Vermont Cheese Council e-Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 5 November, 2009
In this issue:

Holiday Shopping for Cheese

Cheese News

New Members

New Cheeses

Events

Cheesemaking Classes

Recipe of the Month


Join the Vermont Cheese Council
...more info

"Seasons of Change"

Our 16 page, Fall / Winter print newsletter, can be read on our web site.


Vermont Cheese Trail Map
Vermont Cheese Trail Map ThumbnailThe new Vermont Cheese Trail Map has just been reprinted! Visit our web site for the latest version, or if you would like some printed copies, please send a request to info@vtcheese.com



Thank you retailers and other associate members for your support of the Vermont Cheese Council!


Black River Produce

Brattleboro Food Coop

Castleton Crackers

Cheese Traders &
Wine Sellers


Dakin Farm

Equinox Resort and Spa

Hanover Coop

Harvest Market

Healthy Living

Lebanon Coop

Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op


Mountain Cheese and Wine

Mountain Greens Market and Deli

Newport Specialty Foods

Peter Dixon Dairy Consulting

Provisions International

Ren Hen Cafe and Bakery

South Royalton Market

Stratton Mountain Provisions

Sugarbush Farm

Sweet Clover

The Cellars Group

The Cheese House

The Cheese Shop/ Wasiks

Wine and Cheese Depot

Upper Valley Food Coop

Vermont Cheesemongers

Woodstock Farmer's Market




Facebook

Become a fan of the Vermont Cheese Council on Facebook!

Visit our new Facebook page.

Post a comment or a photo about your favorite Vermont cheese.






Cheese makes a wonderful holiday gift. Many of our members sell their cheese  through their web site. Visit our cheesemakers online.

Blue Ledge Farm

Blythedale Farm

Bonnieview Farm

Cabot Creamery

Champlain Valley Creamery

Cobb Hill Cheese

Consider Bardwell Farm

Crawford Family Farm

Crowley Cheese

Dancing Cow Farm

Does' Leap

Fat Toad Farm

Franklin Foods

Grafton Village Cheese

Hildene Farm Signature Cheese

Green Mountain Blue Cheese

Hope Farm

Jasper Hill Farm

Jericho Hill Farm

Lakes End Cheeses

Lazy Lady Farm

Maplebrook Farm

Mt. Mansfield Creamery

Neighborly Farms

Orb Weaver Farm

Peaked Mountain Farm

Ploughgate Creamery

Plymouth Artisan Cheese

Sage Farm

Scholten Family Farm

Shelburne Farms

Spring Brook Farm

Taylor Farm

Thistle Hill Farm

Twig Farm

Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery.

Vermont Shepherd

von Trapp Farmstead

Willow Hill Farm

West River Creamery

Woodcock Farm

The Holiday Newsletter

When everyone is gathering around this time of year to share food and time together, cheese is one of the best items besides turkey to enjoy! Check out Martha Stewart’s show on how to put together a cheese plate featuring Vermont cheeses and featuring Liz Thorpe of Murray’s Cheese


Holiday Shopping
For Cheese

Sign up for The Vermont Cheese Club and receive a special selection of holiday cheeses this month. Sign up by November 20th to receive your cheese in time for Thanksgiving. Or give someone a gift subscription to the Vermont Cheese Club for one, three or six months. www.vtcheeseclub.com

Sign up now to become a friend of the Vermont Cheese Council and receive a 10% discount for three months with the Vermont Cheese Club.


Cheese News

Vermont Cheesemakers’ were featured on the Martha Stewart Show!

Didn’t catch it? Watch the on-line video and read the articles.

Lazy Lady has a new cheese! Lady in Blue This is an organic raw cow’s milk cheese available in one pound wheels. Lady in Blue is a soft delicate blue cheese with a blue rind........hence lady in blue.


Fat Toad Farm, specializing in fresh goat cheese and goat’s milk caramel (cajeta), won First Place in the Confection Category for its Original Caramel at the 2009 American Dairy Goat Association Competition held in Buffalo, New York this October. Also, new this season are a 4 Jar and 2 Jar Caramel Gift Box.


Read our special interview our newsletter editor Jane Sakovitz-Dale had with Lee Smith Publisher & Editorial Director of Cheese Connoisseur!


