At the Creamery, we are pretty proud to tell our guests that we make all of our cow’s milk cheeses with milk from Calder Dairy in Carleton, MI. One of the reasons we like Calder so much as our local source for cows‚ milk, is that all of the cows there are named. How does a cow with a name produce milk that makes a better cheese, you might ask? When the Creamery went searching for a good milk source in its early days, we met with many dairies who referred to their cows only as producers, very business-like and to-the-point, not a bad thing, necessarily. But then we talked to Calder, who immediately surprised us by dismissing the industry lingo and using the cows‚ names when referring to them. To us, this showed the level of attention to and knowledge of the individual animals we were looking for. We decided that a named cow was a good sign of a loved cow, or at least a cow who, in terms of health, diet, and living environment, was more likely well cared for.
At the goat farm where I worked in west Michigan, the farmer gave all the kids born each year (the doelings, at least) names that started with the same letter, to keep track of their ages. She went alphabetically year by year, and the summer I came the letter of the year was H. They were Hedy, Hexa, Heidi, Helga, Hannah, Hazel, Haley, and Helene, and we adored those babies. Hexa was strong as an ox, Helene, the tiniest, a bit timid like a wobbly kitten- we got to know each of them as they went from complete dependence on their mothers to being bottle fed to learning to drink on their own to eating grass and grain. That’s the kind of care we were looking for when we found Calder.
As it turns out, names of cheeses are significant, too. Most cheeses were (and still often are) traditionally given the name of the region in which they were made, so that the flavor of the cheese represents the flavor of the place it was named for. At the Creamery we‚ve continued that tradition with most of our cheeses, including the Manchester, the Detroit Street Brick, the Ypsi, and, one of my favorites, the Bridgewater (a double cream cow’s milk cheese studded with black pepper and covered in a white bloomy rind- really nice on thin, crisp crackers or crumbled over salad). What this means is that when you taste these cheeses, you are tasting milk flavored by grasses eaten by animals in a Michigan field. To taste a cheese is to know, in a new way, the place it comes from. And it’s an especially enjoyable experience when it comes from the milk of a named, loved Calder Dairy cow.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all at The Cheese Shop!
It lends itself as effortlessly to bread, olives, almonds, and cornichons as to summer pears and dried cranberries. At a party, the various cheeses on the cheese platter work together to compliment and balance one another. They match exceptionally well to wine or beer; they can go savory or sweet- cheese was born ready to pair.
Take the case of the humble chevre, an especially versatile cheese. This classic fresh goats‚ milk round (chevre means goat in French) may be spread with jam on toast as a light, slightly tangy version of cream cheese, it can be dolloped on pizza, stuffed under the skin of a chicken breast, melted into mashed potatoes, drizzled with honey for dessert. At the Creamery, we call our version The City Goat, and offer it rolled in herbs such as rosemary and tarragon, or in black Tellicherry pepper, and during farmer‚s market months, we stuff it with sweet piquillo peppers, too. It has also on occasion been whipped up into a little delight called the Breakfast of Champions ˆ a City Goat split twice and layered with two different kinds of American Spoon preserves. (This last one will, it has been claimed, make you faster and stronger.)
But the way I first came to know this silken, ultra-fresh cheese, was all by itself, without a single adornment, in the tiny town of Fennville on Lake Michigan. I was there for a summer to live and work on a little goat farm, with about eleven does, eight or so more baby goats, and one buck. We milked the does once in the morning and once at night, and would collect up to five or six gallons of milk at each sitting. In the beginning of the summer, while the farm‚s creamery was still being built and before the cheese vat arrived, the largest pot we had to make the cheese only held about four gallons. The rest of the milk usually went to a pair of lucky pigs down the road. So after the evening feeding and milking I would carry the metal drum filled with half of the day‚s milk to the farmers‚ house, and there, in the kitchen, we would make it into cheese.
Milk usually needs to be warmed to a certain temperature before adding the starter cultures and rennet which set the milk, or make it begin to acidify and separate into curds and whey. But our goats‚ milk was so fresh, so warm, that we actually put it in an ice bath to bring it down to a viable temperature. Then we’d stir it very gently, put a screen and a clean cloth over the top, and go to sleep.
The next morning, after milking chores, we would test the new-formed curd with the broad side of a rounded knife; if it split with a crevice down the middle, it was ready to be molded. We would pour off the whey (which also went to those gleeful porkers down the road), and ladle the curd into molds (which look just like cups with little holes all over), and sprinkle salt on top. The cheeses would drain all day, and as they lost moisture they would condense until each was about a third its original size. Once firm enough, we would flip the cheeses out of their molds and slide them back in, for uniform shape, salting, and drainage. By the next morning, we could flip them out for good, and eat them.
