The July shipment of our monthly cheese club has three cheeses perfect for warm weather. Read on to learn about this month's selections and sign up to have this month's club shipped straight to your door!
Harbison from Jasper Hill Farm - Greensboro, VT
This creamy, bark-wrapped cows' milk cheese from Jasper Hill Farm is a little like Camembert cheese and takes its name from Greensboro's local librarian. The wheels are characterized by a sweet milky flavor, and finish with meaty, smoky, juniper notes that are imparted via the bark, which is harvested from balsa trees in the surrounding woodlands. We recommend popping them in the oven for a few minutes until they reach gooey perfection, and then scooping the luscious, creamy paste out with a toasted slice of baguette or Route 11 Potato Chips! Each wheel of Harbison cheese weighs in at 9oz and is aged for 45-60 days.
Anabasque from Landmark Creamery - Port Albany, WI
Landmark Creamery is jointly owned and operated by Anna Thomas Bates and Anna Landmark. This Basque style sheep’s milk tomme is therefore named for both of them! Stylistically, this belongs with the mostly sheep but sometimes mixed milk tommes made by shepherds in the Pyrenees while up in the mountains during the summertime. This makes is a sister cheese to the transhumance tradition in the world of Gruyere - for centuries, if not millennia, shepherds have lead flocks into the higher reaches of the mountains for beautiful mountain pasturage. The cheeses made in the mountains need to be durable for the journey back down, either for storage or to market. Anabasque pays homage to that tradition. It is rich, sheepy, and savory.
Ricotta Salata Vecchio from Caputo Brothers Creamery - New York, NY
A domestic ricotta salata that holds its own against Italy’s finest! Most American ricotta is whole milk ricotta, or as cheesemaker Rynn Caputo calls it, just ‘cotta’. It’s just milk that has been heated and curdled. In Italian, ‘ricotta’ literally translates to ‘re-cooked’ which is what they do with the whey after making Pecorino Romano to make Italian ricotta. The texture of true Italian ricotta is a world away from its domestic counterpart - it is custardy, smooth and eggy. Caputo Brothers Creamery makes their ricotta from they whey left over from making their mozzarella curd. The ricotta is drained and aged in their cave, during which time it develops a funky, gray-ish purple mold on the rind. The rinds are rubbed down before shipping, but the signature ‘funk’ of the cave is evident upon first bite. The cheese is salty, lactic, and crumbly and has a pleasant hint of earthy, barnyard funk.
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