Just released…In a Cheesemaker's Kitchen by Allison Hooper of Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery For 25 years, Allison Hooper and Bob Reese have put Vermont on the culinary map as founders of the Vermont Butter and Cheese Co. In Hooper’s new book, “In a Cheesemaker’s Kitchen” (The Countryman Press, 2009, $19.95), she celebrates their story, the chefs who have supported them along the way, and, of course, the creamy chevres, rich creme fraiches and sweet butters that have brought them their success. Read more


New Members

Sage Farm Goat Dairy, Stowe

Sage Farm Goat Dairy was established in 2008 by sisters Molly and Katie Pindell with the help of their partners, David Wilkens and Bob Sabolefski. The farm is located in Stowe and is currently open to the public by appointment only. At Sage Farm, they make cheese seasonally (April-December) from the milk of their small herd of registered Alpine goats; 2009 was their first season selling cheese. They produce a fresh chevre blended with herbs and are currently experimenting with a few varieties of aged and semi-aged cheeses that they hope will be available for sale in the coming months.

Mt. Mansfield Creamery, Morrisville

Mt. Mansfield Creamery makes raw milk farmstead cheeses from the milk of some of their Brown Swiss and Holstein cows. Most of the milk from the herd is still being sold as fluid milk though plans are to transition milk from 10 cows to the making of cheese as work progresses. Currently, they make 36 pounds of cheese per batch, 8 – 12 times per month. They have built a cheese aging facility in an old creamery building below their cheese making room.

Plymouth Cheese Reopens

Plymouth Artisan Cheese
In July, cheesemaker Jesse Werner resumed cheesemaking operations at the historic Plymouth Cheese Factory on the grounds of the Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth Notch. They are open seven days a week, year-round, and the public is welcome to visit and see this American heritage cheese being made four days out of the week. The on-site museum features some of the original equipment used to make Plymouth cheese when it first went into production in 1890. Plymouth cheese is a traditional granular curd cheese. It is made from a single, local source of raw cow’s milk, and is said to be Julia Childs’ favorite cheese. It is still made in the style of the earliest cheese making of the region. Cheese can be purchased in their retail store, as well as at the wholesale level. For information, call 802 672-3650.

Crowley Cheese Back in Business

After a brief hiatus, Award-winning Crowley Cheese is back in business hand-making its uniquely American-style cheese from the same recipe, in the same manner as it has since 1824. With a distinctively smooth, creamy texture, Crowley Cheese is often compared to a cheddar “without the bite” but, truthfully, it defies description as it pre-dates the FDA classification system. It’s not cheddar, not Colby, it’s Crowley. Crowley Cheese is one of a very small number of genuine American cheeses. Few cheeses originated in the United States; most came to this country with the various immigrant groups who settled here. Crowley Cheese began in the Crowleys’ kitchen in 1824. The Crowley Cheese Factory, built by Winifred Crowley in 1882, is the oldest cheese factory in America. The company was recently featured on the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. You can catch the 10 minutes segment on YouTube 58,000 viewers already have!


New Cheeses

Blue Ledge Farm is now making a raw goat’s milk brie-style cheese called Dunmore. Lake Dunmore is a popular summer destination in the southern Champlain Valley, and likewise this cheese is largely made in the spring and summer months. It is wonderfully oozy under the skin, sometimes firm in the middle, and always with a powerfully tart goaty bite.

Mt. Mansfield Creamery's Inspiration cheese is a French recipe washed with Rock Art’s Holiday Lager. The complex flavor of the cheese is brought out with this seasonal lager.

Grafton Village Cheese's Blue Ribbon Award Winning Duet represents a first-time collaboration with a cheesemaker outside Vermont. The inspiration for this cheese which sandwiches a slice of St. Pete’s Blue cheese between two of Grafton’s Premium Cheddar came about as a “cocktail napkin” idea between two of Grafton’ sales managers and the owner of Minnesota’s Faribault Dairy at a cheese event. Some testing followed, and the final product was introduced originally as a limited product during last year’s holiday season. It was so successful that they decided to keep it going


Events

November 20, 2009
Hanover & Lebanon Coops
Tasting of Vermont Butter & Cheese aged cheese and book signing by Allison Hooper

November 21, 2009
Hunger Mountain Coop
Tasting of Vermont Butter & Cheese aged cheese and book signing by Allison Hooper

December 19, 2009
Sweet Clover Market in Essex 11:00-1:30
Healthy Living in South Burlington 2:30-5:30
Castleton Crackers and Fat Toad Farm partner up to do a holiday demo of local artisan crackers and cheese!

