Birchrun Holsteins strike a pose

Birchrun Hills Farm is set against the backdrop of Pennsylvania’s rolling hills—a stone’s throw from Philadelphia, but bathed in crisp, clean air and tucked away from nearby traffic. Although suburban development has encroached in recent years, the farm’s owners are standing their ground. Sue Miller and family have owned the farm for decades and continue to operate as a dairy, caring for their herd of Holsteins and milking around 80 cows twice a day, every day.

After arriving, we wandered around the farm to have a look at the milking room, the on-deck area where milking cows eagerly await their turn, and the calves’ quarters. The Millers have made a name for themselves with milk- and grass-fed veal, which involves raising their young male calves in open-air pens rather than constrictive crates. The end result: happy and humanely treated animals, a sought-after product, and a quality source of income for the Millers.

Of course, we were there above all else to talk cheese. In a story oft-repeated throughout the country, the Millers have increasingly had trouble making ends meet by selling their milk on the commodity market, so several years ago Sue decided to diversify. The best way to add value to high-quality milk produced by happy animals on a small family farm? Make cheese!

Birchrun Blue in the make room

Since her first venture into the cheesemaking room, Sue has created a line of raw-milk cheeses that are well respected in the region and beyond. We visited her facility, several miles down the road from her farm, and she walked us through her process—from separating the curds and whey to the affinage magic she performs in her aging room.

Sue now reserves about 10 percent of her milk for cheese, which she makes by hand in small batches. The highlights of her creations include a pungent, earthy, and pudgy washed rind called Fat Cat and the grassy, milky Birchrun Blue. Sue’s cheeses burst with flavor and exhibit the terroir of the farm and its surroundings.

Affinage in action

We’re obsessed with the cheeses from Birchrun Hills Farm, and with cheesemakers like the Miller family. They exemplify what’s so exciting about the current food and farm movement, and they remind us why we remain committed to showcasing the best of the best of American artisanal cheese.

Horses wander the pasture in Tick Valley, Northern California

Northern California is another such breadbasket and beacon for small farm and slow food production.  Some forty, twisting minutes inland from coastal Mendocino, my brother has happily relocated and married into a family of pastoralists.  Snuggled between looming glades of Redwood and serene hills and meadows yellowed by the California sun, Tick Valley Farm counts some thirty sheep, twelve horses, three beef cattle, and numerous chickens, duck, geese, and pheasants amongst its litter.  The valley produces vegetables, fruits, meat and wool, all of which are collected as raw material and processed for pickling, canning, and knitting by my talented brother and sister-in-law.

Josh and Laurel take pride as stewards of the land. Using minimal machinery and sustainable agricultural methods, they produce a wealth of scrumptiousness, enrich the soil, and provide their animals an unconfined, happy life.

Perhaps the most exciting addition to the farm is a beautiful Shorthorn dairy cow named Connie, whom I met on a visit in October.  True to her English heritage breed, Connie is docile and friendly, both a wonderful farm companion and a productive resident of the farm: since calving in September, Connie is faithfully producing nearly seven gallons of milk each day.

Tick Valley’s Shorthorn dairy cow and her calf, Connie and Diva

Now, I consider myself decently versed in farm life for a city boy, but I was wholly unprepared for hand milking. Every morning and evening, Laurel heads to the pasture where Connie and her calf, Diva, both eagerly await their hay, alfalfa, and oats.  Requiring levels of feel, skill, and energy that I could not have imagined, my hands seized up every five minutes.  Meanwhile, my sister-in-law efficiently and neatly milks away, lazily tripling my pace. For an hour, Connie munches and Diva greedily sucks her bottle, while Laurel milks with agility and endurance into a shiny steel bucket. Two gallons go to Diva, while the remaining five are brought up to the house.

The quality of the raw, un-skimmed milk is superb, perfect for airy ricotta, a hot mug of creamy milk and honey, or transcendent cultured butter, grassy and tangy.  Laurel’s farmer cheese was brilliant dolloped across tarts of heirloom tomato and caramelized onion, while a truly homemade cheesecake, littered with foraged huckleberries and served with local honey wine, brought cheer to all. Even more exciting will be Connie’s transition to pasture in the springtime, where she will feed on the valley’s various grasses, grains, and flowers, adding new complexities and sweetness to her milk.

