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On Location: ACS in Seattle

Okay, so technically the American Cheese Society conference has not yet started, but I’m in Seattle anyway. The weather looked grand, I needed a reason to play hooky in a mosquito-free city for a couple of days, and there’s a Starbucks on every corner. What’s not to love about this town?

While most conference attendees have not arrived, more than 1,460 cheeses are here somewhere. As I write this, a team of esteemed judges are preparing tomorrow to start sniffing, tasting and spitting out hundreds of wheels, wedges, blocks, discs and who-knows-what-all-shapes-and-sizes-of-cheeses, all in the quest to find blue ribbon winners, as well as the ultimate of ultimate winners: Best in Show (widely known to be the golden ticket to marketing success for one lucky cheesemaker).


However, one of my favorite cheeses, Goodhue Gouda, from the fine folks at Pastureland Cooperative, almost didn’t make it to Seattle for the ACS competition. Created with PastureLand milk by Wisconsin cheesemaker Tom Torkelson, aged by Wisconsin cheesemaker Felix Thalhammer, and lovely as the day is long, Goodhue Gouda is a remarkable cheese. It’s fun watching people try it: it stops them in their tracks. They slow down and you can actually see the little pop-up word balloon emerging from their mouths saying, “Oh? Oohhh…this is nice…”

And to think, that little pop-up word bubble didn’t almost happen to the ACS judges here in Seattle. Here’s the scoop:


Around midnight on Saturday, Steve Young-Burns of Pastureland sent me an email with the first two words reading: “Mayday! Mayday!”

This, obviously, caught my attention.

Turns out that Steve had just learned that his wheel of Goodhue Gouda, by mistake, did not get shipped out of Minneapolis to ACS last week. Steve wanted to know if I knew anyone traveling to Seattle today going through Minneapolis who might be willing to carry on a cooler with a wheel of cheese.

While I’m always up for packing cheese, alas, I was not much help, as I was in Madison, with a direct flight to Seattle out of Milwaukee. I put out the bat signal to some cheese geek friends in the Minneapolis area, but hit dead ends all around.

Despair sunk in.

Then, on Sunday at 4:49 p.m., I got this update from Steve:

“I think I have a neighbor set to take it. She is a retired airline employee, and was looking for an excuse to go to Seattle. She is pretty sure she can get it there for us. “

Whoo-hoo! This was good news. But the backstory of the events leading up this good news are even more interesting.

Steve continued: “I just found out yesterday morning that we didn’t ship this wheel, and spent the day trying to a) locate a wheel a retailer was willing to give up, because we don’t have anymore ready right now, and b) get it dropped off at FedEx or UPS in time for Saturday shipping, all while I was driving back from vacation in Michigan.

By the time I got back, a neighbor was able to get a wheel for me from Surdyk’s, and had bought several cold packs and got them started freezing, but we didn’t have shipping lined up yet. I spent from 9-11pm last night trying to convince FedEx and UPS to let me drop off last night, but the offices were closed. Resigned to same day shipping ($175!), I started figuring out how we could do that on Sunday or Monday, but found that Homeland Security rules will not let you ship anything heavier than 15 ounces same day.

Crushed, and convinced I was not going to get to ship it, I opened a Furthermore Knot Stock and had some bourbon from a Michigan winery we’d stopped at, and sat grumbling on our front stoop in the dark.

Come Sunday morning, a little hungover, and more than a little pissed that I’d not been able to solve it, a neighbor suggested i post it on craigslist. Thinking, what the hell, I put a note up on craigslist (“Flying to Seattle on Sunday or Monday? Want to help an organic dairy cooperative deliver a very special wheel of cheese to the Sheraton?”), our neighborhood listserve, and on our Twitter feed. Decided I’d done all I could, and left for a 20 mile bike ride with my wife. 90 minutes in to the ride my phone rang. “Hi is this Steve? I’m your neighbor, Linda. I am a retired airline employee, and have been looking for a reason to go to Seattle…”

Amazing.”

Steve concludes:

“It’s not there yet, but if it doesn’t happen now it’s not meant to. Cross your fingers.”

With fingers crossed, I boarded my own plane to Seattle and checked into the Sheraton (the conference hotel) around 2 p.m. today. Then, at 2:39 p.m., this email came in from Steve:

“The eagle has landed: Goodhue Gouda is at the Sheraton. Where’s my lucky rabbit’s foot?”

