Chat with Colin at the Market

The Farmer's Market on Sat. at the Embarcadero, behind the Ferry Building, is a beautiful, wonderful thing!
There are food stalls from a variety of local restaurants and food companies. My two favorites include Hayes Street Grill, which featurest crab cake samwiches and oyster Poboys and Rose Pistola, which has delicious brioche french toast and a tender pulled pork samwich.

There is produce!

There is CHEESE. There are half a dozen to a dozen stalls selling local artisan cheeses. My personal favorite at this moment is the Redwood Hill Farm stall, since I am a huge fan of their cheese, specifically the CAMELLIA, and because I just visitted their farm!

Colin, who works the cheese stall at the market for Redwood Hill Farm is actually the nephew of Jennifer's, who runs the creamery!, husband. Thus, cheese is in his BLOOD. He grew up with cheesemakers and sellers in his family. His first job out of college was at Cowgirl Creamery! He then worked for a cheese company in London! His career in cheese selling has been booming ever sicne!

Unlike any of the other cheese sellers, buyers, and restauranteurs I have spoken to so far, Colin HAS had experience with cheese on a production level. he has seen cheese made and knows a great deal about the process. In general, he says, you learn about cheese by working with it and being around it for a while and then boom! you know what there is to know. Unlike with wine, in which you can actually get a master's degree after 2 years of reigorous wine studies, cheese has not become much of an academic study, besides a purely scientific one. No, one learns about cheese through practice and action.

Colin think that working with cheese, and speficially selling cheese, is like no other thing in the world. He says this is because there's such a variety, because of the fact that cheese is made ALL YEAR ROUND and that there are constantly changes made to its production during different seasons. The redwood hill farm cheeses, for example, are quit different in the winter than they are in the spring or summer.

Colink LIKES cheese, his job is fun and it is in his family. He even ships redwood hill farm cheese to his grandparents, on the other side of the country, for them to sell at their local farmer's markets.

On the Phone with Christine

Christine is the chef and the boss behind CAV, a relatively new Wine Bar and restaurant. The atmosphere edges upon pretentious, with dim lighting and long tables and "fancy food". Fortunately, this "fancy" food is delicious and beautifully-presented enough that no yuppies can bother me while I am consuming it.



The best thing about CAV, for me, is that while they are a wine bar and have an excellent and widely ranged selection of wines, with many knowledgeable recommendations and suggested "pairings", they also have an INCREDIBLE selection of cheeses and similarly impressive knowledge.

The wait staff is spunky, prepared, and intellgent. The service has always been very good and knowledgeable. And after my conversation with, Christine I know why.

Every morning, Christine conducts a rigorous line-up. The entire Restaurant staff goes over the menu, spending time on any changes made to the wine list, the menu, or the cheese plate. Once they have familiarized and re-familiarized themselves with everything, Christine quizzes them. She quizzes them on ingredients used, good wine recommendations, the background and details about every single cheese.

She says she buys her cheeses through CheeseWorks West (a company I have contacted and plan to talk to next Tues.!), a great local company with a nice staff and excellent cheese selections.

What is unique about Christine's goals concerning her cheese plate is that, unlike many other local restaurants that try to present locally made cheeses, Christine presents very few, if any (there are none on the menu right now) California cheeses, preferring to represent cheeses from around the globe or cheeses from smaller, lesser known farms in order to introduce people to new things and give exposure to unique cheeses. She admits that there are some very good local cheeses but fels that they are being well-represented in all the other restaurants. She sites a few countries in particular, New Zealand, Spain, and of course France, as being where she looks to for a lot of her cheses. She also recalls that she currently has a great Gouda from Ireland!

She says she tries to have about 16 cheeses on the menu at once and to maintain a good balance of different styles of cheeses. She recalls that, since the restaurant opens, she must have had at least 50 different cheeses in circulation on the cheese plate. She likes to have a couple of each of cow, goat, sheep, and mixed milk cheeses as well as representing some raw and some pasteurized, some washed rind, some fresh, and some blue cheeses. She admits that the hardest to sell are the pungent blue and goat cheeses. She tries to have at least two of each of theese, of different, unique, and approachable varieties, at once. She thinks it is important to introduce people to theese kinds of cheeses. She says she sells a lot of riper, stronger cow and sheep's milk cheeses and soft blue and goat cheeses.

