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(article, Vanessa McGrady)
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p(green).[%pageBreakSettings maxWords=900] I’d like to take a moment to talk about my relationship with cheese. It is different from, say, how I feel about dark chocolate or fresh basil or smoked salmon, all of which have prominent but separate places in my culinary heart. p(green).Cheese is an early sensory memory for me, from when my dad would take us into Zabar’s a couple of blocks away in New York City and we’d pick from a bazillion different kinds of cheese. We’d always bring home Jarlsberg and Brie wrapped in stiff white paper. Hold on a sec, I think I suddenly smell sawdust and whitefish salad … aah … OK, I’m over it. Anyway. p(green).So, I am on a mission: to eat one of my favorite things (artisanal cheese) as I wend my way up my favorite road (Highway 101). Cheese Log: Loleta Cheese Factory, California Bob Laffranchi never set out to be the big cheese of Humboldt County. A fourth-generation dairyman, he was happy with his life teaching agriculture at a local high school. But one day in 1978, a student looking to lure Laffranchi off the subject of the moment asked him how to make cheese. He gave the kid $15 to buy a book, and then the class turned the exploration into a project. For five years, his classes made cheese in the school’s concession-booth steam table, until Laffranchi decided to give the business a go. “It’s easier to make 5,000 pounds of cheese than it is to make cheese from one-and-a-half gallons of milk on a stove,” he said. Now he puts out more than 34 varieties of cheese, totaling 2.6 million pounds a year. (A big producer like Hilmar might put out a million pounds a day.) “It’s not our goal to be the largest cheese factory, because that doesn’t make sense for who we are,” he said. “We want it to be fun when you buy our cheeses.” Inside the Loleta Cheese Factory store, I watched through plate-glass windows as men churned and turned long troughs of cheese. You can try every kind of cheese Laffranchi makes, even the special editions sold to raise money for local fundraising efforts. Flavors included: Cheddar-cheese curds: They call these lumpy wads “squeakers,” because when they’re still hot, they squeak off your teeth. They’re kind of springy, and harder than you’d expect. Curds are kind of a pre-cheese, the last step before the cheese is compressed and finishes what it needs to do to get all creamified. Laffranchi says people eat them like popcorn. Smoked-salmon cheddar: The strong tastes of cheddar and salmon compete for your attention here. You might enjoy it, however, if you are the kind of person who wears fake eyelashes during the daytime, or if you are a belt-and-suspenders-at-the-same-time kind of guy. Garlic jalapeño Jack: The flavors here are having a hoedown in your mouth, all dancing and having fun — but not so much fun that you have to kick ‘em out. p(green). After the blissful Zabar Days came the late ‘70s, otherwise known as The Dark Years. My dad co-authored The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise, and suddenly things like cheese and Oreos and Trix were relegated to a “secret” place for “company.” They were replaced by apple-juice-sweetened oatmeal-raisin lumps, Shredded Wheat (the big, unsweetened chunks that get soggy the second the skim milk hits them), and something the dairy gods certainly didn’t create called Hoop Cheese, with zero fat content, low salt, and no flavor. Might as well be eating wet cotton balls. Hoop Cheese. Jesus. Cheese Log: Rumiano Fine Natural Cheese, California The Rumiano family founded this business in 1921. They used to have 15 stores, until the 1940s (something about a world war); now they’re down to just one. They are still a small but mighty force, offering cheese accessories (crackers, bread, knives, etc.) and imported cheeses in addition to their own cheeses, which include: Dry Monterey Jack: A happy accident that’s considered the poor man’s Parmesan. It seems some hapless fool left a brick of jack in a cooler for, like, two years, and it turned hard but aged deliciously. The Rumianos have spent the past 60 years perfecting this art. Peppato: Cheese dotted with peppercorns. If there were a cheese that could rescue you from kidnappers or stop a nuclear attack, this would be it. p(green).Being more of a slave to his cravings than most of us, my dad eventually returned to his regular gourmand ways, even as the years wore on and doctors told him to quit the copious quantities of cheese, butter, sugar, and other things that were bad for his hardening arteries. He even risked being busted by Interpol when he smuggled in raw-milk goat cheese from France — where he’d just gotten stents put in his arteries to combat his years of milk-fat abuse. Cheese Log: Bandon Cheese, Oregon