Cheese Underground

Good news for us cheeseaholics — more and more retail stores are carrying artisan and specialty cheeses and shipping for the holidays. So even if you live in a cheese-starved part of the country, fear not, there are good cheesemongers out there that will ship to you. Here are three of my favorites:

1. Anne Saxelby, Saxelby Cheese, New York. Anne writes a weekly blog about her cheese adventures and always cracks me up. Here’s her opening for today’s entry:

What’s small and cardboard and smells like a sock? That’s absolutely right! A holiday box’ o cheese from Saxelby Cheesemongers! This holiday season, the best of America’s farmstead cheeses are just a hop, skip, and a click away! We apologize to the FedEx guys in advance for stinking up their trucks…

I mean, how can you NOT want to buy cheese from this lady? Awesome.

2. Fromagination on the Capital Square in Madison — in addition to being a full-service cheese shop carrying more than 60 Wisconsin artisan cheeses that are cut-to-order, Fromagination is also hosting holiday planning/buying parties on Dec. 4 and Dec. 11. Staff will help you design custom-made gift baskets for everyone on your list, plus you get a discount.

If you don’t live in Madison, fear not – Fromagination also ships. It’s a great shop to find artisan cheeses made in Wisconsin that you won’t find anywhere else.

3. Kroger and Murray’s Cheese: this just hit my inbox yesterday — apparently these two companies have launched a partnership and are opening the first of three Murray’s Cheese departments in the Cincinnati-area Kroger Supermarkets.

The Murray’s Cheese department at the Kenwood Towne Place Kroger in Cincinnati will look much like the Murray’s Cheese flagship store in New York City’s Greenwich Village and will carry more than 500 items, including many of the same cheeses, crackers, dried fruits, and olives as the Bleecker Street original. This Murray’s Cheese department–as well as those debuting in the coming weeks at the existing Hyde Park and Liberty Township Krogers in Cincinnati–will be staffed by Kroger employees who have received rigorous cheese service training.

The press release says Murray’s employees have created an encyclopedic 300-page cheese service guide exclusively for the partnership and spent a month in Cincinnati further educating their Kroger counterparts. Now, the Kroger employees manning these Murray’s Cheese departments will be able to provide the same level of service as Murray’s employees in New York City.

Too cool. Let’s hope Murray’s decides to open a satellite shop in a Kroger’s near you! Happy holiday cheese shopping!

Lots of news this week and I can’t decide on one thing to write about, so we’re going for a weekend update today:

1. Kiss Our Dairy Air: College Click TV is promoting UW-Madison with a new poster (pictured above). I love how they describe the college in this quick blurb.

“Madison’s got a good hometown feel–wholesome and relaxing. This research driven mega school of the Midwest offers innumerable resources in its science and engineering programs. However, the arts and humanities remain neglected as a result. Seek out what you want and you shall find. Lots of clubs, intense school spirit, and more cans of beer than actual people gives students a very genuine taste of the college life. Students here love their overall experience. The routine is simple: beer, football…beer, study, class…beer, beer…more beer.”

Hey, what about the cheese? Geez, people, beer & cheese … let’s get it right.

2. Grafton Village, Faribault Dairy Collaborate On New Layered Cheese: Grafton Village Cheese in Vermont and Faribault Dairy, located just across the border in Minnesota, have partnered to create a new, limited edition cheese called Grafton Duet. It’s made of three layers of Grafton Premium Cheddar and two layers of Faribault Dairy’s St. Pete’s Blue Cheese. The limited edition cheese is available only through the Grafton Village website – –and at the company’s two Vermont retail stores in Grafton and Brattleboro.

Congrats to Faribault cheesemaker Jeff Jirik — sure wish we could get you to move to Wisconsin. Big sigh. But I’ll enjoy your cheese anyway. 🙂

3. Majority of U.S. Goat Processors to Expand Plant Capacity: a new report just released this week by the USDA reports that about two-thirds of goat milk processors responding to a recent survey plan to increase their plant capacity in the next five years, while very few goat milk plants plan on either going out of business completely or discontinuing production of goat milk products. Email me for a complete copy of the report — it has some great statistics on types of goat cheeses being made, prices paid to farmers and details on expansion plans.

