Urban Cheesecraft Seeks Your DIY Videos

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kit_deluxe_05-e1330111129754            Portland-based Urban Cheesecraft, purveyor of fabulous cheese making kits, needs your help! They’re seeking your home produced instructional videos, which they’ll use to help other aspiring cheese crafters to understand the ins and outs of the process.

If your video is selected, Claudia Lucero will post your video in a tutorial section on her website and your wit and wisdom will help others learn to make cheese! As further incentive (beyond the fame and glory, that is), if your video is chosen, you will win a $20 credit in Urban Cheesecraft’s Etsy shop.

You can submit videos and/or links to the Urban Cheesecraft contact page here. For more about Urban Cheesecraft, see my prior profile of owner and mastermind Claudia Lucero here.

New Bandon Cheese Factory Opens May 8th, 2013

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Face Rock logoNext Wednesday, May 8, 2013 the Bandon Chamber of Commerce will host a ribbon cutting ceremony marking the official debut of Face Rock Creamery in Bandon, Oregon.

This is not the first cheese factory in Bandon. Many Oregonians and travelers along Highway 101 recall the old Bandon Creamery and its cheese curds fondly. But the former creamery (which had been open since the 1930s) struggled financially throughout the 1980s and 1990s, changed hands several times and even closed at one point. In 2000, the Tillamook County Creamery Association purchased the failing factory (see an article about the sale here). In 2002, Tillamook closed the creamery entirely and the facility was later demolished — and those latter years are still a sore subject among Bandon devotees.

Now cheese is returning to Bandon, thanks to the efforts of developer Greg Drobot, Bandon city leaders and the Port of Bandon. At the helm of Face Rock Creamery will be cheesemaker Brad Sinko, who was the cheesemaker at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese for a number of years before returning to his hometown. Brad’s father Joe Sinko was one of the former owners of the Bandon Creamery, so it’s fitting that son Brad will be at the helm as a new chapter of cheesemaking commences in this small town on the southern Oregon coast.

In fact, Sinko has been busy these past few months – he’s already been making cheese at Rogue Creamery in Central Point Oregon, 160+ miles to the east, for several months. Face Rock Creamery cheese curds made their debut at the Oregon Cheese Festival this past March. Starting next week, devotees will finally be able to stop by the creamery in Bandon to get their cheese fix, just like the days of old.

Mt. Townsend Creamery at Pike Place Market in Seattle

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Mt. Townsend Pike PlaceThis is not exactly new news – but I recently stopped by the Mt. Townsend Creamery shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle (it’s been there for almost a year and a half now). The installation is an outpost of Washington’s Mt. Townsend Creamery, which is based in Pt. Townsend, Washington about two hours to the north and west of Seattle.

The cute shop is located at the heart of the market, right near Pike Place Fish (you probably know this as home to the fish-throwing guys). It’s a great spot for sales, right in the midst of all of the hustle and bustle that is the market experience. As you might expect, you can purchase all of your favorite Mt. Townsend Creamery cheeses there including Seastack, Cirrus and Off Kilter (washed in Pike Brewing’s Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale) as well as selected goodies like crackers and honey. When I was there, they were also featuring cheese samplers for $5.

The Mt. Townsend shop adds to what has become quite a respectable cheese presence at the market: Beecher’s Handmade Cheese operates a busy urban creamery a block to the north, and there are several other cheese shops in the market, including DeLaurenti’s and Quality Cheese. Though the Seattle Cheese Festival is no more, I’m happy to report that you can still find plenty of good cheese at Pike Place Market.

U. S. Championship Cheese Contest 2013 – Northwest Winners

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Results have just been announced for the U. S. Cheese Championships, held semi-annually in Wisconsin. After scrolling through the list, I’d have to say that the story in this year’s competition is the performance of Wisconsin cheesemakers, who took the Championship by storm, including the coveted Best in Show prize. Northwest cheesemakers did not show as well as they have in previous years (see, for example, the 2009 results, where Oregon’s Tumalo Farms took runner up to Best in Show) though results depend in part on who enters from year to year.

Best in Show

Holland’s Family Cheese
Thorp, Wisconsin
Mature Gouda

**** You can find a complete list of results here. Thanks to the organizers for making the results a little more user friendly this year!

