As promised during our last video, here’s some follow up information on grated cheese, with recipes.

First, for recipe use, remember that the texture of your cheese can make a significant difference in volume. If your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of grated cheese, consider how you’re grating before you measure:

COARSE GRATE/SHRED (seen in the top left measuring cup): 1 oz firm cheese = 1/2 cup grated cheese

MEDIUM GRATE (seen in the middle measuring cup): 1 oz firm cheese = 1/3 cup grated cheese

FINE or “SNOW” GRATE (seen in the bottom left measuring cup): 1 oz firm cheese = 1/4 cup grated cheese

Our CHEESE CRISP recipe was quite simple:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Grate firm cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano or aged Gouda on the medium or coarse side of a box grater.

When the oven has heated, place cheese on the baking sheet, 1-2 Tbsp at a time; spread into even circles about 2-3” in diameter.

Bake cheese circles for 5 minutes, until they bubble and start to brown on top; remove from oven.

Let the crisps cool for a minute, then gently slide the edge of a spatula under an edge to remove from sheet. Eat and enjoy!

And here, from Betty Koster of Fromagerie l’Amuse, two delicious and simple recipes:

This is the time of year when I could easily eat warm, melted cheese as part of every meal. Truthfully, I think cheese should be on your dinner table every day, all year round, and it doesn't always have to be part of a complicated recipe. A wedge served with soup, salad, or great bread can be perfect meal! Cheese has been our way of preserving the incredible nutritional power of milk for thousands of years, and real cheese is full of protein, calcium, good fats, and other brain-building nutrients. With that in mind, we’ve got recipes and suggestions to make your meals easy and delicious. Please follow Mill City Cheesemongers on Instagram and share your ideas with us. Tag @millcitycheesemongers and include the hashtag #cheesefordinner in your recipe posts. I'm hoping to create a little cookbook with our collective recipes to spread the community cheese love.

Here’s recipe Number One, perfect for a cool weeknight: a Savory Dutch Baby (an oven-baked “pancake”).

Olivia

Poster Girl for Ruosalp and, perhaps, the happiest cow ever.

If you follow the shop on Instagram (please do!), you may remember some photos I posted last June, when I had the trip of a lifetime to visit our “adopted” Alpine family on Ruosalp. We’ve had Alpkäse (“mountain cheese”) in the shop for a year now through the Adopt-an-Alp program, and have had the chance to learn about traditional cheesemaking and sustainable dairy farming first hand.

Thanks to Caroline and Daniel Hostettler of Quality Cheese, a few of us in the Adopt an Alp program were invited to visit Switzerland to meet Alpine cheesemakers and farmers. I still find words inadequate to capture the extraordinary beauty of the land, the generosity of the people, and the power of the traditions that support this work. The Swiss clearly recognize that their Alps are treasures, and all of us visiting were deeply moved by the cheesemakers’ commitment. These Alpine farmers are true stewards of their land.

If you come in to taste Alpkäse right now, you’ll have a sample of wheels from 2018 production, which means the cheese is about 15 months old. Wheels from this past summer of 2019 should arrive within the next month, and it will be fun to taste the two years’ production side by side. The more mature cheese in our cases now has mellowed since last year, with a deeper flavor and lingering finish. The texture is still beautifully rich and smooth (fondue, anyone?) after aging in the Hergers’ mountainside caves.

I’m sharing a few photos here from the day we spent on Ruosalp, where Max and Monika Herger and their family welcomed our group into their home. We sat in their kitchen and shared a meal and lots of laughs (Max’s laugh is truly infectious), and then we toured their cheesemaking room, their caves and their extraordinary mountainside. Whenever I taste Ruosalp cheese, I’m reminded of this family and their hospitality. Max sends his greetings and thanks from Switzerland to all of you; his ever-present smile grew wider every time we talked about how much enthusiasm our customers have for Alpkäse.

My takeaways from the trip:

• Alpine cheeses are the products of hundreds of years of tradition, with land and skills and stories passed down through generations. This is true craftsmanship.

• The tradition of the Alps is one that embodies the best agricultural and land management practices, deep respect for herd animals and their welfare, and appreciation for the environmental legacy we will leave for generations to follow.

