you’re like the rest of us cheese geeks, you’re either likely throwing a cheese-themed New Year’s Eve party, or you’ve been invited to a year-end shindig and asked to bring the requisite cheese plate. Looking for a little inspiration? Here are my top 10 cheeses of 2013.

10. Grand Cru Surchoix by the cheesemakers at Emmi Roth USA in Monroe. Aged at least nine months, this American Gruyere often beats its Swiss counterparts at international contests, and there’s good reason: this is an amazingly good cheese. Put it in the center of your board. It deserves the spotlight.

9. Cave Aged Marisa by cheesemaker Sid Cook at Carr Valley Cheese in LaValle. What do you get when you combine the cheesemaking prowess of master Sid Cook and the affinage ability of Jennifer Brozak at Bear Valley Affinage? A beauty like no other: this award-winning cheese has only gotten better in the past year, sporting a beautiful natural cave rind and delightfully crystal, crumbly paste. If you haven’t had this cheese in a while, it’s time to try it again.

8. Extra Aged Asiago by cheesemaker Mike Matucheski at Sartori in Antigo. I’ve got to admit, I usually overlook Asiago in favor of Parmesan. But this extra-aged delight stands on its own against any extra-aged parm. Crumbly, crystally and wonderfully nutty, Sartori’s Asiago rivals the Italian original.

7. Ewe Calf to be Kidding by cheesemaker Tony Hook, Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point. What’s believed to be the first blue in the nation using a mixture of cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheese, this creamy, tangy blue beauty is a future best in show winner. It’s got a cute label too: who can resist animals with googly eyes?

6. Marieke Black Mustard Gouda by cheesemaker Marieke Penterman, Holland’s Family Cheese in Thorp. This month, the current U.S. Champion Cheesemaker and her family are moving into their new farmstead creamery operation two miles down the road from the original homestead. While this particular gouda is by no means new, it’s an underrated flavor perfect to liven up a cheese board. It’s a cheese with both beauty and brains = win win.

5. Water Buffalo Taleggio by cheesemaker Anna Landmark, Landmark Creamery in Albany. What started out as an experimental cheese ended up being one of the best American Original cheeses released this year by an up-and-comer. Anna crafts her cheeses at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, using seasonal milks. Watch for her water buffalo Taleggio to appear on the market again in spring.

4. Martone by cheesemaker Katie Hedrich, LaClare Farm in Pipe, Wis. Not yet even 30 years old, Hedrich has created another game-changing Wisconsin artisan cheese with her mixed milk Martone, a surface-ripened buttery bloomy made in small discs. This was a big year for Katie: she got married and worked with her family to open their own farmstead creamery. One gets the feeling this cheesemaker will be making this list every year with a different, new cheese.

3. LaVon Goat Brie by cheesemaker Todd Jaskolski, Caprine Supreme in Black Creek. After reeling from from a shoulder injury that limited his ability to make hard cheeses, Jaskolski reinvented himself and created two farmhouse French-style bries, one with goat’s milk and the other with cow’s milk. We like the goat version better – the citrusy tang of the goat’s milk adds a little zing to this classic cheese.

2. Rush Creek Reserve by cheesemaker Andy Hatch, Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville. A perpetual favorite, even though this year marks the fourth year of its existence, this cheese is the perfect beginning or ending to a holiday meal. Cut away the top rind and then spoon into the creamy paste. Spread on a fresh-baked rustic baguette. Pure bliss.

1. Little Mountain by cheesemaker Chris Roelli, Roelli Cheese in Shullsburg. 2013 was definitely Chris’ year – with dual wins for his cheeses at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest and American Cheese Society, Chris finally received well-deserved accolades for his stellar cheesemaking ability. Little Mountain is one of the best alpine cheeses on the U.S. market, rivaling the great Swiss Gruyeres.

Happy cheesy New Year!

cheeseunderground grand cru surchoix, gruyere, roth cheese

Under the Tree: Grand Cru Surchoix

Celebrating an addition to the Emmi Roth Cheese factory
in Monroe back in 2006. Gosh, I wish I could yodel.

Five weeks ago, on what essentially became my first day of becoming the full-time specialty cheese buyer for Metcalfe’s Market-Hilldale in Madison, 10 full wheels of Grand Cru Surchoix suddenly showed up on a refrigerated truck. Booked as a pre-order by my predecessor, the 18-pound wheels of American Gruyere (although we can’t call it that because of European Union rules for naming cheeses), landed on my counter with a thud.

