I really wanted to do it with fresh goat milk but fresh milk is somewhat tricky to come by. If you have a little extra time on your hands and can drive out into the country, you can get fresh goats milk. We did discover someone inside the city limits selling goat milk from his little herd. We’ll be investigating this further for sure. When we did chevre back in ‘08, we drove thirty minutes south of town to a goat farm in Molalla. The milk we got from there was incredible. But, I didn’t have time to drive out there and waited too long to even call and inquire. Then we discovered that one of the local food co-ops sold raw, unpasteurized goat milk from Fern’s Edge Dairy, a dairy outside of Eugene, Oregon. They also make their own cheese and I always snap up their chanterelle-coated chevre when I see it – so fantastic!

The milk was rather pricey – $8/half gallon (Oy!) but was really quite rich and creamy. We bought two gallons and made a double batch following the recipe in Ricki Carroll’s Home Cheese Making. There’s a note at the end of the recipe that states if the curd does not firm up, to add calcium chloride to the milk before the starter. Well. We weren’t going to waste $24 of goat milk for flabby curds! Since we had some on hand we used it. Wow! We had really firm curd. It was totally awesome. I took video, actually, of the curd cutting because I think it’s one of the hardest things to understand when you get into cheesemaking – just what the curd is supposed to look like and what it means when it says to wait for a “clean break.” I need to download my video though and play with it. I’ll do a followup post.

We drained the curds for about 45 minutes before weighing it – 48 ounces! Totally unexpected. Now, that included some whey that still needed to come out but the recipe said the yield would be 1 pound. So…? I’m not sure but I’m going to say that it was the great quality of the milk.

Next, we divided it among the four of us to take home, drain for a few more hours and then salt and age. We had quite a discussion about making a brine verses not. The recipe says that you should not brine if your goat milk does not come from a farm as it will disintegrate. I’m guessing that has to do with pasteurized goat milk? It’s not clear. I’ve decided to salt my curds, let them age for a couple days and then put them in brine. We made a whey/salt brine using the leftover goat whey (you can see a jar of it in the background above) and I plan to use that. But, I’m also going to do a little more research into the brine and make sure this will be okay. Will followup with tasting notes!

All in all, it was actually a really simple recipe. We had a lot of fun and agreed that this would be a good thing to make again. There’s two waiting periods in the recipe where it says to keep the milk at 86-degrees for an hour each time. I just put the lid on and covered it with a towel – seemed to have no problem maintaining the temperature. I think next time we do this we’ll make yogurt during those waiting times. Mmmm… yogurt. It’s been awhile since I’ve made that. So good. Must do that again soon.

Ig Vella keeps an eye on the creamery!

Another year, another visit to Central Point, Oregon, for the Oregon Cheese Guild’s annual cheese festival which coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Rogue Creamery. The tent this year was much bigger and better which seemed to keep the 4,000 cheese lovers from becoming a crush. Like last year, there were all kinds of vendors in addition to cheese: a number of wineries, meats, bread makers, jams, chocolate, beer, soda and tea. There is definitely something for everyone there and I really liked the array of vendors. The festival does a great job of highlighting food purveyors in the Applegate and Rogue Valley — stuff that I don’t see up in Portland. The wine in Southern Oregon is quite good — it’s drier and sunnier down there and you can taste the difference in the kind of grapes they’re producing.

Steven Smith pours his tea

The festival had three great workshops going — a cheese and wine pairing with Max McCalman the venerated cheese author who has written a number of must-have books for cheese professionals and enthusiasts including Cheese: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Best and The Cheese Plate which is chock full of information on how to pair food and drink with cheese. He was promoting his latest book, Mastering Cheese: Lessons for True Connoisseurship from a Maître Fromager. I attended the middle workshop, a tea (!) and cheese pairing with David Gremmels, co-owner of Rogue Creamery, and Steven Smith who has a long history with tea as the founder of both Stash and Tazo teas. He has a new line of eponymous teas and they are exceptional. More on that in another post! The last workshop was a cooking demo with Vitaly Paley, restaurant owner of Paley’s Place in Portland and I spied them setting up and was tempted but I just had to get back to the festival!