Tillamook County Creamery Association (Oregon)

Cheddar, Sharp (aged 6 mo to one year)
1st place – Yellow Sharp Cheddar

Cheddar, Aged 2 yrs or longer
White Aged Cheddar (placed 1st and 2nd)

Marbled Curd Cheese
1st place – Colby Jack

Pepper Flavored Jack
3rd Place – Jalapeno Pepper Jack

Rogue Creamery (Oregon)

Smoked Soft and Semi Soft Cheeses
3rd place – Smokey Blue

Soft & Semi-Soft Mixed Milk Cheeses
1st place – Echo Mountain Blue

Glanbia Cheese Co. (Idaho)
note: Glanbia is an industrial cheese plant located in Gooding, Idaho

Bandaged Cheddar, Mild to Medium
1st Place – Bandaged Cheddar

Monterey Jack
1st Place – Monterey Jack

Marbled Curd Cheese
2nd Place – Colby/Jack

Gouda, Flavored
3rd Place – Gouda, Olives and Garlic

Pepper Flavored Cheese
3rd Place – Red Habanero Gouda

Reduced Fat Hard Cheeses
1st Place – Reduced Fat Cheddar

Reduced Sodium Cheese
2nd place – Reduced Sodium Cheddar

The following regional artisans also placed in the top 10 in their class: Briar Rose Creamery (OR)  6th Place – Soft Goat’s Milk Cheese (fresh chevre) and 5th Place – Semi-Soft Goat Cheese (feta); Jacobs Creamery (WA)  9th Place  Brie, Camembert and Other Surface Ripened Cheeses (Bloomy)

Interview: Kirstin Jackson, Author of It’s Not You, It’s Brie

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refdp_image_0For several years, Kirstin Jackson has been captivating cheese interested readers with her witty and informative blog, It’s Not You, It’s Brie. Now she’s unleashed her considerable talents in a longer format, and we have It’s Not You, It’s Brie: Unwrapping America’s Unique Culture of Cheese- the book. Part travelogue, part tasting guide and part cheese encyclopedia, the book is a fabulous romp through the world of domestic cheese, with recipes for good measure. Like her blog, Jackson’s book is smart, funny and irreverent all at once- in other words, totally absorbing. I’m thrilled to see an author stray from the worshipful, remote prose so common in books about cheese…. in It’s Not You, It’s Brie, Jackson brings the world of cheese and cheesemakers to to life, in all of their stinky, funky glory.

Kirstin Jackson was kind enough to take a few minutes to chat about the book, how she got into cheese, and her take of the cheeses of the Pacific Northwest.

* * * * * * *

Right away in the introduction, it’s clear that this is going to be a different kind of cheese book. What did you have in mind when you were writing? 

Well, thank you! I wanted to write a book that explored why domestic artisan cheese is the way it is -i.e. awesome- through exploring its styles, flavors, and cultural and historical influences in-depth, but also keep it lighthearted. It was important to me to avoid writing a book that was too serious or exclusive, because enjoying and learning more about our artisan cheese is within everyone’s grasp. That said, another aim in writing this book was to thoroughly appease my inner cheese geek by asking TONS of questions of the 48 different cheesemakers profiled in the book, and to travel around the country eating pounds of cheese in the name of research. I also went with a publishing house and editor that let me have a lot of fun writing- I could be a little… less traditional with my descriptions.

Tell us a little about your background. You went to UC Berkeley (majoring in anthropology, I believe?) and culinary school. How did that evolution into food come about? And then how did you arrive at cheese?

Immediately after graduating high school I went to culinary school, cooked for three years in restaurant kitchens, and then decided that I wanted to return to school to to write about food. That inspiration struck when I picked up my first Saveur magazine in the late nineties, but working in kitchens didn’t provide me with the time to do actually write. A couple years later I transferred to UC Berkeley, and yes, studied cultural anthropology and worked as an interviewer and transcriptionist in the Regional Oral History Food Program. After Cal, I worked in a cheese shop and started managing a wine bar and directing their cheese program. I went on to teach- at Solano Cellars, the Cheese School of 18 Reasons, Murray’s and beyond.

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FDA Releases Soft-Ripened Cheese Risk Assessment

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On Monday February 11th, the  FDA released its Draft Joint Quantitative Assessment of the Risk of Listeriosis From Soft Ripened Cheese Consumption in the US and Canada. (Download the full 175 page document here - scroll down to the category heading “listeria.”). The document, jointly produced by the FDA and Health Canada, seeks to quantify the public health risk for listeria monocytogenes, a known bacterial pathogen that has been found to occur in a variety of food products including cheese.

Listeria and soft ripened cheeses are the focus of the report, because 1) data shows listeria has been the most frequently occurring pathogen found in cheese and thus poses the most significant public health risk and 2) fresh and soft ripened cheeses are particularly susceptible to listeria contamination. According to the report, from 1986 to 2008 (a period of 22 years) there were 137 cheese recalls, 108 of which were listeria related. The incidence rate during the same period was similar in Canada.