Mind you they each arrived beautifully wrapped in individual boxes, complete with a healthy supply of repack labels (the epitome of happiness for cheese retailers). The wheels were even shiny – someone at Emmi Roth USA in Monroe, Wisconsin, had gone through the trouble of making them all pretty like little shiny red apples in a produce display.

But still, 180 pounds of cheese. In one full swoop. It was enough to make me want to fire up the bat signal in retail cheese distress.

For those of you not in the know, Grand Cru Surchoix is one of Wisconsin cheese’s claims to fame. Emmi Roth describes it as a washed-rind Alpine-style cheese, but in reality, this baby rivals the big-wheel Swiss Gruyeres. Using copper vats, imported from Switzerland, and aged on wooden boards for at least nine months, only a few wheels of the company’s signature Grand Cru® (note the registered trademark) meet the stringent requirements of the company’s professional cheese tasters to even ever become Surchoix. The cheese is stinky, meaty, rich and deep. It’s a 10-note cheese and deserves to be the centerpiece of your cheeseboard.

Surchoix also carries significant award credentials, starting with winning the American Cheese Society Best in Show award back in 1999. It repeated at ACS in 2012 as a Best in Show runner-up, and it routinely not only places, but beats its Swiss competitiors in international competitions. Peeps, this cheese has got legs.

So overall, I’ve got to admit that if 10 wheels of a cheese that you never ordered were to show up on your doorstep, the best you could hope for would for it to be Grand Cru Surchoix. And the second best thing you can hope for is for your friends Kirsten and Kathy – the company’s marketing gurus – to come to your store after their own long day of work and personally sample and sell it for you (thanks, ladies!).

Turns out I worried for nothing. Five weeks after stacking them in my cheese cooler, the 10 wheels are gone. After sampling and talking it up during the month of December, customers scooped it up one piece at a time. Yesterday, we cut up the last two wheels and watched it rapidly go out the door, along with more than 1,000 other pieces of cheese that I’m sure were destined for gifts and cheese boards. I actually had to order more to fill a special we’re running on it for New Year’s Eve.

So as I sit on my sofa on Christmas Day, it’s kind of cool to think about all the people opening boxes today filled with pieces of Grand Cru Surchoix. Merry Christmas, folks. And may the power of good Wisconsin cheese be with you in 2014.

cheeseunderground Evalon, farmstead cheese, goat cheese, katie hedrich, LaClare Farms, martone, Wisconsin cheese

LaClare Farms Martone

LaClare Farms Cheesemaker Katie Hedrich Fuhrmann
and Martone, her newest creation.

Never one to rest on her laurels – or let’s face it, rest at all – U.S. Champion Cheesemaker Katie Hedrich Fuhrmann of LaClare Farms returned from her Hawaiian honeymoon last Friday afternoon to host hundreds of visitors at her family’s farmstead creamery grand opening, and that night, attend the Wisconsin Cheese Originals Meet the Cheesemaker Gala, where she debuted a brand new cheese she’s been working on in secret for more than two years.

It makes me tired to even write that sentence, much less execute everything it entails.

But then again I’m not a young, energetic cheesemaker with a lifetime of award-winning cheeses ahead of me. Katie’s latest creation, enthusiastically enveloped by the artisan cheese community at the fifth annual Wisconsin Cheese Originals Festival this weekend, is called Martone. Cheese lovers in Wisconsin have been anxiously awaiting a cheese like this: a surface-ripened beauty made from a 50/50 blend of cow and goat’s milk, resulting in a mild, buttery flavor and citrus finish. Sitting at about 1-1/2 inches tall and about 3-1/2 inches wide, Martone is my new favorite table cheese.

Katie says she named the cheese for her great-grandfather, Martin Kozlowski, a dairy farmer and the first generation Kozlowski to settle in Wisconsin. But the cheese is really inspired by Martin’s granddaughter, who just happens to be Katie’s mom, Clara. Mama Hedrich, as I like to call her, grew up on the family farm and was the first in her family to attend college. She went on to become one of of the first two women to graduate from UW River-Falls with a degree in agriculture education. She’s spent the past 37 years sharing her passion with thousands of students. In fact, she is the longest tenured ag instructor in the state and is revered by her current students at West DePere High School. It’s not hard to see where Katie gets her drive from.

Hedrich patriarch Larry Hedrich shows off
his new dairy goat freestall barn, which opens
to the outside with paddocks of fresh grass.
These are some seriously happy goats.

Martone is made with pasteurized milk, vegetarian rennet and is ripened 10 days. That means it will likely be between two and three weeks old when you buy it at a retail store and eat it, but you’d better hurry, because it’s only got a 30-day shelf life. After that, this bloomy rind blossom is likely to harden and lose it complex flavorings.