Whoo-hoo! Good to know that Goodhue Gouda will get judged at ACS after all. Now let’s cross our fingers for a blue ribbon …
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New Label: Old Story

I’ve discovered that any good story, like a good joke, will involve three specific components. For example, jokes that start out with: “A Priest, a Rabbi and a Minister walk into a bar…” almost never disappoint, and stories that start with “Once Upon A Time” almost always have a distinct beginning, middle and end.


For any good story to be successful, however, one needs a good storyteller. Scott Meister is a born storyteller, although I’m not sure he realizes it. When I visited Meister Cheese in Muscoda last week after hearing about the company’s new labels, I asked the routine question every journalist (in this case former journalist) would ask, and said “So why a new label?”

What I got was a brutally honest answer, which was at once both refreshing and intriguing. Scott walked over to a display cooler in the corner, pointed to an old, laser-printed label with a 70s-circa font sporting “Meister Cheese” that looked like it was designed in a disco, and said: “I didn’t want to go my whole career without having a label that bridged the gap between my grandfather and my kids.”

Turns out the story behind the new Meister Cheese label – which features a very handsome portrait of the company’s patriarch, Joseph Meister, making cheese in an old copper vat — involves three distinct components: a boat, a bar, and a long-lost cousin.

Ahhh … the mystical trifecta of a good story. Hang onto your hats, kids. Here we go.

According to Scott:

“Most Meisters are characters, and this guy named Jim Meister is no exception. Prior to 54 weeks ago, I had met Jim twice in my life. Once was at my wedding, and the first time was 22 years ago was when my dad had just purchased a new boat. We took it out on the lake, and after awhile, my dad says, ‘You know, I’ve got a cousin who runs a bar somewhere around here – we should look him up.’ So we drove around the lake until we found it, and that’s the first time I met Jim – he was running a bar on the lake.

Scott continues:

“Fast forward to one year ago – same lake – I’m on a boat with my son, and I say ‘You know, I once had a cousin who ran a bar on this lake. So we drive around, can’t find it, and I call up an old friend. He says Jim sold the bar years ago, and since then, it has burned down. So I figure, well, that’s that. So we stop at another place on the way home and we’re sitting at our table eating dinner. Two old guys are sitting next to us – and one gets up to leave. His friend says, ‘So long, Jim,’ and I look up, and sure enough, this guy’s shirt says Meister Log & Lumber – which is the business my cousin Jim’s family has run forever.”

“I jumped up, introduced myself, and just like that, it was as if 20 years had never passed. We sat down, renewed our friendship and found out that he stopped at our cheese store all the time to buy cheese, but had never said hello because he figured we were too busy to talk.”

“We had been working on a new label for awhile at that point, and had wanted a portrait done of Grandpa Joe. But all we had was a photograph. We had a brilliant illustrator – Ross Pollard, grandson of George Pollard – who was going to do the portrait for us, but he wanted to work with a live model. As soon as I saw Jim, I knew we had our live model, because Jim looks just like Grandpa Joe.”

Fast forward to today, and cousin Jim, portraying Grandpa Joe Meister, is the new face of Meister Cheese. Look closely at the label, and you’ll see wheels of cheese aging on racks in the background. I asked Scott if that part of the label represented the past or the future of Meister Cheese, and for once, I stumped him.

While Grandpa’s Cheddar daisies – made by hand – were part of the past, the future of Meister cheese does involve Cheddar tophats – made by hand – currently in development. And, Meister is working on an artisan, cloth-wrapped cheddar that’s due to be released this fall. In the years between Grandpa’s artisan Cheddars and today’s artisan Cheddars, Meister Cheese has made a boat load of high-quality specialty cheeses. But there’s a difference between specialty and artisan cheeses, and Scott knows it.

“After a 40-year gap, we’re taking up artisan cheeses again,” Scott said. “It feels good to reconnect to the past, while making our own mark on the future.”

Well said, Mr. Meister, and I’m pretty sure Grandpa Joe would approve.
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A New Day At Meister Cheese

Every once in awhile, one stumbles into a room full of treasure without even looking. Good news, artisan cheese fans: today was one of those days, and you’re going to be the benefactor in a few months.