I asked Christine if she herself like stinky, pungent cheeses. She said she does, in moderation. She continued to say that, as a chef and food lover, there are VERY few things she will turn down in terms of food. She is willing to taste anything. She also admits that she has stopped having regular meals and instead ends up snacking on restaurant food all day long, including cheese.

Christine said they do not obssess too much about trying to pair wines with cheeses, feeling that the two are really their own thing and that it is a matter of taste. Yet, she feels that what most people say, which is that red wine goes better with cheese than white, is wrong. She thinks white wine goes better with cheese, in general. She thinks soft, triple cream cheeses are best with sparkling wines and that pecorino and similar cheeses are good with red wine.

I asked her if there are any difficulties, as a restaurant with many other things to take care of, with storing the cheese properly. She said that, as it turns out, they store the cheese in the wine cellar and that it works out perfectly because the two require similarly temperature-controlled areas.

In the end, Christine said that her job is fun, although very hard and definitly not for everybody. She loves it because she takes pleasure both in food and in running things and creating things and being in control. She likes to pop out of the kitchen now and then and meat the diners. She said that working with food is quite a lifestyle. She invited me to please stop by the restaurant and let the wait staff know when I'm there so she can "pop" out and meet me.

I am looking forward to meeting her in person and getting tasting the delicious food creations and cheeses of CAV.

Below I will leave you with CAV's cheese menu:

Seal Bay – Tasmania, Australia
Cow’s milk, washed rind, soft texture, triple cream

Brillat-Savarin - Normandy, France
Cow’s milk triple cream, soft ripened white bloomy
rind

Brillo di Treviso - Italy
Cow’s milk, wine wash, semi-firm texture

Sao Jorge – Azores, Portugal
Raw cow’s milk, semi-hard texture

Quebec Vintage Cheddar - Canada
Cow’s milk, semi-hard texture

Vento d’Estate - Treviso, Italy
Cow’s milk, semi-hard texture, aged in straw

Grayson – Virginia, USA
Washed rind raw cow’s milk, semi-soft texture, pasture
grazed

Raclette – Jura, France
Raw cow’s milk, semi-firm texture

Sweet-Grass-“Thomasville-Tomme”-–-
Georgia, USA
Raw.cow’s.milk,.semi-soft-texture

Parmigiano Reggiano - Modena, Italy
Raw organic cow’s milk, hard texture

Cabecou- St. Martin, France -
Goat’s.milk,-soft-texture,.washed.with.plum.-
brandy,-leaf.wrapped

Nevat - Pujol, Spain
Goat’s milk, soft texture

Torta del Casar- Spain
Sheep’s milk, wash rind, soft texture

Manchego - Spain
Raw sheep’s milk, hard texture

Pecorino “Grand Old Man” - Tuscany, Italy
Sheep’s milk, hard texture

A selection of fine artisanal cheeses
Selection of three 16
Selection of five 27
Cheese platter 85

Cowgirl Creamery At the Ferry Building

I walked into the store at 9:10am on Wednessday, which I had been told would be the least-busy time at Cowgirl Creamery and thus the best for me to come in and indulge in a few minutes of the manager's time. It was a beautiful sight, seeing all the artfully arranged cheeses in plain sight, without crowds of tourists glued to the counters.




When I walked in, I felt nervous and dorky. I was unsure if anyone there remembered me as the cheese-o-phile student. I hung around the counter and smiled. Rachel, the manager smiled back and waved me over, "You want to ask em some questions?", she asked.

"Yes!", I said. First I asked her what do you DO on a daily basis, as the store manager, what are your daily goals? She said she had to keep the store going in a number of ways- she had to make sure every cheese was properly taken care of and wrapped up and presented in its place on the counter. There was also a certain ammount that had to be prepared during the day- pre-packaged things, unlike the cheeses which are all cut to the desired size. Then she had to do inventories of various sorts. Ultimately, she has to make sure the store opens, with all the cheeses taken out of storage and arranged on the counter, and closes, with all the cheeses securely stored back in the "walk-in" fridge that is their substitute for a cheese cave. She described the main principle she had to juggle as the store's manager- financial success (or any case, cutting even) and loyalty to the store's goals.

"How would you describe the store's goals or mission?", I asked her.
She said their mission was to promote artisinal cheeses and run a store indifferent to the capitalization and generic-ization of cheese. It's a lot of work to make cheese the traditional way, she said, the work never ends and we want to respect this devotion and hard work. "AND"- I interrupted- "the artisinal cheeses TASTE better!".

