Category Archives: Saxelby Cheese Share

Saxelby Cheese Share: July 14

July 13, 2012 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Leave a comment

This week’s Tarentaise comes from Spring Brook Farm in Vermont.

 

Cheese: Tarentaise (raw cows’ milk)

Farm: Spring Brook Farm; Reading, VT

What Saxelby has to say: A gorgeous, Beaufort-style cheese that is based on the recipe perfected by John and Janine Putnam of Thistle Hill Farm.  Spring Brook and Thistle Hill Farm have forged a unique partnership in the American cheese-scape, making the same cheese on two different patches of farmland. This partnership evokes the Alpine tradition where cheese makers within a certain area all make the same style of cheese. Made from rich, raw Jersey cows’ milk in a traditional copper vat, Tarentaise is a complex and full-flavored wheel of cheese.  Aged for 7 months or more, the texture is smooth and rich, with deep, nutty, and spicy flavors abounding. Hints of wet grass and sweet toasted hazelnuts accent the flavor profile.

Saxelby Cheese Share: June 23

June 22, 2012 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Laini Fondilier of Lazy Lady Farm. Photo by David La Spina for NYT. (Click photo for full story.)

 

Cheese: Tomme de Lay (raw goats’ milk)

Farm: Lazy Lady Farm; Westfield, VT

What Saxelby has to say: Tomme de Lay is a magnificent cheese that pokes fun at one of our country’s most infamous politicians. This cheese was first called Dandy’s Lyin’, due to the fact that the rind is lightly speckled with dandelion greens and summer savory. During a fit of creativity during one evening’s milking (most probably spurred by listening to NPR), Laini Fondilier decided to change the name, and Tomme de Lay was born. An elegant washed rind cheese with a dense chalky center surrounded by a creamy outer layer. Tomme de Lay has hints of grass, spongy mushrooms, and fresh cream with deep gamey and musky notes to round it out.

Saxelby Cheese Share: Sept. 10

September 9, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , Leave a comment

Cheese: Ouray (raw cows’ milk)

Farm: Sprout Creek Farm; Poughkeepsie, NY

What Saxelby  has to say: One bite and this cheese will leave you exclaiming OO-ray! A one of a kind cheese  with a flavor that is a hybrid of Cheddar and Parmesan with perhaps a little bit of English Cheshire thrown in the mix to make things interesting. It is bright and tart with a flaky and somewhat granular texture. Accented with sharp and lactic notes and rustic mossy undertones which evoke the damp cellars in which it is aged. The unusual and unique rind gives the cheese more earthy mushroomy flavors and should definitely be eaten, not cast aside. Aged 3-4 months.

Saxelby Cheese Share: Sept. 3

September 2, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , Leave a comment

The cellar at Jasper Hill.

Cheese: Cabot Clothbound Cheddar (pasteurized cows’ milk)

Farm: Matured in the cellars at Jasper Hill Farm; Greensboro, Vermont

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say: The grand champion of the 2006 American Cheese Society cheese awards. This cheese has been dubbed as addictive as narcotics by certain devoted fans.  A hefty, beautiful and rustic wheel, the clothbound cheddar is rich and caramelly, speckled with bits of crystalline crunchy goodness. Clothbound cheddar evolved as a partnership between Jasper Hill Farm and Cabot Creamery, two of the best dairy enterprises in the Green Mountain State. The cheeses are made at Cabot Creamery, and are shipped to the Cellars at Jasper Hill when just a few days old. The team at the Cellars then bandages the cheeses, coats them with hot lard to make the cloth stick to surface of the cheese, and places them on wood shelves to age for 12-14 months.

Saxelby Cheese Share: Aug. 27

August 25, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , Leave a comment


Cheese: Old Man Highlander (raw cows’ milk)
Farm: Calkins Creamery; Honesdale, Penn.
Amount: 1/3 lb.
What Saxelby has to say: Old Man Highlander is an aged gouda-style cheese from the caves at Calkins Creamery. These rustic, earthy wheels are aged for 60 to 90 days, during which time they develop a coating of dusty grayish mold. The flavor is milky, snappy and vibrant, with some spicy, Provolone-y notes contributing a bit of sharpness. The texture is semi-firm to firm, depending on how long the cheeses are aged. Normally aged 3-5 months.