The ladies of Fern’s Edge Goat Dairy

I made a beeline for Fern’s Edge to get a round of their chanterelle-coated chevre which I missed out on last year (I think it’s the first to sell out) — wonderful and clean chevre base with a nutty coating of fresh chanterelle! Then I wandered and sampled and took in the crowd. Overall, I think people had a great time though I felt like there were some vendors missing. I know I personally was quite sad that Oregon Gourmet Cheeses is no more as I really enjoyed what they had at the festival last year and brought home a wedge of their Drunken Goat. I also felt like some of the cheese makers were holding back a bit on samples. I know that this recession has affected them in a big way and I hope that they are all able to weather this downturn and come out stronger at the other end. I love these festivals because they directly support small businesses that are making world-class products. When belts get tightened, we often cut back on luxury items and that includes fine foods. However, I’m happy to save my splurge money on some of the best and most innovative cheese that are being made right outside my front door. I encourage everyone to do the same.

The Creamery cheese case

The Rogue Creamery was an excellent host and I walked away with some yummy cheese. I’ve now been hanging around the cheese scene long enough that I’m starting to spot friendly faces and I spent as much time chatting and catching up with folks this year than sampling. Instead of staying in a yurt, this year we opted for a cottage in Ashland — two thumbs up on that! Ashland is completely charming and we loved all the food and beer we had there.

* * *

Coming up — more posts on this weekend: tea and cheese pairing — does it work? How awesome is the beer in Ashland? And, where can I get the most unique chocolates in Oregon?

I’ve started up a new blog (Beer + Cheese) with my beer-loving husband and we’ll be posting about cheese and beer pairings plus other great food pairings over there. Last night we went to Steve Jones’ new Cheese Bar and wrote up a little review.

Check it out!

Lake Chelan and vineyard view from Benson Winery

My husband and I went for a long weekend at Lake Chelan in Washington. It’s the shoulder season so the lake was low, the sky overcast and the vast orchards and vineyards bare. However, we had a great time. We did a little cross-country skiing on the last snow of the season at the Echo Ridge Nordic Ski Area which luckily was just up high enough that the trails were open. It was literally bare dirt all the way up the hill until, suddenly, snow! Then we availed ourselves of the many wineries in the area and had a fantastic time. Cabernet! Viognier! Gewurztraminer! They grow a huge variety of grapes here and are very excited about the new Columbia Valley AVA designation.

To get there, we drove up near Seattle on I-5 and then over, passing through the little Bavarian town of Leavenworth. Did I say Bavarian? Yes, I did. Sometime in the 1960s in an attempt to save their town from financial ruin, some enterprising folks decided that Leavenworth could become a destination. They invented the Bavarian concept and ran with it — all the places on main street are tarted up like hearty Alpine Volkesmarchers with Willkommen! signs and gingerbread filigree and excellent murals. However, they managed to stay just this side of a total Disneyland spectacle and we were pretty charmed by the ingenuity of it all.

On the way into town, I googled up some recommended places to eat and to see if they had a cheese shop. I wouldn’t be writing this post if they didn’t!

The Cheesemonger’s Shop promised Bavarian cheeses, beer and wine. It was crowded with people and had a fairly good selection. If you’re looking for some cheeses for your après-ski fondue pot then you have come to the right place. However, I was looking for Washington or local cheeses. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are too many cheese makers in this area of the state. I was steered toward some Oregon and California cheeses which were, of course, delicious but didn’t satisfy my craving for local. I think this is just not quite that kind of cheese shop.

However, the staff there was great and eager with the samples. We walked out with three cheeses, two meats and a six-pack of beers both local and European. (We really liked the Leavenworth Whistling Pig Hefeweizen from Fish Brewing Company.)

Who wants samples?

One of two cheese cases at the Cheesemonger’s Shop

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Tragically, there were no cheese shops in Lake Chelan…while we were there. On our last day, we noticed a brand new sign in a window that read: “Coming Soon! Handcrafted and Artisan Cheeses! May 2010!” So, there you go. Perhaps next time we go to the lake, we’ll swim in it, get a tan and gobble up some artisan cheeses. If anyone in the area knows more about this future cheese shop, please let me know!

Click here to see how we plated our Leavenworth bounty.

“It was time, we needed room to do more,” says Jones, whose clients include many top Portland restaurants as well as adventurous cheese shoppers. Jones says the spirit of the Cheese Bar is inspired by France’s tabac shops. “Every corner has one,” he says. “All the old men drinking espresso or grappa or having croissant. A tabac is for the neighborhood — they’re social yet convenient locations.”

~ Karen Brooks, The Oregonian

He’s hoping to open up in March and you can be sure I’ll be the first one in line.

The Cheese Bar • 6031 SE Belmont • Whoop! Whoop!