A tart of garden tomatoes, caramelized onions, and fresh ricotta!

Apart from a wonderful visit with loved ones, my time in Mendocino County was a reminder of the hard work and passion that are the foundation of small-scale, sustainable farming.  For Josh and Laurel living on a small farm, caring for their land is caring for their animals, which in turn, is caring for the vegetables, which all care for the family itself.

Before coming to work at Lucy’s Whey, I felt confident in my palate and even admired its ability to distinguish Brie from a triple creme, sheep from goat.  I could put together a decent cheese board and I made a mean grilled cheese (fig, Fontina, and balsamic reduction, anyone?).  Then I got my dream job–a cheesemonger.

On my first day at the East Hampton store I was extremely nervous, but feeling confident.  After all, I spend most of my spare time either reading about, eating, or preparing food, and I have a rather unconventional love of goats–this job was made for me!  Then we started tasting….

One of the lovely things about working at Lucy’s Whey is that tasting is encouraged–nay, mandatory–in order to get to know the cheeses.  So I popped a piece of cheese in my mouth (Pleasant Ridge Reserve, to be exact) and immediately thought aloud, “Delicious,” because, well, it was!  As we sampled together, though, my coworkers reactions were initially puzzling.  “Nutty,” proclaimed my manager, “with notes of pineapple!”  Another bite of the complex cheese left me thinking, Yes, I taste it, too!  I tasted a fruity element, yet the flavor was round and smooth, and left a satisfyingly nutty taste in my mouth.

Since then, I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid.  Cheese simply tastes better now that I know what flavors are making my taste buds sing.  “Yum” has been replaced by descriptors like caramel-y and brown buttery.  And now I get to watch the “Aha!” moment on a customer’s face when I tell them their favorite cheese is sweet yet woodsy…and just plain yummy!

Now, they’re all terribly cute to look at, but here at Lucy’s Whey we love that they serve as harbingers of cheese to come.  Nowadays, of course, with modern technology and staggered breeding, cheesemakers can arrange for their animals to give birth, and hence give milk, year-round.  Many cheesemakers, however, still operate in accordance with seasonal cycles, with their animals giving birth to their young in the spring.

In cheese terms, this means that cheesemakers begin making their cheese in the spring.  Thus, cheeses available early in the cheesemaking season–now!–are young fresh cheeses.  Older cheeses made from this spring’s milk won’t be available until summer and fall.

After their recent trip to Wisconsin, Lucy and Amy returned to New York raving about Driftless, a fresh sheep’s milk cheese from Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby, Wisconsin.  It’s light, lemony, and grassy, and exists thanks to these little ones:

Lambs at Hidden Springs Creamery, Westby, WI

We cheesemongers here at Lucy’s Whey can’t get enough of it–we’ve been mixing Driftless with honey for dessert, eating it by the spoonful like yogurt (yikes!), and sneaking it between a crusty slab of toast and a tomato jam-topped fried egg.

And when we thought we’d had enough already, this season’s first wheels of Rainbeau Ridge cheese arrived–delicate, fine, silky little rounds of fresh chevre from Bedford Hills, New York.  Their wheels of Chevre Lait and Meridian elegantly serve in any of the above situations, though sometimes they’re better just enjoyed like cheesecake.

Kids at Rainbeau Ridge, Bedford Hills, NY

And when we’ve really had enough of all of this freshness, we’ll turn our palates to one of our never-failing favorites, Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Uplands Cheese Company in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.  The wheels we’re currently snacking upon were made last summer, and their standard alpine nutty and pineapple-y notes are heartily balanced by a good dose of herbs and grass.  Such good cheese comes from a carefully conceived herd of cows–just take a look at this charming baby!

Calf at Uplands Cheese Company, Dodgeville, WI

Do come by and fix yourself up with some cheese!  It’s the season for lots of new goodness–babies and cheese!–and you don’t want to miss out!