In our conversation, Rachel mentioned the Cheese Nun as a documentary that gave a good sense of what is so important and worthwile about traditional, artisan-style cheese-making. She was pleased to hear that I already seen, and been inspired by, the movie! I'll take this time again to encourage anyone with an interest to SEE THE CHEESE NUN!

Then, I began to ask Rachel questions about her personal interest and involvement with cheese. I asked her how se got the position she has as the manager of the store. She responded that she's always loved and worked with food. She had been working as a baker at a local restaurant that bought cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, and thus had contact with them. When she spoke to a cheese seller at Tomales Bay Foods and mentioned she was leaving her job at the restaurant, she was encouraged to apply for a job at the Cowgirl store at the Ferry Building, which needed more people. She applied, got the job, and "the rest is history!", she concluded.

Rachel said she'd always enjoyed cheese. She said part of her interest in cheese is due to her knowledge of the devotion many individuals, families, and companies have towards cheesemaking and even the making of one particular cheese. She loves to see the variety of dligiently and traditionally made cheeses coming out of the area and the world.

Upon asking another staff member at the store what he finds so appealing about cheese, I received a sincerely "deep" answer:
He descirbed that, in a continuingly superficial and capitalistic society of commercialization, it is nice to see something REAL and hand-made that comes from the earth and is naturally flavored by time, and mold, and milk. He laughed as if he had said something silly or embarassing but then smiled confidently and said "I just really like it, you know?"

I was thrilled to find at least two smart, motivated people who shared my fascination of cheese in its authenticity and with its incredibly variety.

I then asked Rachel about something I'd always wondered about: In her experience, is there any communication between the cheese MAKERS, or chees eon a production level, and the cheese SELLERS and marketers, or cheese in the market? She said that, in the case of Cowgirl Creamery, any communication of this kind went by way of the cheese buyer of Tomales Bay Foods, who dealt with the actual cheese makers and then did business with Rachel and other Tomales Bay Foods store managers seperately. Rachel said that her udnerstanding was that if the buyer noticed a cheese was not selling very well, she would make suggestions to the cheese makers (such as: This cheese is getting too salty, or the texture is not right, or this batch was sort of bland). The cheesemakers will then keep this advice in mind as they make changes to the cheeses they make and their methods of production.

This excited me. I like the idea of there being this kind of communication. I like the idea that the cheese makers can change their product in small, effective ways based on how it sells and the suggections of cheese buyers. I like the idea that cheese sellers can give suggestions to the cheese makers in order to help them improve their cheese and help it to sell better.

"Is your job fun?", I asked Rachel. "YES!" she repplied, but I could sense a "but". Sure enough, she said she really enjoyed her job and could easily say that it is the 'funnest" job she's ever has. And yet, she wanted to make it clear that it is not an easy job at all. She said that she loves working with food but that it is alsoa retail job, with the usual nuissance that come with retail. I asked her more about this. She said a great customer comes in and knows very little about cheese but enthusiastically asks to try "whatever is really good right now!" and gives everything a taste. But she then describes some of the less enjoyable customers. She says they get a lot of customers who ask them for cheeses the store does not have "and this is fine" she says, except that some of them get upset and yell at her for not having the cheese in question in stock, "WHY don't you have [insert nam of cheese here]!!! And you call yourself a cheese shop!". These customers refuse to try anything new, insisting upon only what they came for, even if it is not available. She also relates the story of a man who walked into the store and asked for "the most expensive cheese you have". She said he clearly did not care what the cheese was or what it tasted like.

I rolled my eyes and then gave a sheepish grin- "So, would you like to tell me about YOUR favorite cheeses that are in the store now and, maybe, give me a taste of a few?" She smiled, realizing what I was up to. "Sure", she said, "and let me know if there's anything you see that you'd like a taste of".

She first gave me a taste of a grainy, light-orange Gouda called "Coolea". "If I had to pick a cheese I'd want to take home with me, this would be it", she said. I tasted the cheese- it was delicious! I ended up taking a small hunk of this cheese home with me after all.

She then gave me a taste of a cheese that was "like fontina" but much more complex and flavor-ful. She said that people sometimes came and told her they wanted to make a non-traditional pizza and asked her what cheese she recommended. "This is what I suggest to them", she said, referring to the fontina-like cheese. It had a soft, thick, creamy texture, like a fontina and tastd buttery and sweet at first and then had an almost bitter bite to it. I liked it.