• Alpine meadows are extraordinary examples of biodiversity. Some of the fields we saw contain more than 500 different varieties of plant species, which provide optimal nutrition for grazing animals, enhance soil and air quality, and just happen to be quite beautiful.

• When I think about why cheese matters, I think about these small Swiss producers. Their work is a living example of cultural and environmental preservation. This is what food is supposed to be - the cheese encapsulates all the rich nutritional value of the ecosystem as part of a sustainable agricultural cycle, and when shared it connects us to our planet and our fellow humans in a truly meaningful way.

• On a slightly less serious note: these cows are the Olympic athletes of their species. They climb mountains! Their reward for that exertion is a summer of free roaming through what must feel like a candy shop of grasses, flowers, herbs, and legumes, with fresh spring water and sunshine. I’ve seen a lot of farm animals, but these girls were without question the most beautiful cows I’ve ever encountered, living what has to be pretty close to the ideal bovine life. And their goat compatriots seemed equally happy!

The Road to Ruosalp

Max and Monika in their Kitchen

Max, Lea, and Marina

Family Cheesemaking on Ruosalp

Alpkäse on Aging Shelves

A Wheel of 2018 Alpkäse

Monika in the Hillside Cheese Cave

View from the Upper Pastures

June Snow at the Upper Hut

Lea with Goats

Cows Ready for Milking

Cows on Ruosalp

Nina, Lea, and Remo with Olivia

The federal government is preparing to impose a set of tariffs that may change our food landscape and threaten the existence of small businesses like ours. We need your help!

These tariffs originate from a trade dispute between aircraft manufacturers, which has been expanded by the current administration to include more than 300 categories of European Union goods. Specialty food tariffs appear as an “annex” to the primary trade resolution.

 What’s the issue?

The proposed 100% tariffs would apply to lots of foods from the EU, including pasta, meats, olives, olive oil, whiskey, and over 90% of the cheeses currently imported to the U.S.

 What happens if these tariffs are approved?

If the tariffs go into effect, they will double the cost of these European foods. It’s important to understand that tariffs are not a “tax” imposed on foreign companies; US-based businesses will pay the higher prices, and will pass that cost along to distributors and retailers, ultimately doubling prices for U.S. consumers. That pricing isn’t sustainable, and many European cheeses either won’t be available at all in the U.S. or will be in very short supply. That means:

-       Fewer choices and higher prices for consumers

-       The loss of core products for retail shops like ours

-       Thousands of jobs lost throughout the specialty food supply chain, from importers to distributors to retailers

These tariffs might also be a death knell for thousands of small independent retailers. Either significant price increases or the loss of European classics that customers are most familiar with will mean overall sales decreases for retailers. And some of these EU cheeses have historically been available to retailers at much lower costs than domestic cheese, enabling us to lower price margins on American products and to support more local farms. Without that blended margin, we won’t be able to afford to stock American specialty cheese. All of these factors, occurring during the 4th quarter when retailers rely on increased sales, will likely force small shops like ours out of business.

But wouldn’t tariffs mean increased opportunities for American food producers

Not really, no. While industrial commodity producers might be able to increase their volume in order to fill gaps left by European products leaving the market, small farmstead cheesemakers – producers who use the milk from their own farms - simply can’t adjust enough to meet that demand. And if there are fewer products available in the marketplace overall, the costs of shipping and distribution will increase, becoming prohibitively high for small producers. The specialty food industry depends on robust international trade. Small-scale producers depend on international trade.

 So – what can we do?

 We have an opportunity to post comments on the tariff proposal until Monday, August 12. Please take a few minutes to visit regulatons.gov here and post a brief comment opposing the tariffs. Click on the blue “Comment Now” button on the right of the page to add your comments, which you can post anonymously if you wish.

 It’s best to use your own words, as repeated form letters don’t count as individual comments and therefore don’t carry more weight than a single post. A few sentences should suffice, and the inclusion of at least one data point helps. Here are some facts to consider adding to a comment:

-       These tariffs will do measurable economic harm to at least 14,000 specialty food retailers across the United States (estimate by the Specialty Food Association).