On our drive north, we ambled our way through the fresh snow and bucolic hills of northern Pennsylvania to Ardith Mae Farm for a tour with owner and cheesemaker Todd.  Ardith Mae makes cheeses from their small herd of Alpine and Saanen goats, and our visit to the farm evinced both the delights and challenges of making cheese on a small scale.  Todd and Shereen run the farm and perform most of the work themselves–from goat care and cheesemaking, to repairing collapsed barn roofs, sourcing cheesemaking vats small enough for their scale, and seriously hoping that the fracking site up the road won’t cause water contamination to end all thought of cheese production.

Ardith Mae has staggered the breeding of their herd of about 40 milkers so they receive some milk this time of the year, but only enough to sell at the farmers’ market.  We look forward to the abundance of milk–and cheese!–that comes in the springtime; we love Ardith Mae’s fresh chevre, light and billowy yet also magically substantial in body, and with just enough stick to the inside of your mouth.

After our snowy visit to Ardith Mae, we headed further north to the Finger Lakes and into the shelter of Nancy Richards’ lovely old farmhouse on the property adjacent to Taber Hill Farms.  Nancy established her business, Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese, next door to her family’s dairy farm in order to use the milk from their Holstein herd to make cheese.  For Nancy–and for many cheesemakers–it makes sense to divide the labor of animal care and cheese production to make cheesemaking an economically viable endeavor.  Nancy doesn’t deal directly with the animals but she works closely with those who do, and has more time to focus on making and selling cheese.

Having learned cheesemaking from an accomplished Dutch cheesemaker, she and her team make several Gouda-style cheeses, one of which we currently sell at Lucy’s Whey.  It’s called Bier Meck, and it’s smooth, pleasantly elastic, and tangy.  It has the stately balance of a cheese well-made, and one made from good, clean milk.

Nancy at Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese

The next morning, we drove to the other side of Cayuga Lake to McGarr Farms, site of Keeley’s Cheese Company.  Keeley, too, sources her milk from her family’s dairy farm, and lives on the property in the house that once belonged to her grandparents–and which she has now outfitted to include a cheesemaking room and cave in the basement.  After gleaning education and adventures in cheese both near and far, Keeley returned to her family’s farm to make cheese.  She has transitioned her family’s conventional farm to a rotational grazing operation and introduced Jersey cows to the Holstein herd, both changes that positively affect the milk quality desired for making cheese.

Keeley with one of her cows

At Keeley’s kitchen table above her cheesemaking room, we excitedly tasted Maura, her latest cheese.  Named after her grandmother, this cheese is similar to Keeley’s Across the Pond, but without the tart funk.  This cheese is milky, tangy, and buttery in texture, and redolent of the cave in which it is aged.  And it just arrived yesterday to Lucy’s Whey!

Lucy and Keeley discussing cheese behind aging Across the Pond

Later that afternoon, we wound our way back around Cayuga Lake to Lively Run Goat Dairy.  Pete gave us a thorough tour of the dairy, during which we enjoyed hanging out with their crazy yearlings, peeking into a vat of slowly coagulating chevre, and catching a glimpse (and tastes!) of Pete’s new cheese projects.  Pete’s parents purchased the goat dairy about 20 years ago, and in the past couple of years he has been transitioning to the primary cheesemaker.  We love their flagship cheese, Cayuga Blue–bright, minty, clean, and peppery, and among the few goat’s milk blues made in this country!  While Lively Run isn’t milking their own goats this time of year, they’re buying milk from neighbors to make cheese–which you can find at Lucy’s Whey.

Pete from Lively Run Goat Dairy

Meeting our cheesemakers, talking about their craft with them, and seeing them engaged in their work is one of our favorite things to do here at Lucy’s Whey.  The time we spend with these people serves as an earnest reminder of the expediency of our work as cheesemongers–both to support cheesemakers and to encourage cheese consumers to eat good cheese!