Saxelby Cheese Share: August 20

August 18, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , Leave a comment

Cheese: Riley’s Coat (raw goat’s milk)

Farm: Blue Ledge Farm; Salisbury, Vermont

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say: A semi-firm, sweet and musty goats’ milk cheese from Vermont’s Champlain Valley.  Named for the cheesemakers’ beloved hound, Riley, this cheese is anything but dogged.  The flavor is milky and mellow, with a grassy, honeyed and floral flavor.  Aged between 4 to 5 months, during which time the cheese develops a beautifully rustic natural rind.

Saxelby Cheese Share: July 23

July 22, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Cheese: Vermont Shepherd (raw sheep’s milk)

Farm: Major Farm; Putney, Vermont

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say: A deliciously nutty and slightly sweet aged sheep’s milk cheese from the artisanal cheese pioneers at Major Farm. Back in the 90s, when milking sheep seemed to be just about the craziest thing you could do, David and Cindy Major started making Vermont Shepherd. The result of a trip to the Pyrenees region of France, Vermont Shepherd is a rustic-rinded, smooth sheeps’ milk cheese, like those crafted by French shepherds for hundreds of years. The flavor is balanced and elegant, with an unparalleled richness of grassy, sheepy taste.

FYI: The sheep is this photo are not affiliated with Major Farm. But they are cute. And they have black faces (which my father, a former sheep rancher, hates.) And they’re in snow. And sitting here in 104 degree heat, I wish to join them. — Amy Haimerl

Photo by Tina Negus on Flickr.

Saxelby Cheese Share: July 9

July 7, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , Leave a comment

Cheese: Sweet Emotions (pasteurized goats’ milk and cows’ cream)

Farm: Lazy Lady Farm

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say: When Steven Tyler wrote the song, this cheese wasn’t yet a gleam in cheese maker Laini Fondiller’s eye. But if Tyler tasted it today, he might be willing to re-work some of the lyrics to be more cheesecentric. A small disc of absolutely sinful cheese, with an interior the texture of mousse-like buttery silk. Sweet Emotions is made from the milk of Laini’s goats, with the added shot (if we were talking espresso here, it’d be a big one!) of cream from Butterworks Farm, one of Vermont’s most lauded organic dairies.

Saxelby Cheese Share: July 1

June 30, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Doug and Debby Erb, who own Springvale Farms and make Landaff cheese.

Cheese: Landaff (raw cows’ milk)

Farm: Springvale Farms, Landaff, NH

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say: Landaff is a real tart….just the way we like our cheeses. Made from raw Holstein milk and bound in cloth, Landaff has the pucker and twang to rival some of the finest cheeses from the British Isles.

Our first cheese from New Hampshire takes its name from the town where it is made.  The Erb family got out of the commodity milk game and into the artisanal cheese game after meeting up with the brothers Kehler up at Jasper Hill Farm.  Now Landaff is aged for 5-7 months in the Cellars at Jasper Hill, tended and coddled by the cheese elves of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Saxelby Cheese Share: June 25

June 23, 2011 By in Saxelby Cheese Share Tags: , , Leave a comment

The goats frolick at Consider Bardwell Farm in Vermont.

Cheese: Rupert (raw cow’s milk)

Farm: Consider Bardwell Farm (West Pawlet, VT)

Amount: 1/3 lb.

What Saxelby has to say about it: Move over Gruyere… here comes Rupert, a regal whale of a wheel of cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm. Each 35 pound wheel of Rupertis stamped with a whale shape as well as the batch number when the curds are being pressed, no doubt an homage to its grandeur and heft. The cheese is a dense, butterscotchy, and nutty experience, with a well honed flavor profile that extends on the palate long after the last bite. The wheels are aged for a minimum of nine months to ensure the development of the cheese’s subtle, lingering flavor.
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