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Q 6 The Cheese Guide BY LORRIE BAUMANN Jackie Chang is planning to continue making Gold Hill for only another two or three years. Her daughter, Samantha, is now 23 years old, and in a few more years, she'll have finished her training as a nurse-practitioner, so at 54, and after 14 years at Haystack Mountain Cheese and 12 years as the company's Head Cheesemaker as well as 23 years as a single mother, she's training another cheesemaker and is nearly ready to pack up her cheese room boots and hit the road as a free agent. Cheesemaking is very physical work, and she's just not sure how long she wants to keep doing it. "You have to make a big commitment. You have to be very diligent, very detail-oriented.... It's like raising children. Why even bother having a baby if you're not going to give them a good quality of life?" she said. "I think now I should let young people do my work." She'll be leaving Haystack Mountain at the top of her game, after winning for Gold Hill the title of "Best American Cheese" at the 2017 World Cheese Awards and a first-place award in its category at the 2018 American Cheese Society Judging and Competition. Those awards join a plethora of other ACS awards over the past few years, including Gold Hill's first-place medal in the category for Hispanic and Portuguese-style cheeses in 2018. She's also been recognized as an industry leader by the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers, which inducted her in July, 2017. "She's a fabulous, talented individual," said David Gremmels, President of Rogue Valley Creamery and a fellow member of the Guilde Internationale. "I've had the great fortune to know Jackie and follow her career and admire the work she is doing and the cheese she is creating. Her personality and passion are truly reflected in her craft.... I respect her and am proud to know her as a friend and fellow Guilde member." After retiring from Haystack Mountain, Chang is planning to depart from the U.S. as well, perhaps first for a visit to Lyons to learn more about French cheesemaking traditions. She also dreams of going to Africa to help develop a goat cheese industry there. While the plans are still unsettled, she's sure they'll involve closer contact with animals, preferably goats. "I have to keep moving around," she says. "I'm not one of those sit- there people." Chang's experience with cheese began with the Kraft Singles that her father bought for the family on Taiwan's black market. She remembers trips with him to an underground shop where the Kraft product was the only cheese on offer. Her father's business, an import/export company, required him to do a lot of moving around Asia, and when her mother decided that she wanted to stop ueen of the Haystack Mountain