I pointed at a cream/white, tasty-looking cheese. It's called "Roccolo" She told me it was an Italian, washed-rind's cow milk cheese. I liked it a lot and bought a piece. It has a really nice mixture of flavors, both creamy and sharp.

Then she gave me a taste of a smoothe, aged goat cheese. I liked it, but not as much as the Roccolo.

Then the name "St. Jorge" caught my eye. This was a cheese I'd hear a lot about. It is made here in the Bay Area by a Portuguese family who it after a traditional Portuguese cheese. They have a very traditional-style farm and cave in the area and their cheese had become quite popular, sellign to popular local restaurants and shops. I personally liked it, but did not love it right away. A few seconds after having tasted it, I decided I liked it a lot.

I was really pleased with my trip to the Cowgirl Creamery. Rachel was very friendly and helpful- she seemed sincerely interested in my project and seemed to want me to learn as much as I could from her. It was a success! I bought my two cheeses, smiled at everyone in the store, and sheepishly slipped out to get myslf soem bread at Acme Bread right next store and take my delicious snack to the park.

The Farm!

The source of the incredible food called goat cheese! Goats are quite sweet, playful creatures. They like being scratched around and under their necks, like cats. They wag their tails and flop their ears when content, like puppies. They may also be somewhat responsible for the stink a goat cheese might develop. Goat milk has a complex flavor quite different from cow's milk. While Redwood Hill Farm makes great goat cheese and yogurt, I also suggest you try goat butter! It's delicious! And how exactly do you get the milk out of a goat? Well, you trap it in the udder and you squeeze it out! I'm sure you knew this but, here, let me demonstrate!



Voila. I am milking a goat. Woopdeedoo!


These baby goats are only a couple of hours old! As I watched them in their box, they struggled and shook as they attempted to stand up for the first time. They made all kinds of wonderful baaa-ing noises as they accustomed themselves to their acoustics. Let's say it together: Aawwww.


Little goats were everywhere, jumping around and doing tricks, eating our clothes and hair, and delicately taking a dump.



These babies are a couple of days old. They're pros as being goats! They've already gotten a hang of their legs and their throats and their mouths.


Almost as good as an udder!



Let's say it together: Awww!

Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery!

My parents and I drove to Sebastapol yesterday to visit the Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery! This weekend was a tour weekend.
It was GREAT fun! Upon arrival at the creamery, you are immediately welcomed to taste their cheeses and yogurt (I must admit- there is no better way to my heart).



You are then required to get your feet into "booties"- basically large boot-shaped plastic bags. This is presumably to prevent you from tracking in unwanted dirt and germs into the creamery.




After this, we shuffled our bootied legs through the creamery after the owner of the redwood Hill farms, Jennifer, as we began with a tour of the yogurt making facilities.




(Above, two shots of the yogurt-making utilities are pictured).



(Pictured above is a shot of me with Jennifer, the woman behind the Redwood Hill Farm creamery!)

We then started the tour I was there for- the CHEESE tour!


Here I am with our lovely (and admittedly cheesy ;)) guide!



Voila. Beautiful and amazing cheeses ready to be packaged and delightfully consumed!



The cutter! This nifty thing stirs the curds in this big vat in order to do... something that clearly needs to be done!



Cheese curds in a bowl!


Cheese curds in cups! Here they consolidate and gain their cheesy shape- oh my goodness, how simple and wonderful.



Wow! Jammin' out while making some quality cheese- what a life! I wonder what they listen to :)



Oh my goodness, it's the cheese :). Notice how it's a different color and consitency on the bottom than the top...interesting.


It is fresh, rindless and interestingly textured on the sides.


Wow! It's only a week later and already it is growing friendly fuzzy mold. This is cool, guys! Theese cheeses grow their own natural rinds of mold.


Voila! C'est fromage. Here a man HAND-WRAPS every single cheese in seran wrap and a little descriptive sticker.



Here I HAND-WRAP a wonderful complete cheese, upon my own dorky and fascinated request! Woopdeedo.

It was fascinating and fermenting fun! I recommend taking a tour of this creamery or any creamery local to you, given that they offer tours, because the cheese-making process is quite awe-inspiring. First there is milk and then...there is cheese! But there are many, many steps in between so check it out!