Oser Communications Group

14 The Cheese Guide BY LORRIE BAUMANN A move to a new cheese plant in Salem, Oregon, will permit Ochoa's Queseria to expand production of its Don Froylan Mexican-style cheeses and to expand distribution out of Oregon and Washington and into California. The new plant is expected to open in December, according to Francisco Ochoa, Ochoa's Queseria Head Cheesemaker, part-time Delivery Driver and all-around Odd Job Man. "I work a lot of hours because I want to accomplish things, make sure that things get done," he said. He is the personification of the American Dream, that quintessential American ethos that anyone who's willing to work hard enough deserves to get ahead. The phrase is credited to James Truslow Adams, who wrote in 1931 that the American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." He went on to say that, "It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." Ochoa arrived in the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, in 1995 with his parents, Froylan and Zoila, and his seven brothers and sisters, many of whom work with him at Ochoa's Queseria today. Froylan, the Don Froylan of the company's cheese brand, died late in 2001, but Zoila, although semi-retired, still comes in occasionally to work in the cheese plant, currently located in Albany, Oregon, about 30 miles south of the location for the new plant, which is currently under construction. The family traces its cheesemaking back to the Michoacán ranch where Zoila grew up with parents who owned some cows, pigs and chickens and taught their daughter how to make traditional queso fresco in their home kitchen. "Back in the days, you had the cows, and you drank the milk, and what do you do with the leftover milk?" Francisco said. "It's a very simple cheese to make – queso fresco. It's a farmers cheese – it doesn't take a miracle or anything." Zoila passed her skill on to her husband, and they brought it with them along with their family when they moved to the United States, coming first to California's Bay Area and then deciding that they liked Oregon better after they visited a cousin of Francisco's in Grant's Pass. The family used their queso fresco as the beginning of a living dream in an Oregon Creamery the

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