What You Should Know About Rush Creek

I keep meaning to do a winter gift guide, but all I want to do is talk about Rush Creek. It is the meaning of Christmas, the star of David, the liquid heart of Santa – yes, yes, it is all of these things rolled into a cheese and bound with bark.

Here’s why:

1.    Rush Creek is made by Uplands Cheese in Wisconsin, the same folks who make Pleasant Ridge Reserve -- easily the most decorated cheese in America.

2.   Cheesemaker Andy Hatch spent months perfecting this beauty. He uses unpasteurized milk so he had to develop a slow maturation process in order to legally sell these wheels (raw milk cheese must age 60 days or more).

3.   If you’ve had Vacherin Mont d’Or, this is the U.S. equivalent – it’s made by hand using extraordinary milk from well-loved cows.

4.   Rush Creek has the texture of unset pudding – its center is molten. You will want to spoon it into your lover’s mouth. Check out the New York Times photo.

5.    Culture Magazine’s winter centerfold? Rush Creek.

If you have a trusted cheesemonger, ask him or her to order this cheese for you. Prepare to spend about 30 bones, and don’t blanch at the thought. Andy Hatch has a baby, and he needs to earn a living. Cheesemaking is hard work – it requires milking cows twice a day, tending the land on which they graze, and then becoming trained in the art of hand-crafted cheese.

When you eat Rush Creek, you are eating a little bit of Van Gogh.

             For a perfect pairing, eat Rush Creek with a starry Riesling.  ( Photo by Stefania Patrizio)

Waiting for Rush Creek

The cheese world is full of suspense. It’s one of the things I love about writing this blog: the glee I feel when certain cheeses come to market. Remember, I am a fiction writer at heart, so I love mythology. And no other cheese has been mythologized -- not to mention anticipated – like Rush Creek.

Weeks ago when this new baby was released in Wisconsin, I did the internet version of salivating. I hung on every Tweet that mentioned Rush Creek, stalked other bloggers who were enjoying pre-ordered wheels, and paced the dining room in a myopic haze, hoping I would get a call.

Madame Fromage, your Rush Creek has arrived.

After all, I had touched Rush Creek. Back in October, when I participated on a media tour of Wisconsin dairies, I took great delight in visting Uplands, home to the world famous Pleasant Ridge Reserve and birth place of this new wonder: a Vacherin-style cheese that promised to be silken and pungent.

Here are pictures of Rush Creek in the nursery. Aren’t they gorgeous, all bundled in bark?

The birth of Rush Creek is famous for two reasons: 1) it’s the brainchild of a young cheesemaker, Andy Hatch, under the tutelage of reknowned cheesemaker Mike Gingrich; 2) Mike Gingrich has only ever made one cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, a cheese so perfect it’s won Best of Show at the American Cheese Society three times. Pfuiiii, unheard of.

So, Rush Creek had to be good. It just had to be! Mike Gingrich and Andy Hatch use only the best raw milk from the finest specially bred cows that graze on the most sumptuous grass. These are Gucci cows.

Okay, okay, enough build-up. How did it taste, you ask? Like sprouts. Like budlets. Like new growth itself. If you have ever eaten an onion sprout, you have tasted the essence of Rush Creek – oniony, delicate, green, gently pungent.

But there is something else, too, a richness that no onion sprout can capture. How to describe it? Snails in butter.

So, close your eyes. Imagine a tiny seedling bursting with first zest, then add a snail glistening in butter. Sprinkle a little sea salt on your reverie, add a little parsley, then pretend you are sliding across the finest bedding. Now you have the texture.

Can you taste it? Can you smell it?

Now you know why I waited so patiently these past five months.