After taking a road trip to Meister Cheese in Muscoda to talk with co-owners and siblings Scott Meister and Vicki Thingvold about doing a story on their new labels (more on that in a later post), Scott asked if I wanted to take a walk into their new aging cooler to see something new they were working on.

Without much thought and still talking about the new labels, I of course said yes. Before I knew it, we were walking through a huge walk-in cooler door into a sight that would have stopped Ali Baba in his tracks (and we didn’t even have to say “Open Sesame”). What appeared (cue the archangels chorus here) was amazing: a long row of bandaged Cheddars, in several different states of aging, lining a 40-foot long aging cellar. Yes, folks, 40 feet of bandaged Cheddars that until today, no knew existed except the Meisters.

These little beauties are called Eagle Cave Reserve and are 6.5-pound cloth-bound cheddar truckles. They are made from the company’s “A Triple F” milk, which means the milk was produced on animal-friendly, family farms, where farmers are audited on how they humanely treat their animals in order to receive a premium payment from Meister Cheese. The result is superior milk, and in this case, the end result is amazing cheese.

Not only does Eagle Cave Reserve look absolutely stunning, it tastes fabulous. We tried a truckle that was made in February, and it rivaled some of the best cloth-bound Cheddars I’ve ever tasted. Then we tried one made in January and it topped it. This cheese is one to watch, folks, and it’s only seven months old.

Meister Cheese plans to release the Eagle Cave Reserve this fall, when it’s closer to 1-year-old, but I’d argue that it’s ready now. Not being a company that sells cheese retail (they make extremely high-quality, specialty cheeses for private label customers), Scott says he’s not sure how to market it. I told him it’s easy: get this cheese in the mouth of a few specialty cheese shop owners and you’ll be sold out.
After I had recovered from the shock of seeing so many beautiful cheeses in such an unexpected place, Scott told me he had another surprise. We went to a different aging cooler and poof: a rack of 42-pound Cheddar top hats appeared. I felt like I was on a pirate ship getting a tour of all the hidden booty.
The Meisters are calling this new cheese Scottsdale Reserve, named after Scott and the river dale they live in (I had to look it up – a dale is a valley). Scott didn’t have any of theses cheeses cut up for sale yet, and I wasn’t about to ask him to cut into a giant 42-pound top hat for a mere cheese blogger to try, so the jury’s still out on this one. But, based on Meister’s track record for high-quality gourmet cheeses, this one will be a winner as well.
So, take note, specialty cheese shops. There’s a couple of new cheeses in Wisconsin worth checking out, and they’re hidden in a river dale in southwest Wisconsin. Give Scott a call and ask to check out his treasure trove.
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Mothers & Daughters

This week, my soon-to-be-14-year-old-daughter and I went on what I like to call “The last mother/daughter road trip before my daughter starts to hate me because she’s a teenager and I’m her mother.”


This was the second road trip we’d done. The first was when she was nine and we drove to a horse show in Lexington, Kentucky. She was just tall enough to ride in the front seat for the first time, and for the first 6 hours in the car, all she talked about – and I mean every single conversation – was about road kill.

It hadn’t occurred to me before that very moment that as a little girl in the backseat, she had never been able to see dead animals laying by the side of the road. It was quite the learning curve. She was adamant that one of the animals we saw with its feet up in the air was an anteater, and I didn’t disagree. Our relatives mocked us when we put it in the annual Christmas letter, but I didn’t care. It was one of those mother/daughter memories that I wasn’t willing to give up.

Five years later, and roadkill didn’t come up once in our conversation while on the road to a wild horse ranch in South Dakota this week. In fact, much didn’t come up at all. She spent the first six hours texting her friends on her cell phone while we listened to some CDs she had made for the trip — I suffered through 360 minutes of screaming teen angst from bands I’ve never heard of — because I was looking for a mother/daughter bond and told her I didn’t want her listening to her iPod the whole trip.

Ten hours later and with me in dire need of a Mountain Dew and ear plugs, we pulled into a hotel in Mitchell, South Dakota. After checking into our room, I was talked into going down to the indoor pool which featured a water slide. Not being overly coordinated, I immediately proceeded to fall backwards down the steps to the kiddie pool (I’ve got the road rash to prove it), and felt a little love when my daughter came to check on me when it seemed I was trapped under 8 inches of water. She assured me no one had seen me, and very valiantly tried not to laugh, until we both started giggling and she helped me up.

