It’s true. It’s here. You’re here. I have to remind myself of what’s been accomplished in such a compressed bit of time. Cheese. New cheese makers, new stories, new partnerships. A village within a city.
Soon, things will be humming along as if we’ve existed in this space as a cheese shop for ages. Warmth. Familiarity. Friends. Conversation. Exploration.
Thank you. Do stop by.
Originally posted on December 12, 2012, on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop web site.
All is quiet in the space of the shop, save for when the doors are open. Life spills in. Sun fills the shop, people stop by for a quick conversation and work stops. The excitement mounts, fades as we turn back to work.
I’m excited to welcome people in when the shop really is the shop as I see it in my head. Or as close to it as it can be. I can’t leave the corporate cubicle soon enough and embrace all things uniquely human in the South Wedge.
A year ago The Little Bleu Cheese Shop was there – in my head. Hanging out. Waiting to become something more. An extension of me. But really, it’s going to be about you. What you want to get out of it is important – fun, food, friends.
Educate, entertain, enjoy!
Originally posted September 30, 2012, on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop web site
Each year for the last 10 years I’ve connected with a former colleague and friend with whom I experienced the horrible devastation of 9/11. We take turns reaching out to one another and typically set a lunch date to catch up – to reach out and reconnect in some small way – around this anniversary that so many Americans share. Life goes on in the form of weddings, job change, babies, kids tripping and falling and picking themselves up.
Today in a hasty phone call we shared our feelings as we looked back. More thoughtful? Perhaps. More emotional in our remembrance? Yes. But why?
On this anniversary, things were different. We looked for something different to hold on to; to define us. More than work. More than family.
Maybe the shift in awareness of our vulnerability to all things evil set the course for us so many years ago. The need to race toward our ultimate self, who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to accomplish doesn’t allow us to rest.
Maybe feeling that the simple things in life are all that matter. My friend shared with me that, after the remembrance event she attended this morning she returned to the office, grabbed her keys and drove, seeking confirmation that dreams can become reality.
She had an address. She had the need to stop and sit and think that, after all that we endure we can distill things down to what we need, what we feel we have to accomplish… a small space in the world called The Little Bleu Cheese Shop.
Thank you. I love you for it.
Originally posted September 12, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
A warm sunny day in September (Wednesday the 5th). Doors flung open letting the sunlight stream in on bare walls and a floor stripped to its original bare wood. Today, the keys to the cheese kingdom became mine. Impossible to imagine this moment a year ago, being in this place – any place. A space to fill with cheese and food and conversation and interest. Yet, crazy to think I’d never get here. Always lost somewhere in between the reality of daily work to achieve something, and dreaming about what it would be like to feel the realness of it.
Work has been going on for a long time. And, it is just beginning. I already feel a part of something organic, something larger than I can right now imagine – a neighborhood, a community. It’s nice to know that the sun shining on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop is the same sun so many craftsman are feeling and appreciating today, too.
No sleep tonight. Lists to make, imagining to be done, and deep appreciation to be given for all things good.
Originally posted September 10, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
I recently pulled out my Avalon storage box where everything I’ve ever thought of, dreamed of, or hoped for in the form of my cheese shop has been safely stored and collected. It’s rather an enjoyable, yet odd collection (in my mind, anyway) of things to look through, including articles from a decade ago when I first began entertaining the idea of opening a cheese shop; product information from a couple of Fancy Food shows and a few great conferences I attended; recipes I want to incorporate into our Small Bites offerings; notebooks from classes, trips and tastings and on and on.
As I was intently looking for one thing, the December 2002 Food & Wine article I saved about Bernard Antony, or Cave Man, as writer Peter Kaminsky referred to him, appeared.
This I have to say is THE article that planted the seed and created the cheese shop idea for me. To learn that someone could have such a love of something like cheese helped germinate my plan. To look at Antony holding the lovely, mellow, huge wedge of French cheese (farmhouse Laguiole that I have never had the delight to taste) with that smile of his – oh that smile – I was immediately drawn in again and happily reread the article three times over.
