New Ideas

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image courtesy of Wikipedia Vacherin (cheese) entryThe New York Times reports on a new American cheese that’s being offered by a Wisconsin cheesemaker based on the Mont d’Or idea of a super soft bloomy rind cheese wrapped in a spruce strip during aging. The interior will get soft enough inside the rind that it can be scooped with a spoon for service, rather than need to be sliced. Another interesting aspect of this cheese is that they’re apparently aging it for over 60 days.

Maine has plenty of spruce for this kind of experiment, although I’m pretty sure that wood from the white spruce would be preferable to the black spruce (aka “cat piss spruce”)…does anyone have experience with this?

Knowledge Transfer at Ag Trade Show 2010

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The Knowledge Transfer Alliance (KTA) at the University of Maine would be highly interested in collaborating with the Maine Cheese Guild (MCG) to provide specialized expertise in business management, marketing, and personal finance and insurance to farmers and market gardeners.

Throughout the entire three days of the Ag Trade Show, KTA in collaboration with the Maine Department of Agriculture will have a stand-alone room where we will be running related workshops and hands-on training on 15 laptops for farmers with specific questions related to topics such as Excel, E-Mail, Internet Marketing, Web Surveys, Quickbooks, Farm Management, etc.

Using the Comments tools, please indicate whether there are specific topics MCG members would like KTA to present at 1) the Ag Trade show and 2) other MCG meetings during the year that would be a good fit.
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Workshop Ideas for 2011

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We are currently working on an Italian Style cheeses workshop by Peter Dixon to be held in the Spring of 2011, most likely at State of Maine Cheese Co. in Rockport. And Appleton Creamery has already scheduled a slate of beginning cheesemaking workshops at her creamery beginning in January. What other workshops would you like to see us organize? Some of the ideas we came up with at our Annual Meeting were:

  • Blue Cheese
  • Smear Rind / Washed Rind Cheeses
  • The Art of Affinage
  • Making Your Own Cultures

Post a comment with your own suggestions.