I am sorry to report that the lovely Bandon Cheese company is defunct. The story goes that one day, the workers showed up and the factory was locked. Sales were going well, but the building needed so many repairs that the owners decided they were in whey over their heads. However, if you do go through Bandon, stop by the Cobbler’s Bench, a cool boot-and-shoe store that welcomes dogs, and talk to Wolf Daniel Braun, the owner. He’s like Santa with his big belly and white beard, and he tried really hard to find me a pair of pink or orange Tony Lamas. He could not, but I know they are out there somewhere. Then he and his friends invited me to go party with them on Friday night. Which would have been super fun, if I didn’t have to be at Christmas in a few days. p(green). My dad died in December 2003, when he was recovering from a knee replacement and threw a pair of clots from his pelvis up to his lungs. My brother and I are convinced that, ultimately, it was the cheese that killed him. Cheese Log: Blue Heron French Cheese Company, Oregon Twenty-six years ago, in the shadow of the behemoth Tillamook cheese company, Chris Pastega and Cookie Tohl gave birth to their daughter, Jessica, and their own cheese enterprise, in which they made Brie in a small building off Highway 101. Their business (and their daughter) grew. Now they outsource their cheese, and Jessica is their marketing manager. [[block(sidebar). h1. Pit stops [[block(smalltext). Loleta Cheese Factory 252 Loleta Dr Loleta, Calif. 800-995-0453 Rumiano Fine Natural Cheese 451 Hwy 101 N Crescent City, Calif. 866-EAT-CHEESE Cobbler’s Bench 110 2nd St Bandon, Ore. 541-347-9012 Blue Heron French Cheese Company 2001 Blue Heron Dr Tillamook, Ore. 800-275-0639 Estrella Family Creamery 659 Wynoochee Valley Rd Montesano, Wash. 360-249-6541 ]] ]] Blue Heron’s gourmet-goodie repertoire includes kicky mustards, fancy chocolates, and jams of the world. Their cheese — made in California — shares space with imported varieties. Treats include: Pepper Brie: You know how when one of your favorite people comes over, and you can still faintly smell his or her cologne/soap/shampoo on your couch afterwards? Here, it’s like the pepper has come to visit, stayed a respectable amount of time, and left, after depositing a $100 bill on your coffee table and telling you you’re beautiful. It’s a good feeling and you’re happy to have more, any time. Blue-cheese dressing: Take your Lighthouse, your Hidden Valley Ranch, all your other creamy white varieties and stow them in a steamer trunk in your attic. They will have self-esteem issues if they see this dressing, which is chunks of cheese in a spunky vinaigrette. It’s much like the homely girl with an incredible set of pipes who becomes mind-numbingly beautiful once she starts singing. Cheese Log: Estrella Family Creamery, Washington Some people have a calling so strong, so deep, that no matter where they start, they’ll end up where they’re supposed to. Like Kelli and Anthony Estrella, who left a bad crowd and dangerous life in California and came north to clean up their act. They started eating organic food and living close to the earth. Kelli started to experiment with milk from her goats, and had Tony cut a hole in the living-room floor so the cheese could cure under the house. [%image cows size=small credit="Photo: Vanessa McGrady" caption="Cows at Estrella Family Creamery" float=right] The Estrellas adopted three kids and moved to a farm. Then they heard about a 15-year-old Liberian girl who needed to be adopted or she could never leave her country. So they started the paperwork to adopt her. Then Liberian officials asked if the Estrellas could take two more kids in the same predicament. So now the six kids are all homeschooled, and they all work to make this amazing cheese from their cows, sheep, and goats. You can buy their cheese at farmers’ markets, gourmet shops, and at the farm on Saturdays. But you may never get the exact same cheese twice, because Kelli is always tweaking her recipes. So you probably won’t taste the creamy, nutty Grisdale Goat variety that I got, and the dreamy Wynochee River Blue might just be a memory by the time you find some. What stays constant, however, is the purpose and the love that goes into each batch. p(green).You’d think that, because of my dad, I’d be on a rampage against cheese. That I’d swear revenge on every Emmenthaler, scream bloody murder at each wedge of Port Salut, set curses upon piles of Stilton crumbs. But no. p(green).I have decided, as many warriors before me, to keep my friends close and my enemies closer. My dad would have wanted it that way. p(green).Peace and cream out. p(bio). Vanessa McGrady is a Los Angeles-based writer who wistfully longs for the days when she didn’t know her cholesterol levels.
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