Antony is called Cave Man because he owns four aging cellars or caves in the Alsatian town of Vieux-Ferrette where he monitors and manages the flavor maturation of artisan cheeses. He is also called cheese pope because he knows his stuff. Cheese people know he knows his stuff. The French government knows he knows his stuff.
According to Antony, an affineur (one who ages cheese) is the one who gives cheese its taste. Hats of to the cheese makers but step aside, please.
Whether we agree or disagree on this matters, of course, but I don’t want to quibble about that now. What I was reminded about in the article is that the pasteurization of milk is, as Antony so aptly phrased it, “flavor murder”. Antony in the article notes that, “Pasteurized milk is, in effect, milk that has been killed. It lacks the subtle qualities that will satisfy a cheese connoisseur. Also, its complete lack of bacteria leaves it unable to fend off contamination.”
Flavor is depleted when milk is pasteurized and used for cheese making. It's rather lost its “muchness” in the process. We should busy ourselves with learning about the food we love. How things are processed or made. What’s best for the artisan as he strives to remain true to what he knows to be right and what he’s proud of producing. We should ask questions and seek answers about what is too much of an intervention in the process.
Of course, we should be tasting and learning and sharing. Try different cheeses. Raw milk versus pasteurized. Aged well versus well… not aged well. French, American, English, Spanish, Italian. Find what you love and share it with us.
Originally posted August 28, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
That’s what’s coming with our new home at 684 South Ave., a compact space measuring somewhere around 780 square feet. The character of a building dating back to 1880 or so got thrown in by virtue of the space having been divided but not fully destroyed. Add in a hardwood floor, a fantastic location with awesome neighbors and we are confident it’s going to prove to be a great space for talking and tasting cheese.
Business permit in hand and soon taped in our front window - September 1 looms!!! Keys get handed over to the TLBCS team on that day - we are busy building our social media presence (look for our website to be up around mid-September); pulling cheese and gift vendors together to fill our cases, shelves and display table to provide you with pre-holiday shopping and gift-giving ideas; and planning cheese tastings, wine pairings and meet the cheesemaker events!
Excited? Yeah. Nervous? Of course. Confident we will be welcomed with open arms by the food community? Only on rare and brief moments of insanity have I doubted it.
Thank you cheesemakers; thank you cheese lovers – I’m here because of you.
Originally Posted August 23, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
I had a chance to spend some quality time with the kids out at First Light Farm & Creamery in East Bethany, NY, last month after an exceptional cheese making workshop led by Trystan Sandvoss, co-owner of First Light.
As an invited guest, I felt honored to tour the creamery, make cheese, partake in a fantastic lunch paired with good company (note – the remaining summer workshops will fill up quickly; 13 folks from around the region attended this workshop) and finally meet the kids.
I connected with a beauty named Shimmy, born March 15, daughter of Sham-Wow. So taken with her am I, that I inquired about adopting her. In essence, I’d like to send out a little monetary gift that would in some way enrich her life. Maybe provide a little goat treat for her and her friends.
Trystan and I might collaborate on establishing an Adopt-a-Kid program once the shop is open for people who want to be part of the experience but simply don’t know how to raise kids.
Stay tuned and in the meantime check out Shimmy. What a smile!
Originally Posted July 23, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
That may not be the exact quote. It’s Spanish in its origin and I couldn’t find much about it… I think this may be the loose translation. I also heard it quoted as, “Do not hurry. Do not rush.”
No matter. It’s painful to sit. It’s painful to plan. The excitement of bringing cheese to market, of opening the shop within months rushes me to the next task on my To Do list. I have to remind myself how much an important component in this process order is.
With a signed lease almost in hand, soon I can give you an address where you can stop in for an incredible bit of cheese and conversation.
Originally Posted June 19, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
We each have one. I’ve attempted to rewrite mine a few times looking for THE thing that was mine – a particular area of expertise, one area in my life at which I excelled; a solid reason for being here. My purpose, if you will.
Some folks simply know it right from the first breath that fills their lungs. Others re-purpose themselves as frequently as they do laundry. I’m a being somewhere in the middle – chipping away, chipping away, like mining for that THING that I can call mine. It’s been pretty dim down in the hole at times.