4. Turns out the Sky is NOT Falling: Ed Jesse, professor and and dairy policy specialist at UW-Madison released a major report this week reversing his sobering trend projections made earlier this decade of declining Wisconsin milk production. Instead, he says the state is poised to break its previous annual milk production record of 25 billion pounds set 20 years ago.

“Wisconsin’s dairy sector is in a positive state of growth and transition,” Jesse says.

Jesse says Wisconsin cow numbers bottomed out in March, 2005, at 1.233 million head. Last year, the average number of dairy cows on state dairy farms was 1.247 million head. The Wisconsin dairy herd expansion“has been steady for 42 months,” and “this kind of stability in cow numbers has not been observed in more than 20 years.”

And you all thought I was just being optimistic about Wisconsin’s growing dairy industry by writing a blog about it. Ha! Take that, Wisconsin naysayers!

Seriously, just eat our cheese. It’s awesome. Have a great weekend everybody!

California may have “happy cows,” but here in Wisconsin, we have sassy cows. And sassy cows make awesome milk.

Don’t believe me? Then you need to try the bottled milk, ice cream and heavy cream from Sassy Cow Creamery, located on the Baerwolf farm between Sun Prairie and Columbus, Wis. (The website has a great listing of where to find the products in retail stores).

The Baerwolf’s cows are so sassy, in fact, they now have their own collectible trading cards. Buy the milk and you can collect 18 cow personality cards that are real dairy cows living on the Baerwolf dairy farm. Who knew collecting cow cards could be so fun?

Sassy Cow Creamery has been bottling milk since it opened this spring, and is now making ice cream at its picturesque farmstead factory and retail store. If you live close by, stop by for this month’s ice cream flavors: Apple Pie, Brownie Caramel and Pumpkin Praline.

I’d also recommend Sassy’s chocolate milk, which just won first place at the World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest with a perfect score of 100 points. The Expo contest is the third largest contest in the world and the only one to include all types of dairy products, so earning first place — much less with a perfect score — is a VERY big deal.

If you live close enough, I’d also recommend trekking to the farmstead store to buy an array of local Wisconsin products, including local farmstead cheeses, packaged goods and specialty foods. It’s a great place to do some holiday shopping, and the kids can watch milk being bottled through the display window right in the store.

One last heads up for an upcoming event at the Sassy Cow Creamery — on Saturday, Nov. 22 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the farm will be making churned cream. Fresh samples will be available and kids can even make their own butter. Sounds like a sassy kind of day.

Two Wisconsin food companies are collaborating to launch a new retail product category of ready-to-heat gourmet meals made from locally-grown and produced Wisconsin ingredients.

RP’s Pasta Company, Madison, and Renaissance Farm, Spring Green, will unveil seven gourmet dinners on Friday at Sentry Metcalf at Hilldale in Madison. The dinners are available in the frozen section and retail for less than $8. Dinners range from Lemon Basil Pesto Ravioli, to Wisconsin Stuffed Acorn Squash, to Four Cheese Tortellini, to Wisconsin Macaroni & Cheese.

Wisconsin specialty cheeses, locally-grown vegetables and herbs, as well as locally-made fresh, gourmet pasta are featured in different dishes, with local ingredients listed right on the package.

“Our mission is to create and share flavorful, ready-to-eat gourmet dinners produced from foods grown and crafted right here in Wisconsin,” Mark Olson, President of Renaissance Farms, told me today (pictured above). “We know more families want to buy local foods to support their neighboring farms and strengthen their communities. This line of dishes is a great way for folks to savor Wisconsin’s growing season.”

The Wisconsin-based, ready-to-heat frozen dishes include a variety of local ingredients, including:

• Aged Cheddar cheese crafted at Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point, Wis.
• Butter Käse cheese crafted at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, Wis.
• Bottled milk and cream produced at Sassy Cow Creamery in Columbus, Wis.
• Butter made at Grassland Dairy in Greenwood, Wis.
• Parmesan, Asiago, Mozzarella and Ricotta cheeses made at Grande Dairy, based in Brownsville, Wis.
• Gorgonzola crafted at Wisconsin Farmers Union in Montfort, Wis.
• Feta cheese made at Carr Valley Cheese, LaValle, Wis.
• Gourmet fresh pasta crafted at RP’s Pasta in Madison, Wis.
• Herbs, olive oils and pesto from Renaissance Farm, Spring Green, Wis.
• Butternut Squash from Sutter Farm, Mt. Horeb, Wis.
• Carrots, bell peppers and garlic from a variety of Wisconsin farms