Boerenkaas from Willamette Valley Cheese Co, a 2009 favorite

* * *

FUCheese started off the year with a revelatory cheese and beer tasting put on by Saraveza and Steve’s Cheese. It kicked off a true obsession with pairing these two fine items and I spent most of the year trying new combinations and doing my best to spread the beer/cheese love.

In March, we packed up the car and stayed in a yurt in the Rogue River Valley to attend the 5th Annual Oregon Cheese Guild Cheese Festival in Central Point. We had so much fun at the festival and met some awesome people. We also visited Vern and Gianaclis at Pholia Farm which kicked off a love of goats. I still haven’t been brave enough to milk one yet. New Year’s resolution?

Linnea feeds a baby goat at Pholia Farm

In April, we made mascarpone, more yogurt and had some iffy cottage cheese. I also attended a hard cheese class at Kookoolan Farms which convinced me that we needed to get back on that horse and give hard cheeses another try. Did we? No. Another resolution, perhaps.

Nicole and I hit the road again, this time north to Seattle for the cheese festival at Pike’s Place Market. We went as volunteers and worked at the Peterson tent taking in money and handling out samples. It was a total blast and we may do it again this year. This time we’ll have to walk out of there with more cheese. We were just so overwhelmed after finishing our shift that it was all we could do to visit some of the smaller cheesemakers for samples and then go collapse in the park.

Nico attacks the mimolette @ Seattle Cheese Festival

In the summer, I was too busy camping, BBQ-ing and drinking beer to spend too much time in the kitchen. I got my first paid gig doing a pairing of cheeses and beers. Profits, admittedly, were a bit low because I bought waaay too much really awesome fancy cheese and paired it with incredible (and expensive) beers. It was a total blast, though, and everyone had a great time and – bonus! – we had enough cheese left over to put together a handsome platter for a dinner party of 6 the following weekend. I have done a couple more pairings for groups since then and my portioning is getting more under control.

I also spent a fair bit of my summertime involved in putting together the Portland Cheese Festival. I somehow wrangled my way onto the planning board and met some great people in the process. The festival went off really, really well. Feedback was – and continues to be – incredible. The cheesemakers brought amazing stuff and the location turned out to work pretty good. Hopefully when it comes around again, I’ll be able to get involved and build on what I learned with the last one. You’ll be there, too, right?

* * *

Sadly, this is where an already bumpy year for personal reasons got downright depressing. My father passed away at the end of October after a fierce, year-long battle with cancer. He was a good military man and, really, still too young to go. He loved hearing about the cheese festival and all our adventures with cheese. He was a big cheese fan (also smoked anchovies, hot mustard, oysters and other Scandinavian treats and terrors) and it was really tough to lose him. However, his death opened my eyes to what it means to have people in your life who truly care about you and for that I am so very thankful.

* * *

The end of the year rounded out with more goats, excellent cheese plates and a beer/cheese pairing challenge! My friend Bruce, a die-hard beer nerd and curator of fine brews decided it was time to pull up some beers from his cellar and do a tasting. He asked if I could pair some cheeses with his eclectic collection. Since I couldn’t pre-sample these beers due to their rarity and age, I went off of tasting notes from the brewers and other beer writers and his own recollection of what these tasted like or should taste like.

A 3-decade vertical of Sierra Nevada Celebration – 2009, 1999, 1989! – paired with a pungent and footy Canadian cheese called Charleudix.

The pairings turned out really well and everyone had their favorites. The one pictured above was a huge hit. That cheese was incredibly stinky and I made everyone take a good sniff before I portioned it out. They were scared, for sure. However, it was a wonderful and creamy cheese with a lot of flavor and balanced with the hops notes of the ‘99 and ‘09 quite well. Poor, old ‘89 tasted like it had almost no hops left at all. I couldn’t have asked for a better cap to the year, surrounded by some of my favorite things in life: good beer, great cheese and fantastic friends.

So, to more of that in 2010!

For December, we went back to Foster & Dobbs and put together a tasty cheeseplate of some European heavyweights.

The cheese case at Foster & Dobbs.

The staff there is so helpful and are excellent at listening to your likes and dislikes and recommending something that hits the mark. They’ll also keep track of what cheeses you’ve purchased before! We were all in the mood for some hearty, stinky, battle-the-frigid-winter cheese and were not disappointed in the least.

Starting with the semi-soft cheese on the bottom left that Linnea is pointing to, we have Le Porteaupre from Belgium. It’s a cow’s milk cheese that is delightfully stinky and is pretty creamy and spreadable – we put it on baguette. It’s a bit on the salty side, tangy and very satisfying. Seems like a good pair with meats.