The cow’s milk used for the cheese is sourced from Red Barn Family Farms, a group of American Humane Certified cow dairies near Black Creek, Wisconsin. The goat’s milk comes from the Quality Dairy Goat Producers Cooperative Of Wisconsin, founded and managed by Katie’s father, Larry. Today, seven – and soon to be eight – farms, including LaClare Farms, milk between 120 and 600 goats. That milk is sold to cheesemakers, including Carr Valley Cheese, Sartori, and LaClare Farms, where it’s made into award-winning cheeses such as Sartori Extra Aged Goat, LaClare Chandoka and Carr Valley Billy Goat Blue. It’s also bottled into LaClare Farms Bottled Goat milk and crafted into ice cream for LaLoos Goat Milk Ice Cream.

While each of the seven farms belonging to the goat cooperative is a top-notch operation, the 450 dairy goats at LaClare Farms are living the high life in a brand new facility built specifically for them at the still-smells-like-new LaClare Farms farmstead creamery.

Turning off Highway 151 east of Lake Winnebago and driving into the parking lot of the new picturesque goat dairy, creamery and what should be called a visitor center just outside the bustling unincorporated berg of Pipe, Wisconsin, feels like entering the Disneyland of dairy goats. Because 1) yes, it’s that clean, and 2) yes, it’s that fun.

Run by the Hedrich clan – mom and dad Larry & Clara, along with their grown children: Cheesemaker Katie, Business Manager Greg, Store Manager Jessica and part-time Herd Manager Anna — the family has pulled together to create something Wisconsin’s never seen before: an agritourism destination where visitors can see animals in a barn, watch them be milked in a double 24 goat parlor through a huge viewing window, watch cheese being aged through windows in the visitor center, and then purchase an array of cheeses made both at LaClare Farms and from around Wisconsin, as well as ice cream from Kelley Country Creamery near Fond du Lac.

Rock Star Chef Jim McIntosh in the new
LaClare Farms farmstead kitchen outside
Pipe, Wisconsin.

And when they’re done with all that, they can order lunch or dinner made by renowned chef Jim McIntosh (most recently the executive chef at Grand Cafe in Minneapolis). This is a farmstead creamery with a top-ranked chef also cooking with its products. Open to the public seven days a week, the LaClare Farms Cafe has already drawn a grand reputation for its Friday night Fish Fry and hand-cut French fries, which according to this French fry connoisseur, are the best she’s ever eaten. Jim told me he’s already torn his hand-operated potato fry cutter off the wall twice in his anxiousness to get fries into the fryer. “The way I’ve got it bolted to the wall now, the next time it comes off, the wall’s coming with it,” he said in completely seriousness.

While the cafe, retail store and dairy goat milking parlor are up and running at 100 percent, the cheese factory is almost there. Katie estimates she’s about two weeks away from final inspections and finally making cheese in her own facility, after spending more than four years putting thousands of miles on her car, driving to three different area cheese factories to both make and age her cheeses. She’s been sleep-deficit for years, constantly on the road between home and a cheese factory that’s not her own. Married for exactly 18 days, Mrs. Katie Fuhrmann is looking forward to finally establishing a home base. It will be a well-deserved reward for one of the hardest-working cheesemakers in the state.

“It is going to be so awesome to make cheese in my own place,” Katie said during a tour on Monday. “I get goose bumps every time I walk past the cheese vats. We are so close.”

Katie will have two cheese vats at her disposal: a 5,000-pound and 11,000-pound vat, where she will make her champion Evalon cheese, as well as a full range of goat’s milk cheeses including Fondy Jack, Chandoka, Goat Cheddar, Chevre and the new Martone. What’s more, the new LaClare Facility boasts six – yes six – different aging rooms, which can be each set to their own temperature and humidity levels. Katie will have an Evalon room, a washed-rind room for cheeses currently under development, a cheddar room, and others still to be classified. She’ll also be making custom cheese for at least two companies. The goal is for LaClare Farms to become an incubator and affinage facility for new cheeses and cheesemakers who can not yet afford to make and/or age cheese at their own place.

Cleaning the cheese vats at LaClare Farms creamery.

