Cheeses of the Field

This is a scene from Friday's tasting at the home of Sue Miller, maker of some of the finest raw milk cheese in Pennsylvania. I've bought Sue's cheese for several years -- her Birchrun Blue and Red Cat are household favorites. Usually, I eat them at my dining room table. What a treat it was to eat at Sue's table, in the meadow behind her pasture.

Her house in Chester County is the kind of place that makes you want to abandon your laptop and curl up with a book on her porch. Or in the swing across the road.

I wanted to do just that, but I had cheese to eat. And candied bacon. Paul Lawler of Fair Food Philly (right) and Sue Miller (left) know how to plan wicked schemes.

Plus, Jean Broillet IV was on the scene, pouring something called Blood Root.

It was a great pairing, alongside Sue's cheeses. Then someone pulled out a jar of brandied cherries. You know how I have a thing for cherries and blue.

I don't think I have ever been to a more convivial gathering. Or a prettier one. Just before solstice. With Holsteins grazing at sunset. And cheese lovers carrying on like children who have just discovered fireflies.

Many thanks to Sue and her family for so much hard work. For the milking. For the planning. For walking through the mud to make good cheese happen.

Where's my robiola?

My local cheese column in the June issue of Grid Magazine focuses on this little bunting of mixed-milk cheese. It's a wonderful local robiola called Hummingbird, which has a bloomy rind and creamy interior at about 3 weeks. 

"You don't see many robiolas in the States," cheesemaker Kristian Holbrook (Doe Run Dairy) told me when I interviewed him for the story. That got me thinking. I've only seen one other artisan robiola that I can recollect, and that was in Iowa. Why don't more cheesemakers produce it?

"I like Robiola Bocina," Holbrook told me, referring to a popular Italian import, "but it's too thick for me. Too pasty. I wanted something with more lactic character that would be good at a young age."

When I wrote my column for Grid, the only Hummingbird I could find was very young -- two weeks old. It was lemony in taste and springy in texture. My friends and I ate it with homemade raspberry jam and nearly passed out from joy on the living room floor. 

A few weeks later, I clammed onto a couple older specimen that were exceedingly ripe (beyond 6 weeks, I'd guess). The downy surface mold had turned wheat-colored, and the center pooled onto the counter when I cut into the rind. Oh, momma! That robiola was strong! Hot and sharp. 

It was interesting to see a cheese change so dramatically after just a few weeks. From lemon sponge to peppery satin. Here is my plea if any cheesemakers are listening: Pssst, make some robiola! It's so dreamy. I fear that once Hummingbird catches on, it'll disappear in a razor-whirr just like the bird.

Hummingbird is produced in Chester County, Pa. at Doe Run Farm, home to 16 cows, 30 sheep, and 19 goats. In Philadelphia, it makes appearances at Di Bruno Bros. in the Italian Market and at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal.

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More Hot Bits

Check out the current issue of Culture Magazine for the spread on cheese-related tattoos. You saw a few of them here first, but there are a slew more, alongside new photos of Ezekial Ferguson and Ian Peacock of Di Bruno Bros. 

The Philadelphia Cheese Experiment takes place on June 5 at World Cafe Live. It's part of Brooklyn Brewery's national tour of food experiments, where amateurs compete for prizes...like a free trip to the brewery. There's still time to sign up or get tickets to attend. I hope somebody makes a goat cheese brownie to blow my mind.

A Visit to Yellow Springs Goat Dairy

One of 50 Nubians at Yellow Springs

For the last three years, I have led a car-free life. The only thing I miss: country drives. On my birthday last month, I asked Monsieur Fromage to take me out to some winding roads. I put on my leopard print coat, and off we went to cheese country.

Chester County, Pennsylvania has a “cheese trail” – a clever thing. Many states have developed these dairy touring routes, and I encourage every cheese addict to seek them out. The Chester County Cheese trail includes some of my favorite cheesemakers from the area: Amazing Acres, Shellbark Hollow, and Birchrun Hills.

It would take all day to visit every dairy, so we decided to drop in on an open house at the much-lauded Yellow Springs Goat Dairy headed by Al and Catherine Renzi. Two of their cheeses have won prizes from the American Cheese Society – Nutcracker and Red Leaf – but you won’t find them at cheese counters. The Renzis only sell their cheese online, at their farm store (open by appointment), or through their goat cheese CSA program in Philadelphia.

For my birthday, I dreamed of a Yellow Springs cheese plate.

What a pretty place Chester County is, full of tree canopy and fieldstone walls. Wind around enough curves, and you’ll come to Yellow Springs, where 50 Nubians graze next to a spring-fed pond.

That’s where we found Al Renzi, overlooking his herd. He sauntered up the hill to greet us, passing the spring house, where we learned that a batch of blue cheese was aging. It took a lot of self-restraint not to fling back the door – you know I love a good stinker.

Cheesemaker Al Renzi

Black walnuts from the trees overhead

The Renzi farm is stunning. The eight-acre grounds are part of an old cow dairy with a farmhouse and barn the Renzis restored themselves. Giant sycamores stir in the wind, and even on a dreary December afternoon, the place conveyed a cozy warmth.

I was especially impressed by the barn’s pristine “make room,” backdropped by a century-old fieldstone wall.

Entrance to the cheesemaking facility

The "make" room

I loved the cheeses we sampled. There was a feisty puck of Bliss that spread like softened butter and a delicate wedge of Fieldstone that was sweetly earthy. But my favorites were the kickers: Red Leaf, which came wrapped in wine-soaked Sycamore leaves; Nutcracker, which had flecks of black walnuts; and a creamy, pungent Nobiola in the style of an Italian Robiola.

Here are a few tasting notes:

Red Leaf: dense and tangy, with a pronounced funk from the Sycamore leaves that enrobe this cheese. Imagine a mellow Epoisses with a kick of goatiness. Smells a little boozy, great earthy flavor.

Nutcracker: smells like a squirrel cave, nutty and leafy. The rind looks like cave etchings – really it’s leftover walnut must from the making of Nocino Liqueur, a spirit the Renzis make from their own black walnuts. The flavor is pleasantly sweet-salty and nutty with flecks of walnut meat.

Nobiola: this is the Renzis' version of Robiola. It has a bloomy rind the color of sand and an ivory paste. Grassy smell, fudgy texture. The taste is milky and sweet with a hint of coconut on the finish.

Next time you crave a Sunday drive, stop in and see a cheesemaker. It's worth picking up a cheese plate you can eat for supper, and guess what? You'll relive your trip all over again with each bite. It's amazing how cheeses smell and taste like the places where they are made -- I swear I could taste frozen ground, sycamore limbs, goat happiness.

My birthday dinner, a cheese plate from Yellow Springs