While most ‘local’ cheeses are from Texas hill country, Pola Artisan Cheeses are made right here in Houston with milk procured from small dairy farmers in the area ... more
"A cheese weighing 75 pounds or more is considered a mammoth," Henning explains. "We regularly make cheeses from 100 to 2,000 pounds and have made many 12,000-pound mammoths." ... more
One minute Eric Foster was touting cheese-making as a way to put the endangered family dairy farm on easy street. The next, his wife, Holly, was elbow deep in a vat of curds and whey, struggling to keep their morning's work from literally going down the drain ... more
"In French, the word 'chevre' means goat," said artisan cheesemaker Barbara Jenness, owner of Dancing Goat Creamery at DogWood Farm, in Byron Township. The creamery is Michigan's first artisan homestead goat cheese producer ... more
Carine Goldin grew up tasting hundreds of different kinds of cheese in France. Now in Molalla, she crafts her own in a traditional French artisan manner ... more
His cheese making room doesn't look like much. Other than a few cheese baskets, a couple of milk pails and one large vat, nothing about this room screams up-and-coming business. But looks aren't everything ... more
Bessie and Molly are two of the nine "Jersey girls" who supply five gallons of milk daily and three gallons in the summer. It is a breed known for tolerating heat and producing milk high in butter fat content ... more
For Tasia Malakasis, it all began eight years ago when the Alabama native happened into a Dean & DeLuca in New York City and had an epiphany in the cheese department ... more
Dug into the side of a sagebrush-covered slope on 84 acres near Tumalo is Flavio DeCastilhos’ cellar, a climate-controlled room kept at 56 degrees and 85 percent humidity that’s filled with deep brining tanks and racks of 10- and 20-pound wheels of cheese ... more
About 55 miles outside New York City, is the Bobolink Dairy, where two of my favorite farmers in the world, Jonathan and Nina White, make cheese from pasture-raised cows ... more
When Rick and Helen Feete were married in 1977, they decidedthey didn't want to live in the corporate world. Instead, they chose life on a farm ... more
With the increased demand for artisan and farmstead cheese, Jeremy and Heidi Kenealy of Cadott came up with a plan to use the milk from their 75 cows to create their own cheese ... more
Twenty years ago, it was a hardscrabble tobacco farm that had fallen on hard times, even before the demise of what once had been North Carolina’s mainstay crop ... more
If you ask Art Ludlow why he started the Mecox Bay Dairy gourmet cheese line, he’ll grin and tell you, “I lost all of my senses” before relating the story of how he went from being a third generation potato farmer to a first generation artisanal cheese maker ... more
A fledgling goat farmer is taking Down East Maine by storm — less than six years after acquiring her first goat — with an array of artisanal cheeses ... more
Peggy Smith and Sue Conley, the original “cowgirls” behind Cowgirl Creamery, began making cheese in ... Point Reyes Station in 1997. As its base, they used organic milk from the neighboring Straus Family Creamery ... more
Though she made goat cheese in less-than-glamorous surroundings in Elkmont, Liz Parnell, who founded Fromagerie Belle Chevre in 1989, garnered national attention and praise for her quality product ... more
"It takes a community of people to have a farm enterprise," said Blackberry Farmstead Manager Neal Wavra. "If we existed as an island, we'd be in trouble." ... more
When Cowgirl Creamery's new processing plant in Petaluma opened its doors to visitors last week, here's what we were greeted with: tall racks stacked with ripening Mt. Tam cheeses, air heady with the scent of fermenting cow's milk and the blast and gurgle of machinery ... more
oe Hillman is leaning against his barn, smoking a pipe, and looking up at the steep rocky hillside pasture where his herd of goats is browsing clover, birch bark, and tender dandelion greens ... more
“They’re browsers,” says Pete Demchur, owner and cheese-maker at Shellbark Hollow. “They just eat certain things, like the tops
of the grasses in the pasture.” Since Shellbark’s goats receive plenty of “really nice Western alfalfa,” they’re apparently very picky about their pasturage ... more
The traditional farm, boasting a few cows where milking is done by hand, has become a novelty in America. However, for the Lapp farm in Cassadaga, the demand for raw milk and milk products made owner Rachel Kellogg shift from a farm of 60 cows to six ... more
Cherry Glen's goat cheeses are surprisingly complex and varied, especially considering that they all come from 175 goats eating the same diet and living in the same quarters ... more
Scott Erickson's Creations aren't just food, they're a form of self-expression. Tattooed and slightly scruffy, wearing clothes more casual than the starched, name-bedecked white uniform of a typical cheesemaker, Erickson could easily be a sculptor or an abstract painter ... more
To spend a morning at Fromagerie Belle Chevre is to understand how a successful software company executive could trade in her desk job for more pastoral pursuits ... more
While the road to Hendricks Farms & Dairy from Philadelphia passes a large industrial meat-processing plant, the production of cheese on this cozy 230-acre farm is more conscientious and personal than in such animal factories ... more
Four brothers, trying to keep their third-generation dairy farm from curdling under high prices, took a chance two years ago that involved a trip to France and a funny little thimble-shaped cheese ... more
Five years ago, with her children grown and her motherly instincts still strong, Lisa Schwartz bought two American Alpine goats. In short order, her herd grew from 2 to 36 ... more