I know being a story teller of sorts is part of my thing. I don’t know if it drew me to writing, being a journalism major in college and minoring in English. That crazy word thing I got hung up on in high school and even earlier seemed to call to me. Of course, a lot of what words are about is the emotion behind an event, a person. A connection to someone or something.
Being a wordsmith, stringing words along to connect me to you, is what’s going on here. In the larger context of where I'm headed, what excites me is sharing stories about cheese makers. Each has one. Each cheese has one.
From earth to grass to animal to milk to human to cheese, and to human again, there is a fascinating, dynamic interaction between environment and the end product. This is a story to share. And when the cheese is cut and wrapped and eaten and enjoyed there begins a new story. I love that something so “simple”, so pure can become something that one shares with others at pivotal moments in life.
I’m so glad I found cheese.
Originally Posted April 19, 2012 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
It’s been a mind-blowing nine days. It’s fast coming to a close. I have an afternoon left. An afternoon full of sensory overload — all relating to cheese!
Four hours. Just four hours. The people at VIAC have been great to our group. The kind of “great” that imparts you knowing your life has been forever changed in a positive way by knowing these people, by the immersion in this kind of program. And let’s not forget, by being in Vermont.
Networking aside, I’ve gotten so much out of this. I know what direction I’m headed. I know how I’m going to get there. The once squishy ground is now firm. I’m running. Actually, I feel like I’m flying. So, I’m still working out the city thing, stay in Rochester, NY or move to Baltimore, MD, but even that is slowly coming into focus.
Thank you Mantse, Jody, Paul, Nevelle, Brian and DJ. I look forward to when our paths cross again.
Originally Posted on October23, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
So I’m relieved to have finally been able to answer a question, albeit a small one in our Cheese Chemistry class today. Nothing Earth shattering about knowing (finally, after six days in class) that the level of calcium is in direct correlation to the level of pH in our milk, our cheese.
I love this. I feel nerdy. I’ve been forgiven by my classmates for asking the all-time dumbest question in class which was on day three and went something like, “So, can I go in to my creamery each day, measure out all my “ingredients’” (ouch. I caution you … never, never refer to making cheese as following a recipe!), “you know things like my milk, starter cultures, rennet. Then get all my gear out – my tools like my scale, beakers, knives, pH meter, hoops… and well, simply just follow the method to get to the final product; the cheese I want to make that day?”
Can you hear them? The murmurs in the back of the classroom. The small snorts out of my classmates’ nostrils as they try to comprehend how anyone can be so stupid (and then, publicly display that stupidity). It actually smarted.
What can I say? I go into my office every day and start my computer. Look at my To Do list. Make phone calls. Create copy, ads, brochures. Check budget numbers. Fill in report data. Isn’t making cheese sort of the same thing?
I must remind myself that there is some artistry to making cheese. So, the good news today is I answered a question CORRECTLY. The bad news is I answered many, many more incorrectly over the week and a half that I’ve been here.
I’m just happy that I’ve learned something.
Originally Posted on October 3, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
Day 6: three more days to go at UVM. The good news is some of the information is actually beginning to make sense. I feel buoyed by my ability to remember a few things, like names of bacteria that do both wondrous – even magical – things in the world of milk and cheese. And, others that will kill you before you can spell their Latin name. I've even memorized the steps in the process of making numerous varieties of cheese.
In talking to my classmates, it’s good to realize that many of us have arrived at the same conclusion, which is that its best to find an apprenticeship and learn this from a hands-on perspective. Work with an expert. Practically speaking, you can’t go from having an interest in making cheese or loving to eat cheese to making incredible cheeses with little knowledge, no creamery, and well, no source of milk (no brainer, right?).
We’ve all taken the weekend to talk to family, significant others, friends, supporters to check-in on this crazy idea of becoming a cheese maker. Boys and girls to the left, please. Those intent on following this often frustrating, exhausting, maddening vocation to the right.
Originally Posted on October 3, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site