The line of local food dishes from Renaissance Farms was developed by Chef Joel Girard, of Madison. Olson plans to collaborate with different chefs, farms and cheesemakers to develop future lines of ready-to-heat dishes. The first four dishes launched this week include:

• Lemon Basil Pesto Ravioli with Roasted Garlic Cream Sauce
• Stuffed Sweet Bell Peppers with Cedar Grove Butter Käse
• Butternut Squash Ravioli with Montforte Gorgonzola Cream Sauce
• Wisconsin Stuffed Acorn Squash with Carr Valley Feta

• Macaroni & Cheese made with Hook’s Three-Year Cheddar
• Four Cheese Tortellini with Basil & Tomato Sauce, paired with Local Buttered Carrots
• Four Cheese Ravioli with Roasted Garlic Alfredo, paired with Local Buttered Carrots

Good news, Wisconsinites! We will have goat gouda in the spring!

Diana Murphy, Dreamfarm, made her first 18 baby wheels of goat gouda this past week. The lovely white wheels are curing nicely in her aging room on her farm near Cross Plains. Diana makes fresh goat chevre all spring and summer to sell in the Vermont Valley CSA, and now that the CSA season is over, she will make goat gouda with her milk until her 20 goats dry in up early December.

I visited with Diana on Monday of this week at what may be the prettiest farm in all of the Midwest. Situated on a bluff overlooking a lush valley surrounded by hardwood trees in the last throes of fall foliage, Diana, her husband, Jim, and four daughters truly have found their “dream farm” in the rolling hills of scenic southwest Wisconsin.

Each of Diana’s goats are of course named and loved as individuals, and I was a little sad to see that Shiloh, Diana’s signature white milking goat who sports two lovely long curved horns, had broken off one of her horns this fall. Oh well, it just gives her more character. To see the goat in mention, view this new Wis Public Television 7-minute short on the state’s growing goat dairy industry: video.

Diana’s been making farmstead goat cheeses for five years. She sells her cheeses not only in a local CSA, but also at Willy St. Co-op in Madison and at the Westside Farmer’s Market — just two weeks left to buy her cheese and fresh farm eggs (show up no later by 8 a.m. for the eggs — last week she sold 72 dozen in an hour). Yikes.

In the high season, Diana makes cheese three days a week — chevre on Mondays and Wednesdays, and feta on Fridays. Now she’s making gouda twice a week until she runs out of milk for the winter. Then it will age all winter and make its official debut this spring. Ahh, something to look forward to through another long Wisconsin winter.

In exciting news, Wisconsin may soon have a fresh mozzarella made from the milk of local water buffaloes. Whooo-hoo!

A full-page feature in this week’s The Country Today tells the story, and I must say it’s an interesting one: a man by the name of Dubi Ayalon, an Israel native, decided to start a new career. He quit his job as a school principal, packed up his stuff and moved to a Wisconsin dairy farm he had only seen on the Internet. He then began searching for a herd of water buffalo to milk.

While it sort of sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch, turns out it’s true. Here’s my favorite quote from the story:

“When I came here I didn’t know that cows had four nipples, I swear to god.” — Dubi Ayalon

It appears to be a good thing that Mr. Ayalon is surrounded by people who do know that cows have four nipples, including Master Cheesemaker Bob Wills at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, who is excited to get his hands on some water buffalo milk to make fresh mozz. He’s sure “there will be a clamoring for the product when we get it done” and I agree. I continuously have people asking me for a Wisconsin-made buffalo mozz and have to tell them it doesn’t exist. In fact, there are only a handful of farms milking water buffalo in the United States — one each in Vermont, California and Michigan.

I guess if it were easy to milk water buffaloes and make fresh mozz from their milk, someone in Wisconsin would have already done it. Apparently, it’s even harder to get the animals to come into the barn for milking, as Mr. Ayalon tells The Country Today in my second favorite quote:

“Water buffalo are not like cows, you can’t push them into the barn. You just cannot do it. They are stronger and full of muscles. You need to call them into the barn. Every morning and afternoon I go to the barn and sing a song in Hebrew, and they come. They make a connection between food and song.”