Keeley, Lucy, Grace, and Pete hanging out with Lively Run goats

It’s the most common question we get asked here at Lucy’s Whey, and also the most dreaded.  We cheesemongers are madly in love with all of our cheeses, and favorites fluctuate on a day-to-day, if not hour-to-hour basis.  That being said, I thought it would be fun to do a little survey of my fellow mongers and see which cheeses have them waxing poetic this month.  Here’s what they have to say:

Lucy:  “Mona is great eaten plain in chunks or over a salad or grated on to anything.  I enjoy it for breakfast:  I saute some arugula or spinach, grate or slice the cheese in thicker chunks and to put atop of the spinach, then add a fried egg over easy on top of that.  The Mona adds sweet and sharp notes to the mix and blends the flavors together nicely.”

Rachel: “I love Coupole’s dense, bright paste contrasting with the savory, sometimes piquant (and brainy looking) rind.  It pairs nicely with dry whites and bubbles.”

Amy: “Flora Nelle from Rogue River Creamery is salty, savory, and toasty, and it’s got a smooth texture with just the right amount of salt crunch that I love in a blue cheese.  Serve it for dessert with dried fruit and candied nuts.”

Ruthie: “If I were a cheese, I would aspire to be everything Spring Brook Tarentaise is:  smooth, pure, and nutty with a prickly bite.  The French alpine style cheesemaking and Vermont terroir and integrity combine in this elegant stunner, ideal for snacking, melting, or serving on a cheese board.”

Grace:  “I love Grayson and think it’s perfect in every way.  Right now our wheels are darker and heavier than the sprightly wheels of springtime milk.  Whatever the season, Grayson is funky, meaty, grassy, eggy, and oozy, but not so oozy as to completely loose itself in a sprawl across your plate.  I’m especially making sure that I enjoy it right now because this seasonally made cheese is soon to take a brief sabbatical, an absence which will only make my heart grow even more fonder of it.”

And my own pick?  Oh, how I love sinking my teeth through the slightly gritty, pleasantly pink rind, and into the perfectly smooth paste of Across the Pond!  This funky, fruity beauty is best enjoyed with a crusty loaf, a refreshing ale, and Loretta Lynn on the stereo.

Stop into Lucy’s Whey for some tempting tastes, and our favorites will soon be your favorites!

To partner with our selection of American cheeses, our guest chocolate expert and friend Miranda Rake selected chocolates made by bean-to-bar producers from all across the United States.  Like the cheeses at Lucy’s Whey, all of these chocolates are made with great care and with a focus on the quality of ingredients–which, in all of the bars, are only cacao and sugar.

We thought we’d share the pairings we selected for our delicious evening, so below you’ll find the chosen combinations.  The cheeses are listed first, followed by the chocolates, whose locations of operation are noted parenthetically after their names which indicate the origin of the beans.  We sourced all of the chocolates from one of New York’s best purveyors of specialty foods, The Meadow.

Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery Bijou (Websterville, VT) with Dandelion Chocolate’s 70% Madagascar (San Francisco, CA).  This petite crottin-style button of goat’s milk has notes of fresh flowers, citrus, hazelnuts, and yeast, and pairs enjoyably with the berry and plum notes of the Madagascan chocolate.

Nettle Meadow Farm Kunik (Thurman, NY) with Woodblock Chocolate’s 70% Ecuador (Portland, OR).  This voluptuous triple cream made from goat’s milk and cow cream is tangy, robust, and decadent–and a classic match for chocolate.  The richness of the cheese and its thick mouthfeel pairs satisfyingly with the taller Woodblock bars, whose thick molds give the bars a pleasing crunch.

Uplands Cheese Company Pleasant Ridge Reserve (Dodgeville, WI) with Ritual Chocolate’s 75% Costa Rica (Boulder, CO).  The nutty, oniony, pineapply flavors of the seasonally-produced raw cow’s milk Pleasant Ridge Reserve make a splendid match to the diversity of the flavor notes in Ritual’s 75% Costa Rica, which include hints of blackberry, earth, and a long floral finish.

Roelli Cheese Haus Dunbarton Blue (Shullsburg, WI) with Dick Taylor Chocolate’s 74% Dominican Republic (Arcata, CA).   The Dunbarton Blue, at once a cheddar and a blue cheese, is tangy, spicy, creamy, and savory.  For a twist on the classic cheddar and chutney combination, we think the Dunbarton tastes great with Dick Taylor’s 74% Dominican Republic, whose hints of lime offer the kick of citrus that pairs so nicely with cheddar.