Moments later, a family with two teenagers – the key here being one was a boy – entered the pool and I promptly got ditched. Before I knew it, the little girl who just a few months ago, made me order for her at restaurants because she was too shy to talk to the waitress, was flipping her hair back, flashing a million dollar smile, and talking a mile a minute with kids she just met about school, vacations and lame parents.

As I stood by the side of the pool, watching my daughter flirt and make new friends, I realized that while every parent looks forward to seeing their child grow up, my daughter was already there. I felt like I was watching an episode of The Young and the Restless where one day Victor & Nikki give birth to a cute little baby in a pink blanket, and the next day, a deep-voiced narrator breaks into the scene with, “The role of Victoria Newman is now being played by Heather Tom,” and a beautiful, teenage girl walks into the scene calling Victor and Nikki “mom and dad.” You’re left wondering, wow – I wonder how that happened.

I never had a chance to go on a mother/daughter trip with my mom because a) we lived on a farm and we didn’t take any trips that didn’t involve going to the sale barn or grocery store, and b) my mom was always busy cooking, cleaning, farming, and raising a family. She also got sick when I was in sixth grade and died after a long illness when I was 21. My best memories of quality mother/daughter time were when she took me to all three of the Star Wars movies (my mother was a closet Trekkie and sci-fi fan), and I fell in love with the Ewoks in The Empire Strikes Back. I also remember her taking me to Ghostbusters at the Avalon Theater in Platteville, and we bought popcorn that I promptly threw up in the air in fright when the Gargoyles came alive.

Overall, as mother/daughter trips go, this one with my daughter has been a good one. When she hasn’t been busy texting, talking to or scouting out cute boys, I’ve learned the following:

1. Feeding wild burros can be a bonding moment. There’s nothing like feeding wild – and when I say wild – I mean very tame – burros fig newtons while driving the wildlife loop at Custer State Park. It takes some serious mother/daughter coordination to feed and then fend off five burros while running to your car at the same time.

2. My daughter will probably never date a biker. After hanging out with 500,000 bikers in the Black Hills during Sturgis week, I think we have successfully determined that most bikers are rude, loud and annoying. I’m sure there are some very lovely leather-wearing bikers out there, but I didn’t meet any near Sturgis, and after one who was old enough to be my father hit on my daughter, she was easily creeped out enough for a lifetime. We ran away quickly.

3. My daughter thinks I’m funny. I learned this while reading the place mat at the Chinese restaurant in Hot Springs, South Dakota, and my Year of the Rat said I was “charming, imaginative and generous.” I was feeling pretty good about this description until my daughter chimed in with “That’s weird. I wouldn’t use any of those three words to describe you.” After I threw her a dirty look, she chimed in with, “But you are pretty funny.”

4. I really like my daughter and I think she may actually like me. We managed to hang out for six days without getting into a serious argument, we had fun together, we got lost together, and we found our way together. My daughter is becoming a beautiful, thoughtful young woman and I am so proud to be her mom.
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Cheese Auction

The Wisconsin State Fair has been conducting a Blue Ribbon Cheese & Butter Auction ever since I can remember, but this year was the first time I was invited as a potential bidder with my Wisconsin Cheese Originals organization.

I’d never been to a cheese auction, and in good faith, packed my checkbook in my purse. I figured how hard would it really be to bid on and win a chunk of cheese?

Um, yeah, it turns out my pockets were not nearly deep enough for the high-paying crowd at the Wisconsin State Fair. A total of 17 different blue-ribbon cheeses put up for auction by the State Fair Dairy Promotion Board (it uses the money for scholarships and such) brought more than $28,000 – a new record.

Yes, that’s right. 17 wheels of cheese = $28,000. You do the math. That’s some SERIOUSLY expensive cheese.

The thing one realizes quickly at a cheese auction is it’s really not the price per pound that counts, it’s how many pounds you’re bidding on. For example, four pounds of Sid Cook’s blue-ribbon Casa Bolo Mellage went up for auction, compared to 40 pounds of Monterey Pepper Jack by Lynn Dairy.

Before I left, my husband informed me that my auction budget was $500 (me thinketh I may have purchased one too many designer bags lately), so I was thinking, hey, I can probably at least get four pounds of cheese, right?