A fourth-generation cheesemaker for Carr Valley Cheese in Lavalle, Wis., Cook was at McCaffrey’s supermarket in Lower Makefield last week to introduce shoppers to some of his creations ... more
Les Hardesty first made cheese in his home kitchen. With a kit he purchased, Hardesty, who worked at a dairy at the time, would come home from work and begin to mix the milk and rennet, an enzyme that helps milk solidify ... more
In many ways, the story of Karl Santos and his three brothers and the Westport farm that has been in their family for three generations is typical of what is happening to other
dairy farmers in New England ... more
If you don't speed right by it you'll spot a covered wagon alongside the roadway with a sign that says, "Winchester Cheese Company." ... Yes, you've arrived in gouda country ... more
When City Pages asked me to name an artist of the year, one thought rang out in my mind like a church bell's peal: Shepherd's Way Farms, Jodi Ohlsen Read and Stephen Read, no question, no second thought, they're the ones ... more
Deneane Ashcraft literally has farming in her blood. A sixth-generation California farmer who grew up in Sonoma County and moved to the north state about 20 years ago, Ashcraft and her husband, Mark, own and operate North Valley Farms Chevre Inc. in Cottonwood ... more
Mr. Casiello’s enthusiasm for the art of cheese making and its results are infectious. He describes the refined artisanal process of making cheese with such passion and enthusiasm that you know is sure to reflect upon the end product itself ... more
First, Anne Jones earned a veterinary degree. Later, she earned a master's degree in marketing. Then, she bought five acres in the country and got a goat ... more
The smell was irresistibly wonderful. I was standing in the cheese room at Locust Grove Farms and... as I became aware of the redolent odor of aging cheese it became the distraction, until I interrupted Clark to exclaim, "It smells wonderful in here!" ... more
Andy and Mateo Kehler never intended to make cheese. In the mid-1990s, the brothers... bought a couple hundred acres outside Greensboro and then set about figuring out what to do with it ... more
DeCastilhos spent years researching cheese production and found goat milk was not being used often for aged cheese. He and his wife opened Tumalo Farms two years ago and found instant success ... more
Twenty five happy kunana (goats) on Bob and Louisa Wooton’s organic farm are producing healthful and delicious fresh goat’s cheese exclusively for Kaua‘i ... more
Like many area dairy farmers, the Santos brothers — Karl, Kevin, Arthur and Norman — were only hoping to find a way to keep the family business going. Two years ago, they took a gamble and sent one of the brothers to France to learn how to make cheese ... more
Give Michael Moss credit for his patience. In January 2002, his family purchased 64 acres on Sterling Creek Road not far from Woodrat Mountain, and he soon developed the goal of raising goats and producing cheese from their milk ... more
A thorough cleaning begins the day at Three Shepherds of the Mad River Valley. Cheesemaker Larry Faillace says, "Scrupulous cleanliness is really critical." ... more
The scent of fresh milk hangs in the air at the Beehive Cheese Co.'s store, which is hidden among a group of businesses at the mouth of Weber Canyon ... more
These were supposed to be their Golden Years ... Instead, they are working 12-hour days, seven days a week, running their upstart Lake Erie Creamery, Ohio's only licensed goat cheese producer ... more
The first time Holly Foster visited Cowgirl Creamery in downtown Washington, she slowly examined the high-end offerings produced by some of the country's most respected cheesemakers... Then she walked out. Excited but intimidated by the artisanal displays, Foster called her husband, Eric, who told her to turn around and take her own cheese into the shop ... more
It all began as a hobby for Russell Gift of Hardesty, Okla ... The goats began producing more milk than his family could drink, and Gift decided to finally try his hand at cheese-making ... more
Mark Hackett is a big cheese in Vermont. But he and his company like to bill him as the "spokesfarmer" for Cabot Creamery. It's a job he likes to milk for all it's worth as he travels the country,
pitching Vermont cheddar to the nibbling public ... more
Heick, the company [Bubalus Bubalis] president, has been in the buffalo-milk mozzarella business since 2002, when he and a partner bought an existing 3-year-old business. But Heick's wife, Grazia Perrella, comes from a mozzarella-making family in Naples ... more
A battered blue sign with the outline of a goat’s head and the words “Belle Chevre” hangs on a fencepost beside an unpaved driveway off Bethel Road in northern Limestone County ... more
Sue Conley has more than 80 first cousins in the Washington area. And that just happens to be the number of cheeses available at the new cheese shop she co-owns in Northwest Washington ...
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As a young artist studying in Baltimore, Will O'Donnell found himself drawn irresistibly to one recurring feature of the many gallery openings he attended: the fuzzy white imported cheeses on the hors d'oeuvres table ... more
In the space of 3½ years, David Gremmels and Cary Bryant have converted a company on the brink of extinction into a thriving enterprise that has grown from three to 35 employees and expects to have 55 on the payroll by year’s end ... more
Sonoma County cheesemaker Laura Chenel built her business on fresh goat cheese, but her heart lies with her two ripened cheeses: crottin and Taupiniere ... more
It's summer, but school is in session. Near the old barn, I'm standing with five other students, gingerly gripping our recently killed Cornish Cross chickens by their feet ... more