Can’t wait to eat some fresh buffalo mozz from singing cows. This will be another great Wisconsin story.

I read a fascinating column in yesterday’s Fond du Lac Reporter, entitled: “Why have farms grown so large?” It was apparently written in response to an earlier column talking about a large, 7,000-cow dairy being proposed near Ripon, Wis.

No matter which side of the political fence you’re on about large, medium-sized or small dairies, the following numbers are very interesting — credit to Bob Panzer of Badgerland Financial for the below info:

According to the University of Minnesota, it takes an average of $74,804 annually to support the average farm family. The study involved 850 farms in Minnesota and the average family size was 3.5 people.

To generate a profit of that amount, the U of M looked at farm profits and determined:

• It would take 948 beef cows to produce a profit required to provide for the average family.
• A total of 10,717 hogs raised from weaning to finish would be needed to earn the amount required to provide for the average farm family.
• The average farm family would need to milk 127 dairy cows. (The U of M research determined the average dairy cow – over the past five years – has provided a profit of almost $600 annually. Some years, the profit was much lower and some years higher but on average, the magic number for profitability is apparently 127 cows).

I know what you’re thinking. Why should I care about the size of farms? Well, because the milk that goes into the cheese that we all love so much comes from the state’s dairy farms.

And, because the state’s traditional farms, like the one I grew up on, where our parents raised a few cows, a few hogs and some steers, and kids like me grew up baling hay, doing chores and generallly staying out of trouble — are no longer an option to support a family in the times in which we live.

That’s why I continue to be such a huge advocate of the state’s value-added dairy industry and our specialty and artisan cheeses. Because many of these products — whether it’s Sassy Cow Creamery bottled milk or Marieke Gouda or Caprine Supreme goat yogurt — come from average farm families trying to make a living milking animals and producing a product from the milk that comes from their farm.

No matter the size of the farm, it’s the quality of the product that matters the most to me, and Wisconsin makes some of the best value-added dairy products on the market today. There’s room here for big, medium and small farms, and we’ve got the happy cows to prove it.

Breaking news of the day: I have discovered that Wisconsin’s newest dairy artisan, Ethel Jensen, is actually Wonder Woman.

Okay, so she doesn’t actually wear the super cool red, white and blue outfit or boast bullet-deflecting bracelets, but she does make amazing cheese. She also milks five cows and 84 goats every day, will soon start milking 40 sheep, will open an on-farm retail store before the end of the year, grows her own wheat for her own bread that she makes in her own on-farm commercial kitchen, and has plans to build an on-farm cheesrie next year.

Whew. I’m tired just writing about it.

Ethel and her husband, Jim, and their extended family – 10 kids & multiple grandchildren — hosted an educational field day at their farm near Mt. Horeb on Saturday. About 75 people showed up, many of them young and aspiring farmers, entrepreneurs, and even five UW Madison veterinary school students — all wanting to know more about how Ethel manages to do everything she does.

Ethel compares herself to the tortoise in Aesop’s Fable: The Tortoise & the Hare . “It’s taken me 10 years to go through the process of earning my farmstead cheesemaking license. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go, and many of them are making some amazing cheeses. I hope it’s my time now to get going.”

Ethel first started experimenting with making cheeses 30 years ago on her stove top to feed to her family. Today, she’s using nearby cheesemaking plants to produce fresh goat’s milk chevre in plain, dill and caraway, has just started making a goat’s milk farmer cheese, and is currently aging some mixed milk cheeses with high hopes of success. She hasn’t yet designed a label, but is thinking the name of her farm – Gronndal Springs — will likely be part of her brand.

And while I was first under the impression that Ethel lives on a winding road in the middle of nowhere, it turns out she lives on one of the busiest commuter county highways in the state. From 5 to 7 a.m., she says a line of traffic passes her house continuously, and many commuters have asked if she plans to open her on-farm store as early as 5 a.m. so they can stop and buy fresh, home-made donuts to take to work.

Fear not: she’s working diligently to make it happen.

