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New Cheeses Made in Traditional Ways
Grafton Clothbound Cheddar.
This award-winning cheddar from Vermont is part of a new breed of American cheeses made in the classic English way. Joining great cheddars from Cabot Creamery, Fiscalini Farms, and Beecher's Handmade Cheese, just to name just a few, Grafton cheese makers too are following farmhouse tradition by wrapping their fresh cheddars in a muslin wrap soaked in lard. This forms a seal that allows the new cheese to breathe and mature while keeping any extra mold on the bandage wrap.
Made with raw milk and, again, keeping with tradition, using animal rennet to form the curds, Grafton’s Clothbound is aged for a one and 1/2 years, and what emerges from its long sleep is a cheese of bold sharp flavors and earthy, mushroom undertones. Another great thing about this cheese is the cost: only $14.99 Lb. This type of artisan quality usually starts at well over $20.00 Lb. Here’s your chance to taste amazing cheese-making at a great price. Start your own tradition, and feature it on your table.
St Mary’s Grass Fed Gouda is a cheese so special that it takes two states to make it! The cheese itself is made at Edelweiss Creamery in Wisconsin, and then shipped across state lines to age at the St Peter Sandstone Caves at the Faribault Dairy in Minnesota. How special is it? Creamy, moist, flavorful and totally memorable, it won a first place ribbon at last year’s American Cheese Society Conference held in Austin, Texas.
Another new cheese from Faribault Dairy is a bit of a mystery because it has no official name yet. What it does have though is lots of flavor. A grass-fed blue (their cows only eat wild grasses; no commercial feed!) with a firmer almost gouda-style texture, and a unique bold flavor, they should call this cheese Quite Delicious! And, yes, I would keep the exclamation mark! Until a formal name is reached, we at Woodlands are calling it Grass-Fed Blue. Look for it at the cheese counter; it's is a bit of mystery completely worth the unwrapping.
Closer to Home
If you haven’t tasted Cowgirl Creamery’s winter cheese, Devil’s Gulch, you’d better hurry; it’s almost the end of the season for this striking new cheese. Mild, almost sweet, with a bloomy rind topped with sweet and spicy dried red pepper flakes, this cheese will warm the palate and the tummy, and make winter suddenly seem more cozy and satisfying. Come in quick and pick some up.
Because, coming soon to replace it is Cowgirl’s St Pat, a cheese-lover’s harbinger of Spring! The ’girls wrap their organic cow milk rounds with bright green stinging nettle to create a bold-looking cheese with a smooth mild flavor that is perfect on a bright beautiful Marin afternoon. With the rivers running, and Mt. Tamalpais awash with wildflowers and fresh grasses, open up your windows and scream hello to the new world. Or perhaps the same old world, except now you are eating really good cheese.
Thanks for reading.
Octavio Saez de Ibarra, The Cheese Department | 