Wrong.

Sid Cook’s Casa Bolo Mellage cheese went for $230 a pound. Yes, that’s $230 PER POUND. I stopped bidding at $125/per pound after my husband kicked me under the table. The next cheese I bid on was Limburger by Chalet Cheese. I figured I had a fighting chance to buy a stinky cheese, but no. It went for $150 a pound. Again, I stopped at $125, due to the aforementioned kicking.

The Grand Champion cheese, a Rosemary-Olive Oil Rubbed Asiago, made by Mike Matucheski at Sartori Foods, went for $127.50 per pound. Times 20 pounds, that’s a rousing $2,550 for a wheel of cheese. And people complain to me that artisan cheese costs too much in the store. Yeesh.

Before the bidding started, my friend Norm and I were trading auction stories. I told him my father once brought home a load of wooden ladders from a farm sale that he bought by mistake after waving hello to a friend. He tried to pass them off as something we really needed, but we eventually got the real story out of him.

Norm said he had an uncle who viewed auctions as a social gathering, and who always bought something whether he needed it or not, thinking it was worth the price of admission for a good show.

In the end, Norm and I both went home cheese-less. Oh well, there’s always next year. I’m thinking I just may send the Dairy Promotion Board a check anyways. It was a pretty good show.

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Cheese & Beer

There’s nothing like feeding a crowd 10 beer, cheese and chocolate samples to really get people in a good mood.

On Saturday, Mark Knoebl, of Sand Creek Brewing Company, and I teamed up for the second year in a row to lead a Beer, Cheese & Chocolate pairing at the Kickapoo Country Fair, an annual shindig at the Organic Valley headquarters in LaFarge. About 10,000 people interested in local and sustainable agriculture gather every year to hear a myriad of speakers, shop a mini tent city, listen to soulful music and eat amazing local foods.

This year’s keynote speakers were Temple Grandin, a professor at Colorado State University, renown for her ability to work with animals and who has changed the entire landscape of livestock handling and welfare. She spoke at 11 a.m. to a full-house tent. Sunday’s keynote speaker was Michael Perry — one of my very favorite authors — you absolutely must read his new book, “Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting”.

But when crowds weren’t busy listening to famous authors and amazing music acts like Corey Hart and Miles Nielsen, they were hanging out in the Kitchen Tent, eating cheese, drinking beer, and pretending to listen to Mark and me talk about the story of each beer and cheese.

I’ll be brutally honest here and tell you that Kitchen Tent Organizer Bjorn Bergman and Mark Knoebl pretty much do all the work for this yearly session. Bjorn organizes the volunteers, does all the set-up, and Mark determines all the pairings, orders the beers, goes around and picks up the cheeses, and selects the chocolate and crackers.
I basically just show up, cut some cheese, drink some beer, and talk for a few minutes about each cheese. It’s a pretty good gig. This year, I didn’t even have to cut the Limburger – I somehow managed to outsource that job to Missy at Organic Valley. She cut 10 bricks of the stinky cheese by herself. Outside in a tent. In July. In 85-degree weather. This woman deserves a medal.


Sand Creek is making some exceptional beers, and Mark really does a nice job of pairing them expertly with Wisconsin cheeses. Here are a few of my favorites:

Sand Creek’s One Planet Ale, paired with Organic Valley Muenster Cheese. One Planet Ale is a multi-grain beer made with Wisconsin-grown barley, wheat, oats and rye. Locally produced honey is added to enhance the flavor profile. It’s a smooth beer that appeals to just about everyone, and pairs really well with any mild cheese, especially Organic Valley’s Muenster, which has just the right salt content.

Sand Creek’s English Special Ale, paired with Carr Valley Applewood Smoked Cheddar. This ale boasts a roasty, toasty flavor, and is red-brown in color. It’s handcrafted from select roasted barleys. The smoky notes really pick up the smoky notes of Carr Valley’s Applewood Smoked Cheddar, one of those cheeses that I consider to be a gateway drug of specialty cheeses. You take one bite and you can’t stop eating.
Sand Creek’s Oscar’s Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, paired with Limburger. I’ve never had a beer with chocolate and oatmeal in the name before, but this one was really good. A 2000 World Beer Cup Gold Medal winner, the smoothness of this beer nicely complimented the full-flavored Limburger. I had to reassure the crowd that Limburger’s bark is worse than its bite, and most people took the plunge and tried this pairing. It also helped it was the last pairing of the day, right before the Raisin Cookie Dough Truffle, and it always helps to bribe people with chocolate.

