Pacific Northwest Cheese Project

New Poll - Restaurant Cheese Courses

Book Signings at Vancouver BC Farmers Markets This Sat and Sun July 4-5th

Coming soon to a farmers market near you - I'll be in Vancouver, British Columbia this weekend at two of the fabulous Vancouver Farmers Markets. Come by and say hi on Saturday at the East Vancouver Market from 10:30-1pm or on Sunday (same times) at the Kitsilano Market. Thanks to Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks for sponsoring!

June Cheese News

**Cheese Tasting Sunday June 28th on Olympic Peninsula  The Olympic Peninsula is Washington's hot cheesemaking zone! On Sunday June 28th from 3-5pm at Wild Harvest Farm in Chimacum, Slow Food North Olympic Peninsula will sponsor a tasting event with cheesemakers from Mystery Bay Farm, Wild Harvest Farm, Mt. Townsend Creamery and Whiskey Hill Farm.  Tickets are available at Port Townsend Food Co-op.

**Cheese by Hand podcasts NW Cheesemakers   A few years back, Sasha Davies and Michael Claypool toured the US gathering stories of artisan cheesemakers. For the past several months, they've been posting sound clips from their trip at Cheese by Hand. Recently posted audio from the Northwest producers they visited include Rogue Creamery, Rivers Edge Chévre, Beecher's Handmade Cheese and more...check out the website for great audio and first person insights into the people behind the cheese.

** Vermont Cheesemakers Festival Sunday August 23rd  If you're going to be anywhere near the East Coast in August, think about heading to the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival on Sunday, August 23rd. The event is being held at Shelburne Farms and promises to be a fantastic cheese themed extravaganza, with 50 cheesemakers attending as well as winemakers and other food producers. Classes, tasting events and a cheese sampling dinner will also be part of the festivities.

** Freezing Cheese?  A reader recently asked in the comments - can you freeze cheese? While I know people do freeze cheese - especially blocks of cheddar - you're really not doing your cheese any favors by keeping it this way. As retailers like to say -  better to buy less cheese more often rather than attempting to freeze it. Cheese is a living, albeit highly perishable product that's best enjoyed fresh.

200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes

      The popularity of artisan cheese has spawned an ancillary movement: home cheesemaking. At least here in the Pacific Northwest, it seems that everywhere you turn someone is offering a home cheesemaking class (see my events calendar for a complete list of local events). And thus the proliferation of home cheesemaking books in the past several years, including this new one, 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes.
    What sets this book apart is that Amrein-Boyes is a professional cheesemaker - she's the genius behind The Farm House Natural Cheeses, one of British Columbia's most oustanding artisan cheesemakers. This is important information to know, because it tells you that the author knows what she's talking about...the recipes are written from a cheesemaker's perspective rather than a chef's or home cook's perspective. Indeed, this fact is evident right away, because Amrein-Boyes spends the first 40 pages of the book getting readers up to speed with background, a cheese style primer, equipment list and basic cheesemaking techniques.
    The recipes, all 200 of them, run the gamut from fresh ricotta and mascarpone, to washed-rind Taleggio, to feta, to yogurt, buttermilk and kefir. Mixed in with cheesemaking recipes are accompanying recipes for dishes using the cheeses, like souffles and fondues. The recipes are presented concisely and simply with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of emphasis on technique, temperature and process, all elements crucial to successful cheesemaking. Helpful troubleshooting tips - something I've not seen before in a home cheesemaking book - will aid in the diagnosis of problems as they come up. This is critical because so often home cheesemakers run into troubles, somewhat mysterious in nature, and are left without resources to solve their problems.
    This is one of the best cheesemaking books I've come across - Amrein-Boyes conveys the complexity and rigor of the practice of cheesemaking, while at the same time making the craft accessible to the masses. Where else to find recipes for cheeses like Ossau-Iraty or Stilton? Sure, some of the cheeses in this book will take time and dedicated practice to make, but as any cheese lover knows, a well made artisan cheese is a beautiful thing in its own right, and well worth the effort.

