If You’re in Omaha, There’s a Cheese Club Waiting For You at Baker’s
September 11, 2011
Miranda discusses her cheese club and her passion for cheese in an interview with CBS-Affiliate KOLN’s own Lance Schwartz. Please click on the link below to see this charming interview:
Stay Tuned… MarcellaTheCheesemonger.com is Under Contruction
September 10, 2011
The Lady and I have taken the cheese plunge and are about to unveil a full-service website that for some unknown and inexplicable reason is being named after The Lady rather than moi, your humble Feline Foodie, Spaulding Gray, who does all the heavy lifting around here while The Lady takes all the glory… one more time…
Please visit the website by clicking here.
Until construction is complete, we will continue to blog here and at our recipe blog… especially while The Lady is in Italy at the Bra Cheese Festival hanging out with the Cheese Swells and I am, once again, left behind to wrangle The Man… I just don’t get it… I think it all has to do with that opposable thumb thing…
I’ve been peeking and Troy, the IT genius behind the new website, is doing a bang-up job getting it ready… Stay Tuned…
From Top: Hopyard, Raw Milk Sharp Cheddar and Mountina
After our entrée last night The Lady served a Cheese Plate for dessert with fresh Peach Salsa that she made using veggies from The Garden of The Man. The Salsa recipe is posted over on our recipe blog and you can check it out by clicking here. The bounty from The Garden of The Man has been wonderful the last few weeks after a cold spring and cool summer.
The Lady served three cheeses that she bought in the Rogue Creamery Gift Shop last week with the fresh peach salsa. Perhaps it was a strange pairing, but with fresh fruit and veggies, one can never really go wrong.
The first cheese on the plate was Mountina, a mountain-style cheese from the “Alpine-ish” Mountains of Montana. Dwayne and Darryl of the Vintage Cheese Company decided to make an American Artisan cheese fashioned after the great Swiss cheeses like Le Gruyere and Emmenthal. Well, they succeeded. I found this cheese to be nutty and sweet in the center and a little richer as you approach the washed-rind that was also coated in a thin, breathable wax. Of the three, this was the perfect cheese to start our cheese plate adventure. Perhaps a bit milder than its inspiration but with a little more age, I suspect it will become heartier.
I give the Mountina 3 Paws out of 4 Paws (cause that’s all I’ve got).
Serving Suggestions: In addition to snacking, this would also make an excellent melting cheese for cooking.
Libation pairings will appear at the end of this review.
The second cheese was a Rogue Creamery creation in collaboration with Rogue Ales: Hopyard, a Rogue Creamery cheese mixed with Freedom Hops from the Chatoe Rogue Micro Hopyard in Oregon’s Wigrich Appellation (now that’s quite a mouthful, even for the Feline Foodie). The whole hops are de-stemmed by hand, steeped in hot water and mixed with the curds and then pressed into blocks. The result is a tasty cheese that even a non-beer drinker finds delightful. I suspect that if you love beer, then you will really take to this cheese.
I give Hopyard 3 Paws out of 4 Paws (cause that’s all I’ve got).
Serving Suggestions: Again, on a cheese plate you’ll be happy as a clam… or a cat… as the case may be…
The third cheese on the plate was the one that made The Man swoon and delighted The Lady and moi, as well: Raw Milk Sharp Cheddar. This cheese is crumbly with a distinct bite and a lingering bitterness that is the perfect finish for a sharp cheddar. We enjoyed all three but this cheese was our favorite. You can always count on cheddar being a hit around the manse.
I give the Rogue Creamery Raw Milk Sharp Cheddar 4 Paws out of 4 Paws (cause that’s all I’ve got).
Serving Suggestions: This is definitely both a snacking and cooking cheese. The Lady plans to use the rest of it with a larger wedge of Rouge Creamery Tou Velleto make a mac n cheese (the recipe will appear on our sister blog… stay tuned).
2005 Madrone Mountain Mundo Novo
Now for the libation pairings: The Man suggests the 75th Anniversary Rogue Ale made by Rogue Ales to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Rogue Creamery.
The Lady served the 2005 Mondo Novo from Madrone Mountain, a port-style dessert wine made especially to be enjoyed with Rogue cheeses… and it was.
And yet one more bit of trivia: Did you know that the Rogue Creamery Gift Shop in Central Point, Oregon has been named a Top Tourist destination in Oregon? The Lady said the morning her group was there, a steady stream of visitors were buying cheeses and wines. One group of four (two couples) from Northern California told The Lady they travel four and a half hours several times a year to visit the creamery and Fred Meyer. She added, “There’s nothing like Fred Meyer in California and that’s a shame.”
Murray’s Cheese is coming to the Kroger in Aiken, South Carolina. If you are a Foodie or know a Foodie who lives in the Aiken area, please have them contact Don Routman and apply to become a Murray’s Cheesemonger!!
Getting Rogued at Rogue Creamery
September 3, 2011
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| Rogue Creamery |
(By clicking on the above picture, you will be able to view a slideshow of the entire trip.)