Thanks to the folks at Organic Valley and Mark (that’s him pictured at right) at Sand Creek Brewing Company for another fun year of beer & cheese tasting. Hope to see you all next year!
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Rod Nilsestuen

Bad news has a way of traveling quickly, so when I heard the news last night that Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen had died in a tragic drowning accident, I was absolutely devastated. This was a man for whom I worked, for whom I had fought for, and whom I would have followed to the end of the earth. And for those of you who know me, you know I’m not much of a follower.


Rod Nilsestuen was a leader, a mentor and a friend. But most of all, he let me call him “dude.”

I worked for Rod at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture from 2003-2007. Those were the years when we were fighting to keep dairy farms in business, twisting arms to get agricultural organizations to work together, and convincing cheesemakers that the days of profitable commodity cheesemaking were all but over and specialty cheese production was the future.

My job was a communications specialist and spokesperson for the dairy industry, and I would often travel with Rod, writing talking points, prepping for events and arranging media interviews. I have a bad habit of calling people “dude” and Rod was no exception. I never meant it as a sign of insubordination, but rather as a term of affection, which was fine, except the one time I slipped and called him “dude” in public.

We were at the media launch of the first “Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin” campaign at the first Buy Local Conference, and had set up a swanky event with a spread of local foods. All the big wigs were there, doing their usual dog and pony show of taking credit for stuff they had nothing to do with.

Unlike the big wigs who were spewing three-second soundbites to get their name in the paper, Rod was working the room, quietly talking one-on-one with local movers and shakers to ask for their support behind the local food movement. I was busy trying to get Rod media interviews, which is somewhat difficult when your boss doesn’t want the limelight, but instead wants to get stuff done.

I had tag-teamed with a couple legislative aides, who were busily getting their legislators in front of one camera after another. I tried to get a television news station to interview Rod as well, but the reporter told me they were out of time and had to leave. Arghh. Rod was busy talking with a local leader, so I just leaned over his shoulder and said: “Not having much luck getting you an interview, dude, but I’m trying.”

I’ll never forget what happened next. I turned around and there was a legislator, who had overheard what I said to Rod. She proceeded to give me the biggest tongue lashing of my life (and this is really saying something for a former farm girl who got regular butt-chewings by a father who for some reason could not understand why his daughter could not disc end rows without wiping out a fence). The legislator ended her speech by informing me that if I worked for her, I would no longer have a job. I remember her walking away quickly, hearing the click-click-click of her high heels.

I was absolutely mortified and sick to my stomach. I stammered an apology to her back and turned around to apologize to Rod, but he was gone, having moved on.

That was a long afternoon. I was terrified that I had embarrassed the agency for which I worked, and had disrespected the most respected man in the building. At the end of the day, I stopped at Rod’s office. He was busy at his computer, as usual, with his back toward the door. I mumbled some sort of apology, afraid of what he was going to say. And this is what happened:

Rod swiveled around in his chair, flashed me a smile, and said “Don’t worry about it. Keep on doing what you’re doing, kiddo. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” And that was it. End of story.

After that, I tried not to call him “dude” as much around the office, but because I am who I am, naturally slipped up once in awhile. In public, however, I always addressed him as “Secretary.” And when I did, he would give me a smirk and and his eyes would twinkle. I can imagine he was thinking: don’t worry so much, kiddo, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

I can imagine that’s probably what Rod is thinking right now. Never one to seek out the spotlight, he would probably wince at the many glowing eulogies that will be written – each and every one of them very much deserved and heartfelt. Rod had a way of making everyone who worked for him feel like they were part of the team, fighting the good fight. So, now, that’s what we all need to do. Keep on keeping on, dude. Remember Rod with a smile and do all the good you can, in all the ways you can. We’ve got more fish to fry.
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Making Cheese with Cesar Luis

It’s not often one gets the chance to see hand-stretched mozzarella being made, so when Cesar Luis called me last week and asked me if I was interested in helping him make string cheese, I cleared my calendar, threw my boots in the car, and told my daughter we were going to make cheese.

