The Rogue Creamery, considered one of the finest fromageries in the world, offers six handcrafted, award-winning Oregon blue cheeses. Its cheeses are organic from the ground up — literally. Even the grass on which Holstein cows graze is certified organic.
	American Blues - domestic artisanal efforts ripen into world-class cheeses By Carole Kotkin
		Legendary cheesemonger and French author of Guide du Fromage, Pierre Androuët, once observed, "Cheese is the soul of the soil, the purest and most romantic link between humans and the earth." Arguably, the pinnacle of this soulful hierarchy is blue-veined cheese, cast by its advocates as the food of the gods, or at least of kings. And while Stilton, Gorgonzola and Roquefort may embody the category globally, the Europeans no longer have a corner on the delectably dense, biting style. After a brief and unfortunate period in the 1970s when the centuries-old American tradition of farmstead and artisan cheesemaking ("farmstead" connotes a cheese made exclusively from the milk of animals living on the farm where it is produced, while "artisan" refers to a cheese that is handcrafted) was threatened by mass-produced, waxy offerings, hands-on domestic cheesemaking has reclaimed much of its rich heritage. By the 1980s, small dairy farms and creameries began rebounding and new ones were springing up all over the country. During this renaissance, Maytag Blue, which produced the country's first blue cheese in Iowa in 1941, gained a significant national following. Admittedly, blue cheese, domestic or otherwise, is an acquired taste - a taste that even some cheese aficionados never quite cozy up to because of its distinctly acidic edge and assertive smell and flavor. A remarkable range of small-batch American blues now being crafted in a broad spectrum of styles, however, are beginning to win more converts. According to Jeffrey Roberts, author of The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, "Blue cheeses offer shades of difference in flavor and texture. They can be dry and crumbly or creamy and moist, and their flavors range from mild, sweet and nutty to robustly salty and earthy. The flavor of a good cheese, like a fine wine, will vary depending on the maker, the year, the region, the season and the aging period." Most blues attain their veining from penicillium Roqueforti, a cultured mold derived from rye bread. Cheesemakers can add the mold to the milk or sprinkle it on the curds as they're transferred to their forms, but for the mold to spread vigorously, it needs oxygen. The young cheese is pierced with needles to create the passageways that allow air to enter and encourage mold formation. Then the mold fills the crevices created by the needling (in many blues, the needle marks can still be detected on uncut surfaces). Aging in caves at 50° Fahrenheit and 98 percent humidity further promotes the spread of the mold. Blue cheese, unlike most of its blander cousins, has a ripening cycle, which allows for enjoyment at various stages. When young, or fresh, it is mildly herbal and tangy. As it ages, blue cheese develops character and complexity. "There are approximately 50 artisan blue cheese producers [operating] in 30 states. Most of them are found in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, but there are producers in the South, Midwest, California and the Pacific-Rim," Roberts notes. Although the USDA does not track it, domestic blue cheese production has come into its moment. "The trend is toward bigger and bolder flavors, and this assertive variety is one of the hottest, a leader in the thriving American specialty cheese trend," observes Marilyn Wilkinson, director of national product communications for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. In her dairy-driven state, Carr Valley Billy Blue, Black River Blue and Mendoros Blue are among the most highly regarded blues. Allison Hooper, president of the American Cheese Society, an artisan association whose mission is to educate the public about American cheese, and co-founder of the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, adds: "Because of travel, [more sophisticated] restaurants and well-informed retailers, the American palate has really grown up. Eating a little bit of a great cheese is part of the growing quality-rather-than-quantity trend." American blue cheesemakers are certainly benefiting from our collectively and radically evolved tastes. "There are blues made from the milk of sheep, cows and goats; blues from raw milk and from pasteurized milk," Roberts explains. Like a vinifera grape grown in various soils, climates and regions, a cheese's flavor is influenced greatly by terroir, especially by the nature of the soil that nurtures the type of grass on which an animal will graze and from which it will produce milk and, ultimately, cheese. It's all in the nuance, Roberts notes: "Cows grazing on grass off California's coast, for example, produce milk that might taste saltier than if it came from cows munching on organic grasses in Iowa." At Maytag Dairy Farms in Newton, Iowa, just under one million pounds of blue cheese is made entirely by hand each year in much the same way as when it was first conceived in the 1940s by Fred Maytag, the son of the dairy's founder E.H. Maytag and grandson of the appliance company patriarch F.L. Maytag. The farm has been in continuous operation since 1919, anchored by its prized herd of Holstein show cows. Myrna VerPloeg, the modern-day president of farm operations, recounts that Fred Maytag approached scientists at Iowa