I bought two bloomy-rind, soft-ripened cows milk cheeses this week, both produced by relatively new cheese makers. Patty Scholten at Scholten Family Farm in Weybridge, Vermont has only been making cheese for a few years now, and her small, soft-ripened disk, Weybridge, cave-aged and distributed by Jasper Hill Cellars, just hit the Pacific Northwest markets last year. The other 'new wheel' is Dinah’s Cheese made by Kurt Timmermeister, of Kurtwood Farms, on Vashon Island just a ferry ride from Seattle. He has only been selling his cheese since last August, and it is still in very limited distribution.
I’ve spent time at artisan and farmstead goat, sheep, and cow cheese making operations on the East Coast and West Coast, including operations that have just started up and ones that have been successfully making cheese for over a decade. I’ve even made cheese during a course on Artisan cheese making. This has all given me a glimpse of what it takes and what’s at risk in making artisan and farmstead cheese, and I stand in awe of these individuals and families. If the starting up of a cheese making operation and the consistent production of high quality cheeses aren’t challenging enough, there is the daunting task of selling something that is unique to a market not prone to take chances, rather falling back on habit, names and styles with familiar aromas and flavors from France, Holland, England, Spain, and Italy.
Those traditional cheeses from Europe are all about place, climate, history, culture, and cows, and so a cheese made in this country in the style of a Taleggio from Lombardy will never be a Taleggio. There seems to be a fairly even split in this new generation of cheese makers in this country between those who market their cheeses by relying on Old World names and cache and those who market their cheeses first and foremost as the product of their specific farm, their cows, and their skill with names that reflect, and in effect celebrate, their local origins. This latter group follow the example of those successful pioneer artisan and farmstead cheese makers here in the U. S. - Sally Jackson Cheese in Washington, Bobolink Dairy in New Jersey, and Capriole Dairy in Indiana to name a few - who showed their independence and regional pride in marketing their great cheeses. But what do I know, since I've never risked the 'farm' and had hundreds or thousands of pounds of cheese to sell every week.
Roger and Patty Scholten converted from a conventional to an organic dairy farm in 2007 after having been on the commodity milk treadmill for over a decade. They started with a mixed organic herd but now have predominantly Dutch Belted Cows a breed prized for the butterfat and protein content of its milk. Patty began working with a local cheese maker, and eventually they began producing organic cheese, a simple ‘fresh’ cow cheese, but the markets in the area wanted more, something with a bit more shelf life. Before this could happen they would need a room or cave to age cheese, and that was cost prohibitive for them. Fortunately they were able to strike a deal with Jasper Hill Farm both to age their cheese in the Jasper Hill cheese cave and to market them. After a lot of work perfecting her recipe, last year Patty began selling disks they named for the town in which they live, Weybridge.
I first saw the disks last summer in Portland, but I never had the opportunity to taste one. The five-ounce disks had a black and white label at the time and I was unfamiliar with the name. I’ve always had a general suspicion of very small wheels of bloomy rind cheese, which often dissuades me from purchasing them. I’ve never been convinced that they ripen as well or provide the same flavor as full size wheels due to the higher ratio of rind to paste. Later in the year, I remembered to research the cheese ,and the Scholten’s story and the Dutch Belted Cows intrigued me. When I saw them for the first time in Seattle, this week they had the blue Cellars at Jasper Hill label, and a price $2.99 that was right for tasting.
I set out the Weybridge for about two hours before I cut into it with my usual small wheel trepidations. I was pleasantly surprised. If you click on the image you will be able to see the gorgeous straw-yellow paste, and although it seems to be ripening in layers, overall it was approaching just ‘ripe’ for a cheese of this style. My first bite revealed a flavorful rind with notes of spice and smoke and a paste that was more tangy than creamy - this suits me just fine since it keeps the buttery richness from getting out of hand. My only concern was that some might feel it had a touch too much salt, but for me this was also a plus. The next day I finished the cheese and not only did the flavors seem more pronounced, but so did the salt, although it was just as enjoyable. I have not eaten a lot of bloomy rind cow cheeses over the last few years, so I am not sure if this is normal for this type of cheese when it is exposed to the air for an extended period. I would buy this cheese again, and I hope someday to cut into a larger version.
Kurt Timmermeister’s restaurant, Septième, already had quite a good reputation as a Seattle nightspot when I moved here in 1997, and it was close to home. Little did I know at the time that its owner had a farm on Vashon Island where he raised Jersey cows and sold their raw milk. Timmermeister also experimented with ‘home’ cheese making and eventually decided to get more serious about it, specifically producing a bloomy-rind relatively short-aged, - 25 days - soft-ripened cheese, which he named Dinah, after one of his cows. Small scale equipment not available in this country was ordered from Europe and restaurants and cheese mongers began offering his cheese last summer. As he writes in his website biography: "Kurtwood Farms is now home to a small herd of Jersey cows, a motley crew of sheep, happy free rooting pigs, an ever changing flock of chickens, geese and ducks…”
I first ran into Dinah’s cheese about a month ago at the Central Co-op on Capital Hill, but given its eight-ounce size and my complete lack of knowledge of Kurtwood Farm, I passed on it. One local writer reviewed the cheese in a piece entitled The Birth of a New Stinky Cheese: Kurtwood's Dinah. In the first sentence of the piece he relates a family trip to Camembert in France in part I think to establish his cheese credentials and then proceeds to describe Dinah as a Camembert-style soft, bloomy-rind cow's milk cheese. I assumed from this piece and others that Timmermeister was working with Camembert as his model, and was a little sad that he was leaning on the name to promote his cheese, but I also understood that he had to educate his customers.
After a two hour sit on my counter, the Dinah was ready to taste, and I was very excited as unwrapped it, since there aren’t many soft-ripened bloomy-rind cheeses being made in this country from Jersey cow milk. I cut out a wedge and after a few seconds the straw yellow paste began oozing out slowly with a texture more like a ripe St Marcellin rather than a Camembert. The rind had a muted flavor, chalky with bit of spiciness on the finish, but the paste, oh the paste was amazing. Smooth and creamy in texture, its flavor had a pure expression of Jersey cream that rolled across my palate in waves. I was hard pressed to remember tasting a richer soft-ripened bloomy-rind cheese in this country, domestically produced or imported. The only flaws I could find at the time were that it was too lightly salted and that it lacked a finishing tanginess. The next day I tasted it again two hours out of the fridge, and just like the Weybridge all of the flavors were more pronounced. The rind was full of mushroom flavor with a spicier finish; the flavor of the paste was even richer taking on the nuances of Jersey milk butter; the salt level seemed to be spot on, and there was even a touch of tanginess to the finish…what a cheese. I think Kurt Timmermeister is selling his cheese short by referring to Camembert in any way since the texture and flavor of Dinah set it apart in a significant way from that French cheese - indeed, a runny Camembert is an overripe cheese gone past its peak flavor, and usually stinky.
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