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200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes
Robert Rose/Firefly Books
$24.95 US/ $27.95 CDN
380 pages, paperback

Upcoming Book Events

Portlanders and anyone else, for that matter, who is interested in a freshly signed copy of my book: you have two opportunities this weekend, first Saturday June 13th at Elephants Deli (on NW 22nd in Portland) starting at noon, or Sunday June 14th starting at 2pm at Food Front (Hillsdale Shopping Center in SW Portland). Both of these shops have great selections of local cheese and will be offering cheese tastings so bring yourself and lots of questions....

New in Oregon: Fairview Farm Dairy

Fairview Farm is a small artisan creamery located in Dallas, Oregon, just outside of Salem. Laurie and Terry Carlson moved to Dallas several years ago from Cheney, Washington where Laurie taught history at Eastern Washington University. Since the move, they've been working hard to establish their cheesemaking operation and were rewarded with the state's official stamp of approval in early April of this year. 

Cheesemaking was the culmination of what Laurie describes as a sea change in the Carlsons' attitudes about food. "Essentially we rediscovered food and changed our eating habits completely." They'd never kept goats before, but fell in love with them after answering a Craigslist ad....now the Carlsons can call themselves 'goat people,' as they now care for a thriving herd of about twenty nubian and alpine goats. Laurie learned to make cheese and her burgeoning cheesemaking skills proved to be quite good - she took second and third place in the amateur category at the 2008 American Dairy Goat Association cheese competition. The Carlsons will specialize in raw milk aged cheeses that Laurie describes as "cheeses that you can take in your lunchbox." Great image, no?

Laurie also has a thriving career as a historian and author of twenty books; she teaches part time at Western Oregon University in addition to making cheese. She put her research skills to work uncovering the history of cheesemaking in the Dallas area, in the process discovering that the area was renowned in the nineteenth century for cheese. “Cynthia Ann Applegate (wife of Jesse Applegate of Applegate Trail fame) was actually famous in the Salem/Dallas area for her cheeses,” Laurie says. “She made several types of cheese using herbs like sage.” The Carlsons plan to take the concept of ‘local’ to a new level by reinventing the aged raw milk cheeses of decades past.

Fairview Farm's current cheese selections include Sweet Dreams, a basket molded round cheese with a natural rind; Cynthian, named after Cynthia Ann Applegate, with herbs; and Cascadia, a round tomme style cheese. Look for them at Steve's Cheese , Elephant's, Abbie & Oliver's in McMinnville and at the OHSU Farmer's market and more outlets coming soon!

[photo courtesy Laurie Carlson]

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Fairview Farm Dairy
Laurie and Terry Carlson
2340 SW Fairview
Dallas, OR  97338
503-623-4744

Tillamook Now Accepting Submissions for 2009 Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Contest

Do you feel it? It's that time of year again, the time when the Tillamook  starts accepting submissions for the 5th annual Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Contest! The deadline is Monday August 17th (mail entries must be postmarked by August 12th)..... for more info including rules, submission guidelines and past winning recipes, see the website.

Oregon Gourmet Cheeses Closed

 Oregon Gourmet Cheeses has closed. Founded in 2002 by Oregon native turned Hollywood producer Connie Collins, Oregon Gourmet built a reputation on Austrailian trained cheesemaker Brian Richter's lovely cow's milk cheeses like Sublimity and Camembert. The business was recently purchased by Pacific Foods and things seemed to be looking up - but last week they closed for good.

Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest at Pastaworks Sunday June 7th at 1pm

Join me this Sunday afternoon June 7th at  Pastaworks in Portland (Hawthorne location) for a book signing and cheese tasting starting at 1pm! In cooperation with Powell's Books (just next door), Pastaworks has put together a great book-and-cheese party for the occasion....you'll be able to sample cheese from Willamette Valley Cheese Co., Rivers Edge Chevre, Rogue Creamery and Fern's Edge Goat Dairy and sip wine from J. Christopher. Not bad for a book signing, eh? See you there?

Sidewalk-a-Thon to Raise Funds for Oregon Food Bank

Earlier in the year you may recall we held an online fundraiser in support of the Oregon Food Bank. Blog for Food raised over $2,000 for the Food Bank. Now a few enterprising folks are sponsoring a fun and creative event that will also benefit OFB, the Sidewalk-a-thon. The idea is to get around a block in Portland's downtown Park Blocks in whatever manner you see fit, and get sponsors to pay you for each lap....with all proceeds going directly to OFB. For more info, see the contact emails in the ad, above. Have fun and help out!