“This has truly been a labor of love for our family,” Larry said on a tour yesterday, clearly in his element talking about the new facility. “We are proud to open one of the most modern dairy processing facilities in the United States producing the highest quality dairy products possible. We are proud to have our family here with us, working side-by-side. That was the dream, and we’re here.”

cheeseunderground 1982, baseball, milwaukee brewers, world series

The Summer of Baseball

Watching this year’s World Series and reading Eben Pindyck’s “The Knuckle-Curve” essay in last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine brings back memories of my summer of 1982. That was the year the Milwaukee Brewers, dubbed “Harvey’s Wallbangers” with their record 216 home runs, journeyed to the World Series to play the St. Louis Cardinals in an epic seven-game face-off.

I was 10 years old. Parenting books today will tell you it’s all about moms and dads spending “quality time” with their children, but all I knew as a kid was “quantity time.” Every day was a day working with mom and dad on the farm, while evenings were spent playing cribbage and listening to Bob Eucker call Brewer games on the radio. That was our “quality time”.

Once a year in the summer, we carpooled with family friends and trekked to Milwaukee to watch a live Brewers game. This was a big deal for a 10-year-old farm kid. Watching the Brewers play in County Stadium was equal to a whole day of vacation, which didn’t happen often. It would be still two years before my mom got sick, so she would cook for days preparing the annual tailgate shindig of potato salad, baked beans and cold meatloaf sandwiches. We’d even get to purchase potato chips and dip from the grocery store. It was magical.

It was from these annual treks to County Stadium that I learned watching a baseball game in person is vastly different than listening to it on the radio. Armed with my $3 program and wearing my Milwaukee Brewers ball cap, I astutely kept score in the program’s pull-out paper score box, using shorthand to mark strike-outs, base hits and the occasional fielder’s choice. I knew the name of every player and could recite their stats by heart.

First Baseman Cecil Cooper. This guy was the first man I ever saw do the splits. On purpose. Cecil could catch any ball thrown in the vicinity of first base and do it in style, often stretching his left leg out so far while keeping his right foot on first base that he looked like a professional gymnast. Every time he came to bat, the crowd would chant “Coooooooop” low and loud, so that if you didn’t know better, it sounded like he was being booed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Coop was beloved.

Second Baseman Jim Gantner. Jimmy was a Wisconsin-native and played his entire career with the Brewers. Known as “Gumby” because of the way he could turn a double play on a dime, poor Jim got a bit outshined in the infield because of two superstars to his left. Which leads me to:

Third Baseman Paul Molitor and Shortstop Robin Yount: To a 10-year-old, these two guys summed up everything good there was about baseball in 1982. All-stars and repeat MVPs who were also nice enough to give a farm kid an autograph during batting practice, they proved their worth in every game. Yount was a 20-year career Brewer veteran, while Molitor broke all of our hearts in 1992 by accepting a three-year, $13 million deal to move to the Toronto Blue Jays. I’m still bitter about it.

Outfielders Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas and Charlie Moore: I remember playing baseball just once on the farm with my dad. He was busy, and let’s face it, I was a girl. It was a few days after we’d gone to a Brewers game and were sitting in the front yard on a Sunday afternoon after church. I asked if he thought he could hit a ball as far as it was to Center Field in County Stadium. To my surprise, he said “Let’s find out.” We rounded up a bat and a chewed-up baseball. I clumsily pitched and on the first try, he cracked the ball so hard it made my ears hurt. I watched the ball fly over the yard fence, past the creek at the bottom of the hill and toward the grain bins by the road. He smiled and went back to his lawn chair. I went in search of the ball in the pasture. And that was that.

Catcher Ted Simmons: It would only be in later years that my dad and I would argue over who was a better catcher: the up and coming B.J. Surhoff or the veteran Bill Schroeder, a steady catcher but crappy batter. By 1988, I was 16 years old, and B.J. was young, cute, blond, and could both catch and actually hit the ball. I don’t remember what Schroeder looked like, so that about says it all. Dad always referred to Schroeder as a “gazelle” because he once hit a rare single and lumbered to first base, where he miraculously was not called out. Meanwhile, B.J. would go on to successfully play every position except pitcher during his 18-year major league career. Google him. He’s still hot. I win.

Starting Pitcher Moose Haas and Reliever Rollie Fingers: sometimes as daughters get older and dads flail at understanding what makes them tick, talking baseball is all they have left. Put two guys named Moose and Rollie in the conversation and we could talk for hours. After mom got sick, we talked about baseball a lot. Reciting stats and predicting who’d make a run for the play-offs was better than talking about hospital bills and increasingly-worse diagnoses. When mom felt good enough, she’d even take my side in the B.J. Surhoff vs Bill Schroeder debate. Because let’s face it, he was hot.

