Looking for an American cheese for Thanksgiving? Of course you are. You could set out a fine bandaged Cheddar, or maybe some fresh local goat cheese with olives, but if you want to put the most smiles on the most faces, serve pimento cheese. Or as we say in my home state of Texas: puh-menna cheese. It’s so retro, it’s in again.
Read moreFirst Cut is the Sweetest
Cheese never tastes better than from a fresh-cut wheel, so my introduction to Goat Lady Dairy’s Providence was about as good as it gets. I had stopped into San Francisco’s Cheese Plus just as the monger was making the initial cut into this crusty aged North Carolina goat cheese. What sweet, nutty, caramel-like aromas. I took home a big chunk.
Read moreTiny Cheese, Giant Buzz
“I don’t know if we’ve ever introduced a new cheese that has had this much instant acclaim,” said Vermont Creamery owner Allison Hooper about the recent debut of St. Albans. “We didn’t anticipate it.”
Read morePresidential Cheese Plate
“I stole the idea from George Washington,” admits Bill Owens, the Northern California brewer credited with popularizing pumpkin ale. Historians tell us that our first President was a beer enthusiast, and that he brewed ale from gourds. Now, 250 years later, pumpkin beers are an annual American rite and a sudsy segue into autumn. Pair them with a few of the cheeses they like and there’s your debate-night platter.
Read moreLast Call
Made from sheep’s milk and wrapped in grape leaves, Ledyard is one of America’s most impressive new cheeses. And if you want to taste it before the year’s supply dries up, hop to it. The sheep are about to go on sabbatical.
Read moreSummer’s Celebrity
Move over, mozzarella. Burrata—a cheese that most Americans had never heard of a decade ago—is summer’s breakout star. I know that from restaurant menus, from observing grocery carts and from these stats from Di Stefano Cheese, the Southern California burrata producer whose product I adore:
Read moreFresh As It Gets
Rebecca King makes some excellent aged cheeses in California’s Monterey County with milk from her 100 ewes. But if you want to taste her fresh cheese, Sweet Alyssum, now’s the moment. In early October, her flock will start a two-month sabbatical, resting up for the lambing season that begins in December.
Read moreCollaboration Nation
Many cheesemakers and brewers know that their products are better together. But lately some American artisan cheesemakers are taking the relationship further. By washing their cheese with local brews, they’re producing some unique one-off wheels that deserve a permanent place in the firmament. Jasper Hill’s Gose-Washed Willoughby, part of a new beer-themed series from this Vermont creamery, proves how rewarding the collaboration can be.
Read moreTop of the Mountain
Cheese champ: Chris Roelli
For cheesemaker Chris Roelli, last week’s American Cheese Society “Best of Show” ribbon must feel like sweet vindication. Roelli spent years trying to persuade his father to get back in the business after the elder Roelli shuttered his Wisconsin cheese plant in 1991. The family had struggled to make a living producing commodity Cheddar and other low-priced cheese—the type that ends up shredded on a fast-food taco. “When we closed the doors, we were making literally a penny a pound,” Chris told me.
Read moreWine Family's Awesome Cheeses
Mostly goat: Velvet Sister
Nothing makes cheese taste better than seeing the place where it’s made. Alas, most American creameries don’t welcome visitors. Sanitation is the main issue, and few small producers have the staff for tours. But in California’s scenic Anderson Valley, Pennyroyal Farmstead Cheese is charting a different course. In March, the three-year-old Boonville creamery opened a tasting room and began offering tours. From anywhere, it’s worth the journey.
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