“I’ve really only ever needed four hours of sleep, so I usually sleep from 1o p.m. to 2 a.m., and then start milking at 2:30 a.m. First the cows, then the goats and then the sheep. Then it’s off to the bakery to get the bread and donuts done for the day. Then I get the kids off to school.”

So by 8 a.m., she’s already got a six-hour day in. Sounds like Wonder Woman to me!

Here’s an interesting tidbit that caught my attention this week: the USA Today reports that while smoking cigarettes may no longer be cool, smoking cocktails is extremely hot.

Apparently, “pyro-inclined mixologists on both coasts are smoking ingredients — liquor, mixers, even glassware — over aromatic woods such as cherry or apple to add a robust dimension to fall/winter drinks. At Absinthe Brasserie & Bar in San Francisco, bartenders smoke rum or brandy over cherrywood chips, mix the liquor into a cocktail and serve the drink in a glass that has been inverted over a lit wood chip. Across town at Bacar, full-bodied whiskey is smoked in-house over applewood, then mixed with pineapple juice, lemon juice and house-made sassafras simple syrup.”

Alrighty then. This makes me ponder that perhaps we should creating a smoking cheese.

Oh wait, somebody already beat me to it: it’s called Juustalepia, a specialty cheese with Finnish and Swedish origins. The name Juustalepia (HOOstah-lee-pah) translates as “bread cheese,” an apt description since its appearance and aroma is similar to toasted bread.

Its characteristic sweet caramel crust is produced through a slow baking process and its unique flavor is most pronounced when served warm. It can be heated in the oven, microwaved or grilled.

Several Wisconsin companies are making their own versions of Juustaleipa, including:

• Brunkow Cheese, Darlington, Wis. — they call theirs “Brun-uusto”
• Carr Valley Cheese, LaValle, Wis. — they call it “Bread Cheese”
• K&K Cheese, Cashton, Wis. — they call it “Juusto”
• Bass Lake Cheese, Somerset, Wis. — they break it into two words: “Juusto Leipa”

So the next time you’re thinking about smoking a cocktail, stick some cheese in your frying pan to go with it!

Next to cheese, my favorite food in the world is potato salad. Weird, yes, but it is what it is.

So you can imagine my utmost delight when I attended Slow Food Madison’s annual Celebrate Autumn event on Sunday and one of the featured dishes of the afternoon was potato salad.

Slow Food Madison has hosted an autumn event for the past three years at the Jane and Andy Crawford farm near New Glarus. Chef Tracey Vowell – for many years the managing chef of the famous Frontera Grill kitchen in Chicago — comes up every year with an amazing menu consisting of a different slow-roasted meat, soup, salad, bread, various sides and dessert from ingredients mostly found locally.

While everyone was ooohing and ahhing over the slow roasted goat – and let me just say that yes, it was good, as it had been cooked in a below-ground fire pit right on the farm – the highlight of the meal was for me: potato salad.

This was no ordinary potato salad. It featured fresh baby red potatoes, Butler Farms Farmstead Sheep’s Milk Feta (I didn’t even know Janet was making a sheep’s milk feta — good to know), piquillo peppers, carrots & onion, dressed with red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic and green onions.

Wowsers. This was the best potato salad ever. I actually scored my own serving bowl and just kept it within arm’s reach. In fact, this may be the first and only potato salad that was worth sacrificing dessert for — and it was a fruit compote with Basque-style creme anglaise flavored with cinnamon (it should be noted that I didn’t actually sacrifice dessert, but I should have, as I wasn’t hungry until about noon on Monday).

This was also a potato salad worth freezing my tush off, as it was about 50 degrees and raining the entire time we sat sideways on a hill on folding chairs in an open-sided tent. No worries, however, as my friend Sue had brought along a pair of winter gloves. Luckily she is left-handed and I am right-handed, so we each donned a glove on our non-eating hand. It pays to have left-handed friends.

Sue and I also decided that we should have brought containers for the extra food, but then decided that probably would have been tacky. But just let me say that if this potato salad is served next year, I’m pulling a ziploc bag out of my purse and saving some for later. I don’t care how many dirty looks I get — don’t get between me and good potato salad, especially one that includes fresh farmstead sheep’s milk feta.