-       The brunt of the economic burden created by the tariffs will be carried by consumers and small to medium sized businesses.

-       Thousands of Americans currently employed in the food industry will lose their jobs with importers, shipping companies, distributors and retailers if sales of imported specialty foods decrease because of the tariffs.

-       The tariffs are particularly threatening to American economic interests because of their timing late in the year, when businesses all along the supply chain depend on robust sales to sustain their bottom line.

-       American food producers will also suffer losses due to the tariffs; the market for their goods will decrease if distributors and retailers are forced out of business. 

Thank you for your help with this complicated and worrisome issue.

Thanksgiving is really the perfect time to apply my favorite rule about wine: don't overthink it.

We're getting ready for a meal that's large, varied, likely to take a while, and, in most cases, involves pretty straightforward food. Thanksgiving dinner isn't a meal for a Michelin-star restaurant; it's family comfort food, simple and good. So this isn't the time to break out complex, extravagant wines. You need a bit of variety and something that you enjoy drinking. That's it.

As we've already learned in thinking about beer for this meal, a typical Thanksgiving spread has a lot of competing flavors. This is good news, because what doesn't work with one side dish will almost certainly work with something else. Try a little white, a little red, and taste everything.

WHITE WINES

Yes, you can drink white year-round. Because you can drink WHATEVER YOU LIKE. But if you're used to drinking ice-cold Sauvignon Blanc, you're missing all the wonderful things white wines can do. A nice dry Sauvignon Blanc - at something higher than freezer temperature, please - will likely appeal to almost everyone during Thanksgiving dinner. A good one, like something France's Loire Valley or a domestic wine from Oregon (we have a lovely Sauvignon Blanc from Gaspard in the shop and one from Patricia Green Cellars), can take you from a cheese course through salad to roast turkey and green beans with no problem. For a little more body and more savory notes, try a Viognier, which is nearly perfect with sweet potatoes, squash, and stuffing.  Fausse Piste's Mineral Selection Viognier, from Oregon winemakers who really understand food, is my favorite here. Another no-fail crowd pleaser is a good Grüner Veltliner, which finally got Americans' attention about 20 years ago, and simply tastes good.

What about the people who think they love only Chardonnay? Give them some. White Burgundy wines aren't going to fail you. And if you want a nice domestic choice, Forlorn Hope Queen of the Sierra Estate White is a blend of Chardonnay, Verdelho and Riesling that's got something for everyone. We'll be recommending this wine and its sister red blend as a Thanksgiving strategy to anyone who asks this year.

RED WINES

Again, no rules, but if I can sneak in one guideline, it would be this: Thanksgiving isn't the best time for big, powerful Super Tuscans and California Cabs. Those are steakhouse wines for a reason, and their tannins and strong fruit will probably make it impossible to taste your turkey. So, what to serve? Pinot Noir seems like the obvious answer, and we always carry a few nice Pinots. The really good ones can get expensive, though, so if you need to be a little budget-conscious, look to Spain. There are tasty Tempranillos available at reasonable prices, and the grape's tart flavors are lovely for Thanksgiving (you've already got cranberries on the table, right?). I like a Cabernet Franc with some nice herbal notes to highlight fall foods. Challenge your wine-snob cousin with a bottle of d'Orsaria Cab Franc from, unexpectedly, Italy. It finishes with a little rosemary flavor, which is nice with most of what's on a Thanksgiving plate.

DESSERT

Have room for more? The good news about Thanksgiving dessert is that, even if you end up with a pairing that doesn't taste fabulous, you're likely to be too full to care. The even better news is that a great pairing might wake you from your food coma and leave you ready for another round of eating. My favorites: pumpkin pie with tawny port; cheesecake or pear-based desserts with late harvest Gewurztraminer; blue cheese and nuts with Manzanilla sherry.

Still not sure what to choose? Really - don't overthink! We've put together a few combinations for Thanksgiving that will do just fine, so come in for a taste of cheese, a friendly chat with a cheesemonger, and the reassurance that, whatever family drama may arise next Thursday, your wine choices won't be part of it.