Meanwhile, at the same time this report is being released, there is an ongoing listeriosis outbreak in Australia. At least 26 people have been sickened by eating soft-ripened cheese made by Jindi Cheese Co. Three people have died so far (more on the Australian outbreak here and here).

[update: I originally mentioned the Australia outbreak here a bit lazily, because it was/is happening at the same time as this FDA document was issued. But as Matt Briggs of Cheese Notes has since pointed out to me, the coincidence is not really the story here. Australia's raw milk laws are notoriously strict... and the cheese being blamed for the recent deaths was apparently made with pasteurized milk. It might also be worth noting that Jindi Cheese Co., the company whose cheeses have sparked the recall in Australia, is owned by France-based Lactalis. We're not talking about artisan-scale production in that particular case.]

The FDA/Health Canada Risk Assessment injects quantifiable data and statistical analysis into the ongoing broader cultural and industry discussion of the safety of raw milk cheeses. While I am far from qualified to weigh in on the value of the analysis, I think it’s fair to say that overall the effort is a good thing. But the results of this risk assessment do not reflect well on raw milk soft ripened cheeses….the report estimates the risk of listeriosis from soft-ripened cheeses made with raw milk at as much as 160 times higher than that from soft-ripened cheese made with pasteurized milk.

At the end of the pre-release announcement (issued Friday Feb. 8th), the FDA offered the purpose for conducting the risk assessment exercise:

When finalized, FDA intends to use this risk assessment (which is limited to one pathogen in one type of cheese), along with other information and scientific assessments that more comprehensively consider the different pathogens that can be present in all types of cheeses made from raw milk, in its reevaluation of the existing 60-day aging requirements for cheeses made with raw milk (e.g., 21 CFR 133.182(a)).

It almost goes without saying that this document portends significant changes to the present regulatory scheme covering cheesemaking in the US. What those changes will eventually look like remains to be seen.

See the formal Federal Register announcement here, including instructions for submitting comments to the draft report. Comments must be received by April 29, 2013.

Cheese News February 2013

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2103OregonCheeseFestEvents & Festivals  The 9th Oregon Cheese Festival is coming on March 16, 2013. The Festival takes place in Central Point, Oregon at Rogue Creamery. General admission is $15 with an additional $5 fee for wine tasting; children under 12 can attend for free. If you’d like to make it a weekend, consider the Cheesemaker’s Dinner on Friday March 15, which takes place at the Ashland Springs Hotel, featuring special guest Chester Hastings, chef, cheesemonger and author of The Cheesemonger’s Kitchen: Celebrating Cheese in 75 Recipes. Tickets for the dinner, which are $95/person can be purchased here. Also on the topic of festivals, California Artisan Cheese Festival will be happening in Petaluma, California the very next weekend (that’s March 22-24th, 2013). For industry types, the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference will be held in Sonoma, California from Feb. 23-25 – more here.

Cheese Club, Crowdsourced  Cyril’s in Portland may be among the first cheese shops to try selling cheese via social media. As cheesemonger Sasha Davies explains, a wheel of cheese can be a prohibitively expensive purchase for a small cheese shop. She proposes solving that problem by developing what is in essence a subscription service, where those interested support that month’s Kickstarter Campaign, then receive a share of the cheese wheel in return. Sign up for this month’s cheese, a 2 year old L’Amuse Gouda, on the Kickstarter page here.

Washington Cheesemaker Seeking Funding  Willapa Hills Cheese Co. is in the midst of raising funds via Indiegogo – a growing trend in the cheese world that I wrote about previously here. They want to raise $75,000 for a variety of facility improvements and to develop a new aged cheese, Ewe Old Cow (gotta love that name). The deadline is March 3rd….see their page here and donate if you can.

More Nutrition in Milk and Cheese  A new study by Oregon State University showed that cows which were fed flaxseed as a part of their diet gave milk that was significantly lower in saturated fat and higher in omega 3s. Dairy products made from the milk, including cheese, were more nutritious as well. Perhaps we’ll be seeing more on this in the future…

Cheese Videos Starring Steve Jones  Cheesemonger Steve Jones of Cheese Bar in Portland is featured in a series of cheese education videos on about.com. I haven’t yet been able to uncover an index but if you start here you can access them, on topics ranging from cheese rinds to pairing advice.

Tall Talk Dairy

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[This is part of an ongoing series about the history of cheese and cheesemakers in the Pacific Northwest. Click here for previous entries on this topic.]