Old Chatham Sheepherding Company Ewe’s Blue with Patric Chocolate’s in-NIB-itable Bar (Columbia, MO).  This fruity and piquant sheep’s milk blue offers a nice foil to the two-toned in-NIB-itable bar, which has a base of smooth Madagascan chocolate and topping of crunchy nibs.  The nibs mingle quite pleasingly with the calcium phosphate crunchies of the Ewe’s Blue.

Consider Bardwell Farm

The Consider Bardwell Farm cheesemakers are at the creamery by six for the first make (which is, may it be noted, six and a half hours before this particular cheesemonger arrives at her workplace everyday), sanitizing surfaces and moving the previous day’s cheese from the press to the brine baths before starting the day’s batch. The morning I visited, we made the buttery and slightly meaty Fontina-style cheese called Pawlet.

Pawlet!

Filling the vat with milk proved the first of many tasks I found physically challenging over the course of the morning. The milk cans are large and heavy and the thin handles dug into my hands, which I had previously considered rather tough but seemed exceptionally urbane and inadequate by mid-morning.

Cheesemakers Leslie, Stash and Kate talked me through the cheesemaking process as they casually hoisted, dumped and generally baffled me with their efficiency and physical prowess. Once the vat is full, they explained, the milk is heated and starter cultures are added. Starters are followed by rennet, which causes the milk to flocculate, or set into a gel, enabling the cheesemakers to cut the gel into pea sized pieces. Hooping, the next step, was the most fun. We stripped down to t-shirts and reached deep into the vat, loosening clumps and mixing the curds and whey into an even slurry with our hands. We then scooped it into pitchers and pour it into the colander-like molds that give Pawlet its beautiful basket patterned rind. The new cheeses are stacked two high and will sit until tomorrow when, like yesterdays cheeses, they are dropped into vats of brine before making their way to the caves or aging rooms.

Pawlet rind

After a coffee break (although I usually take it black, I made an exception when I saw the large jar of raw milk from the Brooks farm down the road that someone had brought over just after milking that morning), the cheesemakers held a tasting, checking in on new batches and grading the cheeses–higher or lower end, the best ones for competition. Careful attention was paid to texture, taste and even the visual impression the cheese made.  It was apparent that for Leslie, Stash and Kate, a key part of being an expert cheesemaker was being an expert taster.

Aging Pawlet

The degree of professionalism and dedication to quality I saw in the creamery carried over to the husbandry side of the operation. When I first arrived in West Pawlet after four hours on the Taconic, Alex and Margot, the young couple who care for the Consider Bardwell animals, gave me a tour of the farm and introduced me to their goats, pigs, dogs, and William, their one-eyed cat. They had just returned from several weeks in Europe where they visited a number of goat farms, looking to learn and take inspiration from their European counterparts. After two days on the farm, I was unsurprised when Alex and Margot noted that during their Euro-trip they had felt a real sense of pride about how the animals are treated and how the farm functions at CBF.

Consider Bardwell winter pasture (strangely snowless!)

The Consider Bardwell team has every reason to be proud. Their young but extremely knowledgeable and experienced outfit took home first place for an American-made/international-style cheese for Pawlet in 2009, first place in the washed-rind category for Rupert at the American Cheese Society competition the same year, gold for Rupert in the continental hard cheese category at the North American Jersey Cheese Awards, and numerous other accolades.

I’m looking forward to my next visit to West Pawlet (hopefully an estival escapade this June or July) but in the meantime, I’ll be enjoying Pawlet, Rupert, Manchester and Dorset right here in Manhattan. Pop into Lucy’s Whey to join me and try some of CBF’s delicious and masterful creations or stop by their Greenmarket stands for goat chorizo and veal from the farm!

The author smiles with fellow Vermonter and bovine friend at the neighboring Wayward Goose Farm.  Owners Dan & Laurie Brooks (Margot’s parents) send over their cows’ milk for Pawlet-making.