Their taste was unlike anything else- mild and subtly sweet with only the very softest hint of tanginess. The chevre was firm to cut into, but yielding in texture, and slid over our whole mouths like fresh cream. It was the first cheese I ever learned to make, and its simplicity was something we did not want to mess around with. Especially in those first weeks, to cover up this exceedingly tenderly crafted chevre with any other flavor was unthinkable. We ate it with spoons. It tasted like western Michigan grasses.
Here at the Creamery we get our goat milk from Old McDonald‚s Farm near Freemont, with whom we work very closely. When it arrives, we know the milk has come to us just a day or so out of the goat, and we treat it extraordinarily carefully, hand-ladling the curd to give the cheese its signature flaky texture. The Creamery was first created, 5 years ago, out of the Deli’s need for really good fresh cheeses to top its bagels and the Bakehouse’s need for superior pastry-making ingredients. Fresh cheeses, unlike harder, aged artisan cheeses made around the country and abroad and imported by the Deli, can’t stand up to heavy packaging and travel. Unless they are first pumped full of gums and stablilizers, voiding any noteworthy flavor and imparting the texture of rubber, fresh cheeses like chevre and cream cheese are meant to be eaten within days of being made. The Creamery was able to fill the need for this fresh, local, well-made cheese. And even though our production has since branched out to include various mold-ripened cheeses, and- just this winter- our very first hard aged cheese, the fresh cheeses are still some of our very best sellers.
When we sample the City Goats, all by themselves, at the grocery stores around town, shoppers are surprised that something this fresh is available to them now in a way it hasn’t been for nearly a century. They comment on its mellow tang, its smoothness. They marvel at its balance of luscious and light. The little kids just taste it and grin. They really can taste the difference in a cheese created by Michigan goats and loving Michigan cheese-makers. They love it for the way it lends itself fantastically to many other dishes, to sandwiches with sprouts, to pasta, to fruit. But most especially, for the wonderous thing it is all on its own.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you in the Cheese Shop!
Hey everyone! We’ve been on Twitter for a little awhile now and would very much like to invite you all to follow us. Twitter is a great way to find some exclusive Cheese Shop specials and to stay up to date with everything that’s happening at The Creamery. If interested, just click the above link to check us out. It’s super easy to set up an account and Twitter is rather addicting and quite fun. It’s a great place to find a plethora of fellow food-loving foodies!
Learning with Loomis
So far, Mozzarella Classes have been a smashing success and we have been just having a blast with all of our students. If you haven’t yet heard- we are offering Mozzarella-Making Classes with our Managing Partner, John Loomis, in the dairy at The Creamery. John has a lifetime of cheese knowledge to share and this class is tailored to give you a crash course in dairy science as well as the recipes and skills necessary to whip up your own hand-made mozzarella right in your kitchen!
Here’s a few pictures of John with his students:
Professor Loomis
Chocolate Love
As you might have noticed on the other pages of our site, with February comes Chocolate Gelato Month at the Creamery. The gelato case is filled with a myriad of chocolate goodness just waiting to kick start your endorphins. You can choose your chocolate in 7 different adventures- Dark Chocolate, Cherry Chocolate Chip Sorbet, John Do Ya?, Turtle, Rocky Ride, Chocolate Balsamic Strawberry, and Chocolate Heat. Baracky Road is also making a very limited special appearance…
So if you are a chocolate lover and can dig on some winter-time gelato, head on over to the Cheese Shop to for a February fix of chocolate love!
As always, you can Buy 2 and get a 3rd gelato for FREE!
Liptauer- Our Hungarian cheese spread may help in getting you through the rest of winter.
Our Liptauer recipe comes direct from Hungary and is, for me, the perfect tonic to help get me through an icy cold winter night. Liptauer is made using our cream cheese, sea salt capers, fresh toasted caraway, sweet and hot paprika, loads of fresh crushed garlic, sea salt, telicherry black pepper and a touch of Rizzoli anchovy paste. Slathered on a thick slice of Bakehouse Rye bread and a pint of Guinness and I can easily endure another 6 weeks of winter. Click here to order.
February is Chocolate Gelato Month! In addition to our DarkChocolate Gelato (voted best in Michigan), we’ve whipped up batches of other great chocolate flavors for the month.
Chocolate with Balsamic Strawberries- Michigan strawberries, macerated in balsamic vinegar syrup for two days, then folded gently into our rich dark chocolate gelato.
Chocolate Turtle- Chocolate gelato ribboned with loads of Argentinian caramel and fresh roasted Georgia pecans.
John do Ya?- This is our version of the famous Italian combination of chocolate and ground hazelnut paste from the Piedmont.
Rocky Ride- Fresh roasted peanuts and handmade REAL marshmallows from Zingerman’s Bakehouse blended into chocolate gelato.
Chocolate Heat- Inspired by the great chocolates of Mexico, this chocolate gelato combines anch chile pepper, cinnamon and just enough cayenne pepper to make it adventurous.
Cherry Chocolate Chip Sorbet- Traverse City cherries in a full flavored sorbet with handmade chocolate chips. Like a chocolate covered cherry-only icy cold.