Harlan and Esther Petersen of Canby, just outside of Portland, were among the earliest of a new wave of small cheesemakers that began emerging across the nation in the 1990s. They operated Tall Talk Dairy on an 8 ½ acre farm outside of Canby starting in the early 90s, first selling raw goat’s milk and then later branching out into cheese. Their products, sold under the brand name Willamette Valley Chevre, included feta, fromage blanc in a variety of flavors and a mild jack style cheese. They later added goat’s milk yogurtDSCN1329 to their product lineup.

According to longtime area dairy goat farmer and cheesemaker Mary Rosenblum, who helped the Petersons develop their cheesemaking operation, marketing goat’s milk cheese at the time was a real challenge. “At the time, stores would bring in imported goat’s milk cheeses that had a really short shelf life, and no one would buy it because it would smell of ammonia. It sure didn’t make people want to buy goat cheese of any kind.” The Petersens sold their property and herd in 1997, reportedly under less than ideal circumstances, leaving area goat’s milk aficionados scrambling for fresh goat’s milk dairy products. As we know now, it was not long before goat’s milk cheese began to dominate local cheese production in the Pacific Northwest.

Seattle Cheese Festival Calls it Quits

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Seattle Cheese FestivalThe Seattle Cheese Festival is no more. In an announcement posted on the festival website, Pat McCarthy of DeLaurenti’s said “Over the last couple of years the Festival has become kind of like Yogi Berra’s quote ‘Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.’ Attendance by cheese makers and distributors has fallen off sharply.”

Ironically, the Seattle Cheese Festival was in many ways a victim of its own success. While I can’t think of any better place to hold a festival of any kind than at the Pike Place Market, the very popularity and accessibility of the Market proved to be the Festival’s undoing. Literally thousands of people flocked to the Seattle Cheese Festival, turning the experience of attending into a harrowing experience of battling crowds rather than enjoying and/or learning about cheese. Few small local cheesemakers would even consider going to the festival . . . can you imagine sampling out your products for free to 35,000 people? In the end, even the big distributors like Peterson’s and DPI that had come to dominate the festival started backing out.

I’m sorry to see the Seattle Cheese Festival go, but Washington’s cheese enthusiasts still have something to look forward to:  the Washington Artisan Cheesemakers Festival, which is slated to hold its second annual event in October of 2013.

Interview: David Bleckmann, co-author of The Cheesemaker’s Apprentice

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Cheesemaker's Apprentice

The Cheesemaker’s Apprentice: An Insider’s Guide to the Art and Craft of Homemade Artisan Cheese is a new book that represents a meeting of three great minds: Sasha Davies, author of The Guide to West Coast Cheese; David Bleckmann, avid (he would say “obsessed”) home cheesemaker and keeper of the blog The Joy of Home Cheesemaking; and Portland, Oregon based photographer Leela Cyd. Together, they have created an informative, gorgeously photographed book that will inspire you to take your home cheesemaking to the next level…or make a great gift for someone who enjoys experimenting in the kitchen.

At the heart of the book are recipes for a range of cheeses ranging from fresh ricotta to more challenging cheeses such as gouda and cheddar. The recipes are interspersed with inspiring interviews by a range of cheese professionals including Allison Hooper of Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery, Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farm and French affineur Herve Mons. David Bleckmann, who created the cheese recipes featured in the book, was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk the ins and outs of home cheese making and the process of writing the recipes for the book. Warning: his enthusiasm is infectious!

*  *  *  *  *  * 

First, tell us how you got into making cheese in the first place?

I have always been fascinated by how food is made and love to take on the challenge of making something from scratch that one would normally buy at the grocery store Some of my past endeavors include making marshmallows, bacon, and birthday candles shaped a roman numeral ‘X’ for my wife’s thirtieth birthday. Over the years I worked my way through numerous culinary crafts such as brewing beer, preserving fruit, curing bacon, and roasting coffee. In 2009 my wife Caroline surprised me with a cheesemaking class, and I was hooked. Turning milk into cheese seems a magic process when you see it take place, and behind that magic is a lot of really interesting food science. I was compelled to learn all about the process. My goal was to write about home cheesemaking to try to explain what is going on in the milk and cheese when cheesemakers practice their art.

What was it like writing the recipes for this book? You must have been making cheese for months!

Creating and writing the recipes were a big challenge. In the span of four months I had to develop 16 recipes and make the cheeses enough times that we could photograph all of the stages of the make process, including aging which in most cases took nearly three months. It involved weekends preparing cheese at home followed by full days of photography. I am proud to say that nearly all of the photographs that accompany recipes were of cheese that I made for the project (we did have to use commercial cheese a few times). It would not have been possible without the support of my wife, Caroline, who put up with our kitchen being taken over weekend after weekend with vats of coagulating milk and curds draining in the sink.

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