January 17-19, 2010
35th Winter Fancy Food Show
Moscone Center, San Franscisco
www.specialtyfood.com


Cheesemaking Classes

Cheesemaking with Peter Dixon
Consider Bardwell Farm, West Pawlet


December 16-17, 2009
Cheesemaking and Affinage: Techniques, microbes and facilities. Exploring the craft of cheese making and ripening. On day one participants will make a tomme cheese. On day two they will follow the steps for ripening this cheese and many others. The focus will be on ripening cultures, bio-reactions, affinage techniques, quality control, and how to design and construct facilities for the many types of cheese.

January 4-5, 2010
Beginners class about cheese making and starting an artisan cheese business. Topics include starting up a creamery; properties of sheep, cow and goat milk and their use in cheese making; making lactic curd cheeses (Chaource and Fromage Blanc) and Tomme; cheese brining; cheese ripening; and financial and marketing information.

The Vermont Institute For Artisan Cheese Classes

Feb 1, 2010 - Feb 3/2010
Essential Principles and Practices of Cheesemaking

Feb 4, 2010
Hygiene and Food Safety in Cheesemaking

Feb 5, 2010
Quality and Chemistry of Milk

Feb 15, - Feb 16, 2010
Cheese Chemistry Short Course

Feb 17, 2010
Starter Cultures

Feb 18, 2010
Basic Sensory Evaluation


Rural Vermont Hosts Cheesemaking Classes 

November 22, 2009
Butter, Yogurt, Ricotta, & Fromage Blanc

Lisa McCrory of Earthwise Farm & Forest, Bethel
1 – 4:30 pm To register, contact Lisa directly at 234-5524 or lmccrory@hughes.net

December 7, 2009
Making & Dressing Up Chevre for Holiday Serving and Gifts! Plus Kefir

Mary Ellen Davis of Foxwell Farm  
Presbyterian Church, South Ryegate

January 10, 2010
Yogurt & Soft Cheeses

Gillian Comstock, Metta Earth Institute Inc., Lincoln


Recipe of the Month

Winter Squash and
Vermont Goat Cheese Gratin


By Courtney Contos, Executive Chef for Cook Academy


Serves 6-8

2 ½ pounds butternut squash (about 2 medium, peeled, seeded, cut into 2 inch cubes (8 cups)
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
2 cups leeks (white and pale green part only), sliced thin
2 cups trimmed and quartered Brussels sprouts
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 ½ teaspoons fresh thyme, rosemary, sage or parsley
5.5 ounces fresh Vermont goat cheese
½ cup heavy whipping cream
½ cup walnuts and hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 425°F. Place butternut squash cubes and olive oil in large bowl; sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and ground pepper and toss to coat. Spread out squash cubes on large rimmed baking sheet. Roast until just tender and beginning to brown, stirring once, about 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add sliced leeks and chopped herbs; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes then add brussel sprouts. Sauté until tender but not brown, about 10 minutes, add garlic stir in well and turn off heat. Coat 9x9-inch baking dish with remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Spread half of leek mixture over bottom of prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with half of squash and half of cheese. Repeat layering with leeks, squash, and cheese. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Pour cream evenly over gratin. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts. Bake uncovered until gratin is heated through and cream is bubbling, about 30 minutes (40 minutes if previously chilled).


Become a Friend or Associate Member of the
Vermont Cheese Council

As a Friend of the Vermont Cheese Council, we welcome your donations to assist us with our endeavors to improve the production and advancement of Vermont cheese. Your generous support helps us to continue to grow and expand our technical support for members, while providing you with delicious Vermont cheese. Learn more about the benefits of becoming a friend of the Council or sign up now!

As an Associate Member of the Vermont Cheese Council, we welcome all industry related businesses and individuals who see the value in having a strong cheese industry in Vermont. Learn more about the benefits of an Associate Membership on our web site.

For more information, you may contact our main office at: (866) 261-8595 or visit www.vtcheese.com

This newsletter can also be viewed on our website.


Newsletter Contributors: Calley Hastings and Jane Sakovitz-Dale