The wagon holds a mammoth cheese made at Ingersoll in 1866. This cheese inspired furniture maker, coffin dealer, and poet James McIntyre to write "Ode on a Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds," which praises it as the "queen of cheese."
Getting Great Cheese, Wherever You Are
Artisanal Premium Cheese
www.artisanalcheese.com
An online cheese extravaganza, with cheese tips, cheese recipes, cheese accessories, a cheese of the month club, as well as scores of cheeses from around the world, Artisanal Premium Cheese grew out of Picholine, a two-star Michelin restaurant in New York. Its guiding light is Max McCalman, America's first restaurant-based Maître Fromager and a Garde et Jure in France's Guilde des Fromagers. At Artisanal, you can order “Max’s Plate – 3 Cheeses I Love Right Now.”
Formaggio Kitchen
www.formaggiokitchen.com
A mom-and-pop (and son-and-daughter) shop for Cantabrigians, Formaggio Kitchen gathers cheese and other singular foods from around the world. The store’s owner, Ihsan Gurdal, has been inducted into the Guilde des Fromagers and has received the title of Chevalier from the Ordre du Mérite Agricole for introducing the hand-crafted foods of French artisans to Americans. Formaggio built the first cheese cave in the U.S. and treats their cheese with care that Tiffany does its diamonds. Glorious.
Murray’s Cheese
www.murrayscheese.com
The cheese shop started by “a Jewish Spanish civil war veteran and communist who opened a wholesale butter and egg shop a few doors up Cornelia Street in 1940” now acts as a virtual monger to help you find the perfect cheese. Here’s the first question you’ll face:
If you were a cheese, would you be:
A. Mozzarella - I can be a little fresh
B. Manchego - Firm and stable, but a little nutty
C. Epoisses - My bark is worse than my bite
D. What are Manchego and Epoisses?
Murray’s has a huge selection of cheeses (including Manchego and Epoisses) along with specialty foods and a cheesy sense of humor.
Cheese Enthusiasts
Caseophile
www.fromagium.typepad.com/caseophile
Where should you buy your cheese in Perpignan? In Grenoble? In Châtellerault? What’s the skinny on the massive Salon de l’Agriculture in Paris or The Cambremer Normandy Festival, and just who’s competing this year for the International Caseus Award in Lyon? Marie de Metz Noblat, who has almost two decades of experience as a marketer for French and Swiss cheese, gives English readers a lively look into the French cheese scene.
Cheese by Hand
www.cheesebyhand.com
A cheese-inspired road trip, Cheese by Hand crisscrosses the country to learn about the lives and work of artisan cheese makers. The sites’s creators, Michael Claypool and Sasha Davies, are corporate refugees who decided to get hitched and follow their love of food. They couldn’t be more likeable, and the cheery interviews they do showcase the voices of the cheese makers themselves, talking about their craft, their creations, and the state of farmstead cheese in America.
Cheese Underground
www.cheeseunderground.blogspot.com
Jeanne Carpenter calls Wisconsin “the Dairy Artisan Mecca of the World” and she’s a wonderful guide for would-be pilgrims. Through fun posts and video clips, she introduces you to farmstead cheese makers in the Amish country of Western Wisconsin, the work of cheese sculptor Sarah Kaufmann, and organizations such as Wisconsin Cheese Originals and the Cheese & Burger Society. Under Jeanne’s enthusiastic gaze, not a curd goes unnoticed. She gives “cheese-starved readers everywhere the inside scoop about the state's oldest industry.”
The Saxelby Almanac
www.saxelbycheese.blogspot.com
Manhattan’s hip monger Anne Saxelby runs a tiny shop in a tiny corner of Essex Market, where she sells American artisan cheeses from a tiny case. For all this tininess, Anne’s love of cheese couldn’t be bigger. Every month, she takes asphalt-bound New Yorkers into the countryside to meet farmers and cheese makers on her “Day A-Whey” trips and hosts a cheese talk-show called “Cutting the Curd.”
A Cavalcade of Caseophiles
The Cheese Mags
You can’t miss the slew of food magazines that fill the shelves of book and grocery stores, but here are a few cheese friendly titles that take a little more looking to find.
Alimentum: The Literature of Food
www.alimentumjournal.com
The Art of Eating
www.artofeating.com
Cheese Enthusiast
www.sites.google.com/site/cheeseenthusiast/
Culture: The Word on Cheese
www.culturecheesemag.com
Dairy Goat Journal
www.dairygoatjournal.com
Gastronomica
www.gastronomica.org
The Cheese Crowd
In America, the artisan cheese scene has sprung to life in a way that recalls the wine scene two decades ago: in the air, there’s the scent of excitement and curd as more and more people taste the flavors of farmstead cheese. New chances to find cheese, cheese makers, and fellow cheese lovers are springing up everywhere. Here are a few clubs, organizations, and festivals that celebrate cheese, either by promoting it or eating it.
American Cheese Society Annual Conference and Competition
www.cheesesociety.org
Boston’s Bueno Queso Social Club
www.buenoqueso.org
California’s Artisan Cheese Festival
www.artisancheesefestival.com
The Cheese School of San Francisco
www.cheeseschoolsf.com
Great British Cheese Festival
www.thecheeseweb.com
Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival
www.littlechutewi.org
Oregon Cheese Festival
www.oregoncheeseguild.org
Seattle Cheese Festival
www.seattlecheesefestival.com
Slow Foods International
www.slowfood.com
Vermont Cheesemakers Festival
http://www.vtcheesefest.com/
Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese
www.nutrition.uvm.edu/viac
Cheese Makers
There are so many artisan and farmstead cheese makers whose cheese deserves to find its way to your palate, and since I can’t mention them all here, I’ve included the names of guilds and societies to which many belong and through which you can find them. I’ve also included some of the cheese makers whose cheeses appear in Immortal Milk.
American Cheese Society
www.cheesesociety.org
Ardrahan Farmhouse Cheese
www.ardrahancheese.ie
California Artisan Cheese Guild
www.cacheeseguild.org
Carlisle Farmstead Cheese
www.carlislefarmsteadcheese.com
Comité Interprofessionnel du Gruyère de Comté
www.comte.com
Consider Bardwell Farm
www.considerbardwellfarm.com
Cypress Grove Chevre
www.cypressgrovechevre.com
Maine Cheese Guild
www.mainecheeseguild.org
New York State Farmstead and Artisan Cheese Makers Guild
www.nyfarmcheese.org
Peter Dixon
www.dairyfoodsconsulting.com
Ontario Cheese Society
www.ontariocheese.org
Oregon Cheese Guild
www.oregoncheeseguild.org
Raw Milk Cheesemakers' Association
www.rawmilkcheese.org
Sally Jackson Cheese
www.sallyjacksoncheeses.com
Southern Cheesemakers Guild
www.southerncheese.com
Twig Farm
www.twigfarm.com
The Vermont Cheese Council
www.vtcheese.com
West Country Farmhouse Cheese Makers
www.farmhousecheesemakers.com
Widmer’s Cheese Cellars
www.widmerscheese.com
Wisconsin Dairy Artisan Network
www.wisconsindairyartisan.org