Ahh, Thanksgiving. It's the beginning of cold weather comfort food season; it's the celebration of bountiful harvests and family bonds; it's a day to eat more than any sane person would contemplate. In the spirit of enjoying the excess, then, let's talk about beverage pairings for the classic November meal. We'll start with beer, which is generally much simpler to match with food than wine (more about wine tomorrow).

It's not as if there are any "correct" pairings or Rules You Must Not Break. There's no need for expertise: eat and drink what you like, and don't worry about what anyone else says you should be pairing. That said, here's what I think you should be pairing. Or at least what I like.

Pre-Dinner Prep/Appetizers/Salads

You'll want to pace yourself as you prepare to overindulge. Whether you begin your day as a cook or as the lucky person who just shows up at dinner time, something light is the answer here. And as you prepare for hours of eating with the first round - appetizers, cheese and charcuterie, whatever - it's nice to have a beverage that isn't going to obliterate your palate and mask the taste of your food. In our family, pre-meal snacks include a lot of cheese, so I'm looking for a beer style that will complement rich milky goodness. I'd start with a witbier like Finback Double Sess or, if you really need some hops, a low ABV pale ale like Banded Brewing Wheat n' Potatoes. Either way, you'll have a beer with a crisp mouthfeel, light herbal/vegetal/spicy flavors. I particularly like the addition of ginger and chamomile to Double Sess; it reminds me of a refreshing herbal tea. Nice way to clear the palate and the mind as you prepare to do battle with a big meal.

Turkey Time

OK, so this meal is actually a tricky one for beverage pairings. Turkey doesn't have a lot of fat or intense flavor. Surround it with roasted, caramelized meats and veggies, rich carb-y stuffing, potatoes, and gravy, and you've got a lot of things competing for your palate's attention. Fortunately, most Thanksgiving sides are very good friends of malty beverages, so lots of beer choices can work.

If the centerpiece of your table is roast turkey, you'll be very happy with an Oktoberfest-style lager or a nice smooth brown ale.  There's nothing assertive or challenging about these brews, and their light maltiness will balance out the mix on your plate. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Four Quarters Festbier or Black Hog Granola Brown Ale to anyone who needed an easy-drinking crowd pleaser.

If you're gazing dreamily upon a smoked turkey, you can manage something a little more robust. Porters and stouts are lovely with smoky flavors; some, like Greater Good's Good Night Moon milk porter or Banded Brewing's Norweald Stout, have some smoky aroma of their own. The chocolate and coffee notes in these beers can complement savory meat and roast veg very nicely.

But what if brown ale feels too simple, and you want to save the stouts (which, really, are the milkshake of beers) for dessert? Here's the simple answer, and my favorite choice: find a really good saison. My all time favorite - and something that you can drink with pretty much everything you're likely to eat during Thanksgiving dinner - is H2 Chardonnay Saison from Transmitter Brewing. A little fruity, a little funky, but not likely to overwhelm any element of the meal, this one will even please the wine drinkers at your holiday table. Woody notes from oak barrel fermentation will enhance roasted vegetables; a little yeasty funk will brighten up even bland turkey; the vanilla you notice at the finish will make sweet potatoes sweeter even without marshmallows.

Dessert

Ahh, Thanksgiving dessert. Because you haven't eaten enough. And it's time for more beer! If you're ready to settle in to a nice comfy couch with a slab of pumpkin or pecan pie, that porter or stout you set aside earlier will be perfect. Banded Brewing's Jolly Woodsman stout is as good as a nitro cold brew coffee. Want something to fight off the food coma? A refreshing sour ale might do that, and sours can be very nice with berry or cherry pies. If you want a memorable end to your meal, open a barleywine. Idle Hands Swarm, a beautiful golden honey ale, is a fun alternative to dessert wine (and I'm thinking it would be fabulous with cheesecake or some post-dinner blue cheese).

You can find everything I've suggested at our shop, or browse Untappd to find some options close to you.

Next up - some ideas about hard cider (perhaps the ideal fall beverage pairing) and wine for Thanksgiving dinner.