At the top, is Jura Erguel from Switzerland. A raw cow’s milk, this was firm, stinky and a little sour. Definitely hearty and quite good. Next, clockwise, is Blu di Bufala, a buffalo milk from, of course, Italy! This was a moderate blue with distinct mushroom notes and I wrote down “cardboard” but I don’t mean that in a bad way, there was an earthiness to the rind that was good. This was a stout flavor without being overwhelming.

The large wedge in the center was a big favorite for all of us, the Bastardo del Grappa Nero, another raw cow’s milk from Italy. This one from the Veneto region which is in the Northeastern part of the country, a stone’s throw from Austria. The Bastardo was light, firm, creamy, tangy and lemony. It hit all the right notes for me and I’d get that one again anytime.

We stuck with our Europen theme and rounded that out with the St Cosme Côtes du Rhône syrah. So delicious and a pretty perfect accompaniment to some stick-to-yer-ribs cheeses.

Thanks again Foster & Dobbs! What cheese theme should we explore in January?

Don’t you think goats have Mona Lisa smiles?

* * *

I was out in Bozeman visiting my family and the first thing I did when I got into town was stop in the local Food Co-op and scope out the cheese selection. I bought a bunch of good stuff to share (Humboldt Fog which my brothers loved, a puck of French Prairie brie from Willamette Valley and some dependable 12-month manchego). Then I hunted around for something from Montana. The only thing I could find was the mysteriously named Montana Organic Chevre.

After we feasted on all this good cheese and decided that the chevre was truly awesome, I started poking around online to figure out who was behind this yummy chevre. As it turns out, right outside Bozeman, Montana, in the cute little town of Belgrade, you can find one of Montana’s few cheesemakers. I sent them an email asking for a tour and heard back almost immediately that I could come on out.

Montana Farm Road

* * *

Montana Organic Chevre is produced by Amaltheia Dairy, a family operation owned by Sue and Melvyn Brown with cheese and pigs tended by their son, Nate. From the feed, to the methods, to the product, it’s all organic. Sue and Melvyn own 20 acres and lease another 350 for their herd of goats and pigs. They raise the pigs for their meat which is cured without nitrates by another local business and sold in town. The pigs, of course, get to feast on the delicious and nutritious whey which is a bi-product of the cheesemaking operation.

I convinced my Mom that she needed to come with me to see all the goats plus I would need her help to keep from getting lost. First we stopped off at the creamery which is right on the main drag through Belgrade. It’s a non-descript, no frills operation where they convert over 1,000 gallons of fresh goat milk per week into organic chevre (plain, garlic and chive, spicy pepper and other tasty flavors), plus feta and ricotta. Sadly, they are not yet doing any aging yet – I was hoping to score something good and stinky on my visit.

Then we drove over to the farm about five miles away and met Melvyn, a Brit with a career background in animal husbandry. He met Sue in Guatemala and eventually they made their way to Montana to pursue organic farming as a living.

Wilbur comes rooting for a treat from Melvyn

Melvyn showed us around the farm and introduced us to some goats and a very friendly piggie named Wilbur. They are an all-goat, all-chevre creamery and maintain over 250 milking goats: LaMancha, Alpine & Saanen. They farm their own feed and compost their manure and farm waste. In fact, they are part of a Montana pilot program to make this kind of compost and waste recovery more prevalent and revenue-generating. We talked a little bit about the ups and downs of being a cheesemaker in Montana and how difficult it is to assure all the regulatory agencies that your milk is safe. Melvyn knows of only one other cheesemaker in the state, a fellow doing cow’s milk cheese commercially in western Montana.

Goat pasture with the Bridger Range in the background.

You can find their cheese primarily in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Sadly, I couldn’t find it around the Portland area. You can learn more about them on their website or their Facebook page. You can also buy fantastic packages of their cheeses – a great gift idea for a chevre lover. See more photos of the dairy (and goats! and pigs!) on my Flickr photostream.

A big thank you to the folks at Amaltheia for letting me come out and a special thanks to Melvyn for being my tour guide. Best of luck to you!

We booked a guided weekend tour with Outdoor Odysseys on San Juan Island and had a great time. Our guide, Kaitlin, was totally wonderful and the other couple on our trip happened to be Portlanders and also winemakers! We loved chatting with them about outdoor adventures and the making of beer, wine & cheese. We paddled out from San Juan State Park and across the channel to Stuart Island which was our base camp where we slept in tents and paddled during the day. Total, we paddled over 30 miles on the 3-day trip and it was tiring but amazing. We saw harbor seals, porpoises, stellar sea lions, jellyfish and lots of kelp. The coastline of the islands is gorgeous and the weather was great.