The Lady was invited to join six winning Fred Meyer Cheesemongers and two fine Ladies from DPI to make cheese at Rogue Creamery.
The winners were chosen based on their sales of Rogue Blue Cheeses at their kiosks and their merchandising abilities.
The trip began with a five-course dinner with Rogue Creamery Owners, David Gremmels and Cary Bryant, who graciously welcomed the group to their hillside home. Each course featured a different Rogue Cheese with Cary preparing several of the dishes including a wonderful, savory creme brulee that started the meal. The cheese course included the latest Rogue creation, Flora Nelle, a marvelous blue named after Cary and David’s Grandmothers. (The Lady brought home a wedge and we will be reviewing it soon…)
After an overnight stay at the Wine Country Inn in Jacksonville, Oregon, the Fred Meyer mongers traveled to Central Point and the cheesemaking facility of Award-Winning Rogue cheeses, including the 2011 Best of Show at the American Cheese Society Competition, Rogue River Blue. There, Cary, David and head cheesemakers, Craig and Jason, worked with the winners to make two vats of cheese: Tou Velle and Oregon Blue. After aging, these cheeses will be sold exclusively at Fred Meyer Cheese Kiosks in early 2012. The Fred Meyer group learned they were the first group invited to make cheese at the Creamery – what an honor!!!
Shawn, a member of the Rogue family, led the group trough a Rogue Cheese Plate, a sack lunch was enjoyed and then the group headed out to tour the two sustainable dairy farms that provide the milk to Rogue Creamery.
Rogue Creamery is a leader in sustainable farming and cheesemaking, having been certified by Food Alliance, Oregon’s Tilth and Steritech. The guys shared with The Lady their choice of “sustainable” over “organic” (although they do make a couple of organic cheeses). Simply put, sustainable farming treats animals more humane than organic. With organic dairy farming, if an animal becomes sick, it is destroyed. Sustainable dairy farming allows treatment of the animal, pulling it from production until all antibiotics are out of the milk. As Cary said, “When I get sick, I take medicine; the doctor doesn’t put me down.” As an animal of the feline persuasion, all I can say is, “Whee… thank goodness for sustainability around the manse.”
They encourage recycling and energy conservation both at the Creamery and home. The Creamery is powered 100% in the summer by solar panels (which also provide about 30% during the winter); they recycle everything that can be recycled. If an employee rides a bike to work 45 times in a year, Rogue gives them a top-of-the-line bike. They pay bonuses for carpooling, biking and using public transportation. It’s amazing and it’s beyond admirable…
After touring the dairies, it was time to play and the group headed to Grants’ Pass and a four-hour dinner tour up the Rogue River on Hellgate Excursions‘ jet boats. Eighteen miles up the river, they stopped for a BBQ dinner at the OK Corral. Both up and down the river, the boat pilots treated the group to maneuvers that resulted in lots of wet clothes and gleeful screaming. They saw many osprey and two eagles on the adventure.
The next morning The Ladies stopped at the Rogue Gift Shop and loaded up on cheese, wines and cheese pairings and headed back to reality…
The Lady asked that I make sure everyone at Rogue Creamery understands how special this opportunity was… so here’s a shout out to: David, cary, Sonja, Mimi, Chelsea, Meredith, Craig, Francis, Jason, Tom, Sue, Lacey, Shawn, Delmer, Holly, Huck, Andy, Gabe and Marcela, Brandon, MacKenzie and baby Mason… and the cheesemakers whose names she failed to get… it is a time that will not be forgotten…
Now for a final note… I’d like to bring it to each of my faithful reader’s attention that one more time, The Lady was hanging out with The Cheese Swells and I was left back at the manse with The Man… I have got to have a long conversation with The Brain about the balance of power around here… I’m in charge… although with The Lady off galavanting you’d never know it… and the biggest galavant to date is just 10 days away… The Lady leaves on the 13th to attend the Slow Food Cheese Festival in Bra, Italy and work as a monger at the American Cheese Booth with Cheese Swells from Rogue Creamery, Cow Girl Creamery, Vermont Butter Creamery, Jasper Hills Farm, Uplands Cheese Company, Cypress Grove, Kroger, Murray’s Cheese and AFI… there just is no justice…
Sir Kitty Cheese Paws
September 1, 2011
Sir Kitty Cheese Paws Dictates to The Lady
The Lady and I have a new Cheesy Friend, Miranda, who is a Cheese Steward at a Baker’s in Omaha, Nebraska. She saw The Lady’s picture (hey, where’s the picture of The Cat????) and our mention in the new Fall Issue of Culture Magazine and dropped us a line via the Kroger pipeline.
Miranda hosts a monthly Cheese Club at her cheese shop in the Baker’s store and we will be posting information on those events so that all you Cheese Nerds in Omaha can attend and taste some great cheeses that are paired “purrfectly”…
Miranda, evidently a nicknamer by nature, has bestowed on moi a new moniker… from this day forward The Lady and The Man are hereby requested to refer to me only as… Sir Kitty Cheese Paws…
Fall 2011 Culture Magazine
August 28, 2011
The Lady and I subscribe to Culture Magazine, the top-selling magazine dedicated solely to the slow food closest to our hearts: cheese, glorious cheese!! The fall issue mentions The Lady and moi, your not-so-humble Feline Foodie… please buy a copy and read the latest news about “Milk’s leap to mortality”.
