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R e s t a u r a n t D a i l y N e w s S u n d a y, M a y 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 4 2 CHEESEMONGERS CELEBRATE SPRING FRESHNESS By Lorrie Baumann Kelsie Parsons, an American Cheese Society Official Cheesemonger from 2014 and a cheesemonger for Sobey's in Kitchener, Ontario, likes to make his cheese selections a celebration of spring. "This time of year, I usually like to offer fresh cheeses. It's a new season, it's like a rebirth. Salt Spring Island Cheese in British Columbia does some really nice fresh goat cheeses, and they do one that is topped off with some edible pansies. It's just so nice to have some color on a cheese board in the springtime after a winter of gray skies and dreary weather. Those flower goat cheeses just put a smile on my face when I see them. Salt Spring Island does a bunch of fresh ones, some with flowers, some with basil leaves, some with rose- mary and garlic," he said. But goat cheese isn't the only way to cel- ebrate spring, he adds. "I am a big fan of sheep's milk cheeses, and this is the time of year when the sheep would have just given birth, so they're now lactating again. We're getting more young sheep's milk cheeses on the market, and one that I really like is called Madawaska, which is made by Back Forty Artisan Cheese in Lanark, Ontario. It's a raw sheep's milk bloomy rind cheese." The cheesemongers at Antonelli's Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas are excited about the spring cheeses from the south- ern half of the United States. Cheesemonger Francis says, "I'm loving Garrett's Ferry, a bloomy-rinded crottin made from the herd of sheep at Many Fold Farm in Georgia. It's creamy and rich with a milky tang. We just got our first batch of the season about a month ago – after a hiatus – and it's exciting to have it back in the shop. Both the cheese- mongers and customers alike love it." Cheesemonger Hannah, also from Antonelli's, has a local choice. "Winter's tough when you love fresh goat's milk cheeses like I do. Fortunately, our spring comes earlier in Texas, so we get some of the first goat's milk cheeses of the sea- son. You can't get much fresher than buy- ing from a local producer. One of our favorites is Pure Luck Farm & Dairy out of Dripping Springs Texas, another farm- stead cheeesmaking operation. They make their cheeses with milk from their herd of Nubian and Alpine goats," she said. "While I love everything Amelia and her family makes, my favorite right now is their Anaheim Red Chili Chevre. It's always in my fridge. The grassy and cit- rus flavors of the goat's milk are comple- mented by the slight heat of the peppers, making for a refreshing bite." Ali Morgan, Cheesemonger from Rare Edibles, a specialty distributor based in Dallas, Texas, has a cheese pro- gram that's focused on Southern cheeses. "A lot of them are really hard to get, because there are not a lot of good distri- bution links here in the South." She notes that one reason for that is that the south- ern states' warmer climates pose a chal- lenge for transporting specialty cheeses safely and in good condition from the farm to the retailer or restaurant. That means that Morgan is always on the look- out for cheeses that are really worth the trouble. One of her favorites comes from a dairy farm in Rougemont, North Carolina. "Prodigal Farm is a goat dairy, and they make wonderful little cheeses," she said. "Goats and sheep produce seasonally, and sometimes the first batch- es of the season get peo- ple really excited, but that milk comes in while the goats are still eating hay, so sometimes I like to wait a little later in the season. Field of Creams is all goat's milk with a bloomy rind. The cool thing about what Kat (Prodigal Farm co-owner and cheesemaker Kathryn Spann] does with that cheese is that she packs a selection of herbs around it, attached on the really young wheel, so the bloom grows around those herbs, encasing the cheese. You get those herbs that are infused into the cheese, but not so they're overwhelming. You can still taste the beautiful quality of the fresh goat's milk. She has a really delicate hand, and the herbs don't take away from the taste of that milk and the cheese." Morgan says her knowledge of the farm and its cheeses comes from person- al experience with the farmers and their goats. "I'm going to go out there at the end of the month to make cheese with them," she says "That's a great part of my job, that I get to go out to the farms and make cheese with them and learn their stories. That's what cheesemakers like to do; is tell a story. That's what I do – I'm a story-teller. I think that's really important." "Another that I like is Many Fold Farms' wonderful soft bloomy-rinded sheep's milk cheese," she continued. "My favorite is called Condor's Ruin, an ash-ripened sheep's milk. I think that cheese, in general is delicious, but it's an art form, it's an expression. That's why I fell in love with cheese. The Condor's Ruin has a beautiful ash coating, so you get the color, that's why people are drawn to it." She noted that sheep's milk has the highest butterfat content and is the richest of the animal milks, which makes their cheeses among the most expensive and the most sought after. That adds to the challenge for a producer of sheep's milk cheese, because sheep also pro- duce less milk than other ani- mals and they have a shorter lactation period, so making those cheeses is nec- essarily a sea- sonal endeavor that's limited by the amount of milk that's available. There's less margin for error and less time for learning by trial and error. "Many Fold Farms is really hitting their stride, and their cheeses are better than they've ever been," Morgan said. "Condor's Ruin is my go-to when somebody says they want a domestic sheep's milk cheese. They have a small production, and if you can get them in your cheese case, you're really lucky." Cheesemonger James Gentry from the St. James Cheese Company in New Orleans is a fan of spring's goat cheeses. "Spring usually for me is the beginning of goat cheese season. The Loire Valley goats are just fantastic, unparalleled, some of my favorite cheeses. There's the AOC ones, Valencay, Selles Sur Cher and St. Maure, those are the three heavy-hit- ters, the big canonical ones," he says. For other favorites: "Around this time of year, we start getting Nickajack in; it's a washed-rind cheese from Sequatchie Cove Farm, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. They're one of my favorite cheesemakers in the country right now. I like everything they do. They just came out with a new blue cheese called Bellemy Blue," he says. "A little later in the spring, one of my favorite cheeses, Dancing Fern, comes out, from the same people. That's like an American Reblochon." Gentry says that, while he's certain- ly happy to build an elaborate cheese platter with fruit and other ingredients for customers, he likes to keep it simple when he's making a platter for himself. "I like the cheese to speak for itself. I don't like too many accoutrements," he says. "Traditionally for me, it's just crackers or crusty bread. You can't really beat that."