Our kayaks at the ready in Reid Harbor on Stuart Island

So… kayaking, blah, blah, blah. This is a cheese blog! To make a short story long, it’s a good thing we did all that kayaking because we were then more than happy (and hungry) to partake in the local cheese scene!

* * *

Before we got out to the islands we headed straight up to Vancouver, BC, to visit friends and see the city. Neither of us had ever been to Vancouver before and other than a stopover on a flight to Europe, I don’t think I’ve ever even been to Canada. That seems really weird given that I’ve lived in the Northwest now for over 10 years. We had a great time in Vancouver — it’s a warm, welcoming city and very similar to Portland in a lot of ways. The vibe is very casual but it was nice to hear more languages and see a little more diversity than we have down here.

First thing, we made a beeline for Les Amis du Fromage which is near Granville Island to pick up some BC cheeses. I had my trusty red cooler with some ice from the hotel.

The cheese cases at Les Amis du Fromage

We let the ladies there guide our choices and ended up with a really nice array of cheeses from around the area. Goat is pretty prevalent but there was quite a variety. We ended up with two firm, aged cheeses and two softer cheeses. Clockwise from left, an aged Goat gouda from Farm House Natural Cheeses, a chevre button from Goats Pride Dairy, an aged sheeps’ cheese called Montana from Salt Spring Island Cheese Co., and Moonstruck, an ash-ripened Camembert from Salt Spring Organic Cheese.

Thom loved the goat gouda which had a well-balanced flavor. The sheep was also very good, a bit stronger than the others but really quite nice. The button was delicious! The standout, though, was that Moonstruck camembert. Oh my. It was so fantastic, it was hard not to eat it all in one sitting. We held off, though, and were able to enjoy these for another picnic once we got to Orcas Island.

After some excellent sushi, drinks with friends, biking the seawall at Stanley Park, a visit to Chinatown, a thrilling step into an actual Fluevog store and a killer meal at Vij’s, we left Vancouver and headed to the San Juan Islands. We spent three nights camping at Moran State Park on Orcas at the edge of Cascade lake which was just so pretty. The park was fantastic and has plumbing and showers which makes all the difference. I highly recommend!

Then we headed off to San Juan for our kayaking adventure. And for that camping, we roughed it a bit — no showers. Which, for three days is entirely do-able. However, I was so happy to get back to the island, check in to a hotel and wash off the salt water and be like the starfish on a fluffy, king-size bed. Heaven. After a good night’s sleep we went hunting for more cheese.

* * *

Now, I knew, because of Tami Parr’s excellent book, that there was a cheesemaker on San Juan but she seems pretty elusive even to locals. I would occasionally ask people if there were any cheesemakers on the island and no one knew of any. Of course, I was secretly hoping someone would say, “oh, yes, my best friend on the island makes cheese — join us for cheese and wine tonight!” Sadly, that did not happen. I tried to call her but only got voicemail with instructions that she would only return local calls. But, luckily, the Friday Harbor grocery, King’s Market, had her cheese! Quail Croft farmstead cheeses are made on San Juan island from surely the happiest goats in all the land. That area is just so beautiful. I bought two of Quail Croft’s chevre, one plain and one herbed — both were excellent, creamy and slightly tangy but very light and lovely. We also picked up some Samish Bay (Bow, Washington) nettle gouda and a puck of my beloved Mt. Townsend Seastack.

The Samish Bay gouda was quite tasty though I’m not sure nettle is my favorite flavor. If you didn’t know it was nettle you might think to yourself, “just what IS this slightly bitter herb?” The Seastack was just as lovely as I remembered and the Westcott Bay (home of delectable little San Juan oysters) dry cider was a sweet accompaniment.

Our picnic on the pool-house lawn in Roche Harbor, San Juan Island

We had such a lovely vacation and it was such a treat to find so many local goods of such high quality. There was a brewery on the island who got most of their hops from a farm right there. The Westcott Bay oysters are, I understand, mostly harvested to feed the local economy of oyster lovers and no longer shipped around the world. It seems that Quail Croft does enough business supplying the fine-dining on the island and putting cheese in the markets to sustain themselves and the product is fantastic. It was an interesting trip into a micro-economy which mostly subsists on tourism and the products of neighborly efforts. There’s something really alluring about that lifestyle. I can’t wait to go back!