Also, on page 107 there is a picture of two of the important players in making cheese for Rogue Creamery: one is a gentle animal who gives more than takes from the earth… and the other is a cow…
Please subscribe to Culture Magazine by clicking here. You can “like Culture” on Facebook and “follow Culture“ on twitter…
Rogue Creamery’s Echo Mountain Blue
August 26, 2011
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I’m sitting in my small, cramped home bunker working my paws off… and attempting to wrangle The Man… while The Lady is off cavorting this week with the Cheese Swells at Rogue Creamery. As I have said before… and often… there is something seriously wrong with the division of labor around here… but I digress.
First and foremost, The Lady will be sharing her Rogue adventure when she returns. She was invited by DPI to join a group of Fred Meyer cheesemongers who won a trip to make cheese at Rogue Creamery. The six winners were chosen based on increased sales of Rogue cheeses at their respective kiosks or based on their skillful merchandising of the Creamery’s cheeses.
Here’s a shout out to the winners: Mary, Shannon, Amber, Karen, Erin (whom, according to The Lady, drives like a maniac) and Terri. Congratulations on your success!!!
After making cheese yesterday the group was treated to a Rogue Cheese Plate that included two cheeses we have previously reviewed: Oregon Blue and Tou Velle. Also on the plate were two cheeses, we have not reviewed. One is Echo Mountain. The other will be reviewed in the next couple of days once I have The Lady back in the manse… where she will pay… heavily… for leaving me home… again…
Echo Mountain is a blended milk cheese made from goat and cow milk from two Sustainable Dairies that The Lady visited while at Rogue… do the indignities never end… here I sit reporting… but I’m not bitter… who am I kidding, of course I’m bitter…
The Lady met the goats who contribute the milk for Echo Mountain and evidently one of them got a bit friendly… and then she met the cows that contribute the milk for this cheese.
The Too-Friendly Goat
There will be more on the Sustainable Farming programs that the dairy farmers and Rogue Creamery practice but for now all I’m saying is… Wow!!! Are you going to be impressed…
As time goes by and more cheeses are tasted, The Lady and I become bigger fans of goat milk cheeses and we’ve found another winner.
Echo Mountain is creamy and rich with beautiful blue veining throughout the paste. The blending of cow and goat brings a little earthiness and a goat tang. At the same time it’s subtle and complex. It melts on the palate and leaves a unique, lingering finish.
The Lady, through the power of telepathy, has asked me to give Echo Mountain 4 Paws out of 4 Paws (cause that’s all I’ve got). Let me add, she sure as heck had better bring a wedge of this cheese home to moi, your not-so-humble, feline foodie.
Serving Suggestions: On a cheese plate, this cheese is a great way to finish. Thanks to Burgerville, we learned here in the Pacific Northwest, that this cheese is perfect on a burger. In chatting with David Gremmels, The Lady learned that Burgerville contributed a portion of the profits from the sales of the Echo Mountain Burgers to the American Cheese Society Educational Fund – thank you Burgerville!!! Read the Burgerville Press Release by clicking here.
Wine Pairing: 2005 Madrone Mountain Mundo Novo Dessert Wine. She had this divine Port-style wine while her group enjoyed dinner at the home of David and Cary, the owners of Rogue Creamery… yep, you know what I’m thinking…
Beer Pairing: Rogue Ale’s Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
Source: Sustainable Cow and Goat Milks
Please “Like” Rogue Creamery on Facebook and “Follow” them on Twitter.
Stay Tuned: All weekend, The Lady and I will be reporting on her trip to Rogue Creamery… she asked me to send out a huge thank you to everyone at the creamery for an unforgettable cheese memory…
Looking for Murray’s Cheese Associates in Denver Area for King Soopers and City Markets
August 24, 2011
Murray’s Cheese is opening three stores in Denver area
King Soopers and City Market – Glendale/Leetsdale cheese shop is already up and running.
They are currently seeking to “cast” additional candidates in the “role” of
cheese associates
at these stores.
If you have always dreamed of working in a cheese shop
or you know someone
with an outgoing, enthusiastic personality
who adores customer engagement and cheese,
this would be a great role to apply for!
Contact:
Kristin Harrison, Human Resources
King Soopers/City Markets
303 778 2782
Store Locations:
Store 124
4600 Leetsdale Drive
Glendale, CO 80246
Store 96
6000 So. Holly Street
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Store 72
2750 S. Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80222
October Marks the First American Cheese Month
August 19, 2011
The American Cheese Society has named October “American Cheese Month” – all American cheeses… not that rubbery stuff… The Lady is attending a meeting next Monday afternoon at the Denver Headquarters of the American Cheese Society to help kick off this first ever American Cheese Month… stay tuned… we will post events as they unfold and are scheduled… woohoo!!!
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