Whoo-hoo! Road trip!

We arrived at Sassy Cow Creamery, a a farmstead dairy between Columbus and Sun Prairie, about 10:30 a.m., just in time to suit up and help Cesar cut the curd of his vat of fresh mozzarella cheese. We used stainless steel knives that Cesar made himself, a sign of things to come during the day.

You see, Cesar and his lovely wife, Heydi (who at five feet tall, and no more than 100 pounds, can seriously kick my ass when it comes to lifting cheese), recently purchased and installed a 2,500 gallon cheese vat at Sassy Cow. A couple days a week, they make fresh cheese curds for Sassy Cow to sell. The rest of the time, they make authentic Hispanic cheeses.

And when I say they make cheese, I mean they actually make it — by hand. They cut the curd by hand with their own stainless steel knives, they mill the curd by hand (as in cutting up big slabs of curd with cutting knife on cutting boards), pile the curd in tubs by hand to cool, stretch it by hand into 15-pound, 50-foot ropes of mozzarella cheese (one batch at a time), and then cut and package each batch by hand to sell.

In short, they do a lot of work that involves a lot of bending, huffing, puffing and lifting cheese in a room that’s hot enough to make sweat drip off the end of your nose. And they seem to really, really enjoy it.

Cesar’s been making cheese since he was seven years old, when he learned the art from his grandmother in Mexico. Today, he makes the same cheese in very much the same way, only he does it with state-of-the-art stainless steel equipment and electricity.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the stretching of the mozzarella. Once the curd is milled and put into tubs, Cesar fills up the cheese vat with about 4 inches of hot water that is 180 degrees F. He dons three pairs of gloves, and then proceeds to put his hands into this water, hand-rolling, molding, forming, and finally stretching mozzarella cheese into long ropes.

Let me just say that this process is a) very hot and b) a helluva lot harder than it looks. I watched Cesar do the first batch with what I thought was little effort, and then got up the courage to don my three pairs of gloves and tackle the next batch.

What happened next is pretty aptly pictured to the right: me trying to lift a really heavy rope of cheese, stretch it at the same time, and watching Cesar try very hard not to laugh.

This is why I write about cheese, not make it. And if nothing else, I serve as comic relief to cheesemakers. It’s all good.

While Avery and I only spent about six hours making cheese with Cesar & Heydi, they spent a total of 12 hours making 250 pounds of hand-stretched mozzarella. We left around 4:30 p.m., and walked out of the make room to a standing-only sized crowd of people waiting to buy their string cheese.

Word had gotten out that Cesar & Heydi were at Sassy Cow that day, and people were going to wait as long as it took to buy their cheese, because yes, it really is that good.

That afternoon, we ate hand-stretched mozzarella that we had helped make, and it tasted even better than usual. Food has a way of meaning more when you know where it comes from, and when you know the sweat and soul the maker puts into it, it’s pretty special. So the next time you see a package of string cheese with the label, Cesar Cheese, snatch it up. It may cost a little more, but it’s worth its weight in gold.

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Cheese Shopping

One Saturday a month, the kind souls at Fromagination, a cut-to-order cheese shop in Madison, Wis., let me come in for a few hours and play cheesemonger. I get to interact with customers, talk about Wisconsin artisan cheeses, and even fumble my way around cutting and wrapping cheese. Great fun.


That being said, let me just say there’s nothing like being on the opposite side of the cheese counter to make me realize in a very short time how incredibly annoying I must be as a customer.

Therefore, in an effort to be a better cheese shopper, might I suggest a few tips:


1. Actually read the signs in the cheese case. Most cut-to-order cheese shops spend a lot of time on their cheese signs, listing the type of milk, the cheesemaker’s name, where it’s made, and the style of cheese. While a good cheesemonger will always be happy to answer your questions, you can save yourself a lot of time by just reading what’s on the card.

2. A cheese shop is not a buffet. If you’re going to make a cheesemonger go through all the work of pulling, unwrapping and cutting a sample from a dozen different cheeses, please be courteous enough to buy at least one wedge of cheese. It’s really disheartening to spend 45 minutes with one customer only to hear them say as they walk out the door with a full stomach, “Well, thanks for the samples. See you next time.” Arghh.