Oh, the cheese!  Presented, more or less, from softer to firmer, explained by friend and fromager Dimitri Saad.  To start:  portioned from a wee-sized wheel, a slippery silken Swiss “house cheese” made from cow’s milk, like grass and celery bound by a blooming soft crust, paired with a sweet peanut brittle.  To follow:  a burly puddle of savory, pungent, washed-rind cow’s milk cheese from Canada, partnered with a heavy feather of pickled fennel.  A soft, subtle, staid goat’s milk washed-rind, flanked by a vessel of pineapple mostarda.  A garlicky, oniony, pleasantly elastic Alpine-style triangle–95 percent cow’s milk with a 5 percent jolt of goat’s milk–stalwartly accompanied by roasted cipollini onions.  Another triangle, this one cut from the fatty, friable, sheepy flying saucer-like wheel called Berkswell, and situated beside a tidy pile of whole grain mustard.  To conclude: a farmstead Gorgonzola Cremificato, contained, like gelato, in a bowl; gently blued, the texture of clay made from cream, the deep and fulsome aroma of the barn.  Alongside the Gorgonzola, offering a pairing both for the eyes and the palate: deep red curried tomato chutney as complement to the blue, the neat precision of the spice and late summer fruit to match the slovenly richness of the plump cheese.

A delicate feast we had–poking and prodding the piles and triangles before us, inhaling our fork- and spoonfuls, tasting and chewing and pausing, sharing and speaking, and exhaling and remembering, and then returning for more.

Cheese Case at Casellula

We didn’t need dessert (dessert inhabits a plane far beyond necessity’s), but it generously came, stunningly and deliciously, swimming in fresh cream and packed with pockets of melted butter, as well as in the form of chocolate-swathed chevre truffles.  Then we parted ways into the cold night, some of our number to perpetuate our cheese-steeped diets daily via the sandwich vehicle, another of us to taste and talk of it around the world, and another to surely wish for all of the above.

Soon, soon, we’ll be back to Casellula, wine and cheese cafe most dearest in our hearts, and you’d do best to find your way there, too.

The history of these monthly deliveries in my own upbringing extended only as far as Harry & David’s winter pear program.  How splendid it was to receive on the front porch in a carefully wrapped and packed box of soon-to-be-ripe pears!

The only problem:  I actually didn’t really like pears.  The intensity of their sweetness was too strong for my juvenile taste buds.  Regardless, their arrival in the green box brought cause for celebration, if only for the excitement of an unopened package at the front door.

But, if only!  If only I’d known–or rather, my grandmother, sender of these pears, had known–of the possibility of monthly cheese!  Certainly she’d have been a fan of that idea, and would have offered her approval by ordering for my own family scheduled monthly packages of cheese, and not overly-saccharine pears.

For who doesn’t like cheese?!  And when such arrangements are carefully contemplated, they can include sufficient variety to please many palates.

Humor me, for just one example, as we examine the Lucy’s Whey monthly cheese arrangements.  We select three cheeses each month to send our Cheese of the Month customers.  These cheeses are selected according to which styles of cheese are in season, and chosen to offer a variety in style and milk type, both within each shipment and varying from month to month.

If only, as a child, I had received different pear varieties each month!  Ah, no, really–cheese would have been preferred, but, seeing as those days are long passed, I now settle for sending these cheeses rather than receiving them, which has its own delights.  Take, for example, these wedges of Ocooch Mountain (presently en route to our Cheese of the Month customers):

All together, they look so pleasantly like penguins!

This month we’re sending to our patient cheese recipients Capriole Goat Cheese Piper’s Pyramide, Meadow Creek Dairy Grayson, and Hidden Springs Creamery Ocooch Mountain.

I like to imagine the thrill the cheese recipients must have when their package arrives, for any package inherently offers to the recipient some degree of excited anticipation, and certainly one containing cheese!  The anticipation surely increased ten-fold upon spotting that “Perishable” sticker on the box’s exterior.

Well, that’s the hope anyway.  So, do consider: if you’re in the market for gifting regular shipments of aromatic and appetizing snacks, then, goodness, look no further!  Send along a subscription to Lucy’s Whey Cheese of the Month.  Or have no shame and order one for yourself.