These days, I’m the kind of parent who sadly refers to “quality time” because I don’t have enough of it to even approach “quantity”. My daughter and her father have never listened to or attended a baseball game together. It just isn’t their thing. But watching the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series this year brings back good memories of my childhood. Even if the Brewers would go on to lose in the 7th game in Busch Stadium, the summer of 1982 would be one of the best ever. It marked a season of both quality and quantity in a time when I was too young to appreciate either.

cheeseunderground firefly coffeehouse, Wisconsin cheese, wisconsin cheese originals

Announcing the 2014 American Artisan Cheese Series

Exciting news, cheese geeks! If you’re looking for a monthly night out, tasting and learning about new artisan cheeses, then Wisconsin Cheese Originals has a deal for you. Tonight, I’m announcing my all new 2014 American Artisan Cheese Series with monthly classes at the Firefly Coffeehouse in Oregon, Wis.

This will mark the third year of the monthly classes, which include a tasting and storytelling of at least four artisan cheeses. I also often bring in guest speakers, such as Wisconsin cheesemakers, dairy farmers, and industry leaders. Classes begin at 7 p.m. at the Firefly Coffeehouse at 114 N. Main St. in Oregon, Wis., just 10 minutes south of Madison. Each class includes a complimentary glass of wine, beer or beverage. Cost is $22 per class and tickets must be reserved in advance at www.wicheeseclass.com. All classes typically sell out.

As a special offer through January 1, 2014: purchase a season pass to all 12 classes and get two classes for free, a perfect gift for your favorite cheese geek.

The 2014 class line-up includes:

January 16: Gourmet Grilled Cheese
Warm up long January days and kick off the new year with an introduction to three gourmet grilled cheeses. We’ll taste each cheese separately, and then compare each when warmed in a grilled cheese sandwich. Special treat: Uplands Cheese’s seasonal Rush Creek Reserve and a rustic baguette as an appetizer.

February 11: Blue-Veined Cheeses & The Wines That Love Them
Taste four of Wisconsin’s best blue cheeses, paired with four different wines. Learn the mystery behind blue cheesemaking, and what makes one blue taste different from another. If you think you don’t like blue veined cheese, we may change your mind with this evening of perfect pairings.

March 13: Fondue Fun & Swiss Specialties
Start the evening with a communal pot of yummy fondue and crusty bread. Then taste and learn about four classic Swiss cheeses perfect for fondue. Leave with a booklet of recipes to make your favorite at home.

April 17: World Champion Cheeses
With the World Championship Cheese Contest held in Wisconsin just one month prior to this class, we’ll discover and taste four gold medal world winners. Learn what it takes to make an award-winning cheese.

May 13: Butter Makes Everything Better
A few years ago, Wisconsin updated its buttermaking licensing requirements, allowing a new generation of licensed craftsmen and women to make seasonal and artisan butters. Learn and taste four of the best with breads and accompaniments.

June 12: American Farmstead Cheeses
Perhaps some of the most eye-appealing and palate-pleasing cheeses are those hand-crafted on the same farm as where the animals are milked.  Learn the stories and taste four of the best farmstead cheeses made in America today.

July 15: Summer Break: Sassy Cow Ice Cream
Take a summer break and celebrate national ice cream month with four local ice creams from Sassy Cow Creamery. Learn about the process of making farmstead ice cream and submit an idea for your favorite flavor. We’ll pick the most original and have it custom made for this class.

August 21: Pasture-Based Cheeses
Pasture-grazed cheeses are just one Wisconsin’s claims to fame, thanks to three seasons of green grass perfect for animals to eat. We’ll taste four seasonal cheeses, each made only when animals are grazing on grass.

September 16: Wisconsin Women Cheesemakers
In the past 10 years, more than a dozen women have entered the Wisconsin cheesemaking scene, winning awards and changing the face of American artisan cheese. Taste and hear the stories of four of the best women-inspired cheeses.

October 14: Amuse Bouche Cheeses
Looking for the perfect appetizer? Look no further than artisan cheese combined with original ingredients. We’ll learn how to make and taste four unique one-bite appetizers using artisan cheese.

November 13: Cheesecake and Dessert Cheeses
Start the evening with cheesecakes made locally. Then continue with tasting and learning about cheeses perfect for dessert. Learn how to make a cheese board for the end of your favorite meal.

December 9: Ultimate Wisconsin Cheddar Throwdown
A new era of Wisconsin Cheddar has emerged in the past decade, with more cheesemakers moving to artisan aged and bandaged Cheddars. We’ll taste three aged Cheddars from one to 15 years, as well as a reserve Bandaged Cheddar.

All classes are for sale individually, as well as in a season package at: www.wicheeseclass.com. I look forward to seeing you there!