3. Have a little patience. So you’ve decided to stop by your local cheese shop to purchase a dozen 1/4 pounds of different cheeses for all of your friends back home, and you need to catch a plane in 30 minutes. Umm, yeah. A cut-to-order cheese shop is probably not your best bet. It takes time to pull, cut, weigh, and individually wrap each cheese for a customer. So have a little patience. As a friend of mine says: “You can have two of these three: speed, service or price.” Pick which two you want.

4. Just because you had this one cheese this one time in this one place doesn’t mean I know which cheese you want. I’m always amazed at the people who try and describe a certain cheese they had while vacationing in the Alps or in the Caribbean, or on a cruise to the Mediterranean, but can’t remember the style, what it looked like, or the name of the cheese. Sigh. Chances are unless the cheesemonger was on the trip with you, if you can’t remember the name of the cheese, neither will the cheesemonger. Before you come in the shop, try and do a little research on what type or style the cheese was – chances are very good that the cheesemonger can recommend something similar that you’ll like just as well.

5. This is not your boyfriend’s fridge. Do not, I repeat, do not open the cheese cases and serve yourself in a cut-to-order shop. In front-display cases, cheeses are arranged in the most pleasing display possible, and are designed to be accessed from the back of the case. A cheesemonger doesn’t want to pick up the eight wheels of cheese that just rolled on the floor because you decided to just help yourself by opening the front of the case. Just ask for help. That’s what we’re here for.

6. Refrigerate your cheese when you get home. It’s absolutely amazing to me how many people ask if the cheese they just bought needs to be refrigerated. The answer is always YES. Cheese is a living thing. Don’t let it grow an extra limb while sitting in the backseat of your car for three days. Put it in the fridge when you get home and it will last a whole lot longer. Remember that the cheese you see sitting out on the counter at a cheese shop is put back into a cooler every night.

So that’s my short list of how to be a better cheese shopper. I’ll be printing it out and taking with me the next time I’m buying cheese instead of selling it.
cheeseunderground Uncategorized

Buttermaker License Update

Alrighty, now that I’ve reclaimed my blog from a comment-crazy person suffering from the Dunning–Kruger effect (sorry folks – had to turn off comments on my blog for awhile), it’s time to update you on the Wisconsin Buttermaker License situation.


Yesterday, the Department of Agriculture Board made a significant first step in updating the old rules we have in this state by authorizing public hearings on a new draft rule to revise current training and requirements for licensed buttermakers.

Under current law, anyone applying for a buttermaker’s license must pass an exam and match at least one other qualification, including: 1) working under a licensed buttermaker for at least 24 months, 2) working under a licensed buttermaker for 18 months and have completed a training course approved by the agriculture department, or 3) possess a four-year degree in food science, and have worked under a licensed buttermaker at least 12 months.

Whew, makes me exhausted just writing all that, much less doing it.

Not surprisingly, because of current law – which by the way has seen very little change since 1929 – we’re down to 46 licensed buttermakers in Wisconsin (compared to more than 1,200 licensed cheesemakers).

With a growing national market for butter, and especially artisan, hand-churned butters, Wisconsin is very much at risk of losing its leadership in the dairy industry unless the old rules are changed.

So yesterday, the Dept of Ag Board approved scheduling a public hearing that will change the above arcane process to a more reasonable one. It includes:

Anyone aspiring to obtain a buttermakers’s license must pass an exam and complete the following: 1) apprentice under a current buttermaker for 120 hours, 2) complete the new buttermaker course – to be offered by the Center for Dairy Research on Sept 14-16 in Madison, 3) complete additional day courses regarding production of safe dairy foods, HACCP process control, principles of milk pasteurization and dairy sanitation.

Also – in exciting news – the new draft rule allows any current licensed cheesemaker to obtain a buttermaker’s license by taking the Center for Dairy Research butter course, and working 40 hours under a current licensed buttermaker. This will certainly help boost the number of buttermakers rather quickly in the state, allowing more choices for aspiring buttermakers to apprentice under.

Next steps: the Dept of Ag will hold a public hearing (place and time to be determined), and following public comment, will prepare a final draft rule for the Ag Board’s consideration. If approved, the rule will go to the Legislature for review by committee. If the Legislature takes no action to stop the rule, the Ag Secretary will sign the rule into effect. The goal is to adopt the rule in early 2011. Whoo-hoo!