State University for help in developing a cheese with his family's Holstein milk. Serendipitously, they had just come up with a new process for making a domestic version of the world-famous Roquefort from homogenized milk (instead of traditional sheep's milk). Maytag Dairy quickly signed a deal to use the university's patented process and soon thereafter constructed the cheese plant and two aging caves into a hillside on the farm (in which all of the famous Maytag blue is still aged). The dairy farm remains very much a Maytag family business, where many employees have worked for decades. Fritz Maytag, co-chairman of the board of Maytag Dairy, inherited his father Fred's adventuresome palate and entrepreneurial spirit: He is also the founder of York Creek Vineyards in Napa Valley's Spring Mountain District, and proprietor of San Francisco's Anchor Steam Brewery and Anchor Distilling Company. Fritz likes to serve his family's cheese with 2000 York Creek Vineyards Napa Valley Port, a blend of petite sirah, touriga nacional, tinto cão, tinta roriz and zinfandel. Instead of neutral spirits, the wine is fortified with brandy made at the Anchor distillery. "Port has been paired with Stilton and Roquefort in Europe for a long time. In recent years, the curious combination of honey and blue cheese has become popular. The honey flavors in my port wine prove the point," he notes. Bob Giacomini of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. set out in 2000 to make a Roquefort-style blue cheese from the milk of Holstein cows he raises on the small, family, organic-certified dairy farm he started in 1959 in Marin County, just northwest of San Francisco. Bob's daughter and managing partner Karen Howard, observes, "I'm certain we couldn't make our cheese anywhere else. If we followed the exact same recipe 30 miles away, we would be making a totally different cheese." Because their cows graze on pastureland just ten miles from the Pacific, the cool, salty, ocean air rolls in every night over the farm and assures the reliable temperatures and ideal humidity that promote the desirable growth of the mold that slowly helps to ripen Original Point Reyes blue cheese. "We did a lot of research before deciding what kind of cheese we wanted to do here," Howard recalls. "Everyone has their own niche, and we came to the realization that there weren't any good table farmstead blues being produced in the state." Any milk's flavor inevitably changes with the seasons, depending upon climate and what type of grass the herd is eating at a particular time of year, but by using milk exclusively from their own cows, the Giacomini's are afforded the strictest possible quality control over their award-winning product. "We've made blue cheese lovers out of those reluctant to even taste it," Howard notes. The farm produces 500,000 pounds of cheese per year - enough to supply an impressive list of restaurants and gourmet stores across the country. Paula Lambert, author of Cheese Glorious Cheese, developed a deep appreciation of Italian fresh cheeses when she studied Italian art history in Perugia. Upon her return to Texas, she discovered that none of the beloved cheeses for which she had gained an abiding taste were available stateside, so she returned to Italy to learn how to make authentic mozzarella and ricotta herself. She gathered enough skills to found the Mozzarella Company in 1982 in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas. "Our cheeses are based on classics, but like a lot of cheese being made in America today, they are unique to the United States," Lambert notes. "We are not copying; we are creating." One of Lambert's most distinctive efforts is the robustly flavored, but not too sharp or salty, Deep Ellum Blue, a semisoft cow's milk cheese with a blue exterior. It doesn't have blue veins, however, just a blue-tinged exterior. Bathing the cheese in mold, rather than penetrating the interior with it, makes it dense and creamy, a technique that Lambert "made up." Blue mold began to grow naturally and unexpectedly on one of her cheeses and she wiped it off with olive oil, which is how Deep Ellum Blue was created in 1993 and is essentially how it is made today. Unlike Lambert, who hadn't set out to make a blue cheese, David Gremmels, a product designer for Harry & David Fruit Company, and Cary Bryant, a microbiologist, were actively looking for a blue cheese to feature at a wine bar they planned to open in Ashland, Oregon. In 2002, a friend steered them to master cheesemaker Ignazio Vella, known as "The Godfather of Artisan Cheese." Vella was then seeking a buyer for his Rogue River Valley Creamery, the first West Coast producer of blue cheese, and a Central Point, Oregon, company his late father founded in 1935. "He just said to us, 'Well, if you want the cheese, you're going to have to buy the factory, because I'm about to shut it down,'" Gremmels recalls. "So we became owner/operators of a cheese factory with a handshake." Although the wine bar has yet to open, Gremmels and Bryant have transformed what is now known as the Rogue Creamery into one of the finest fromageries in the world, offering six handcrafted, award-winning artisan blue cheeses; among them Rogue River Blue (winner of the London World Cheese Award in 2003 for best blue cheese, the first time an American cheese had won this high honor) and Oregonzola, a creamy, Gorgonzola-style blue with high butter fat. Rogue blues are aged in limestone caves dug in 1956 to emulate the aging of Roquefort. "We give them a quarter turn and flip them daily, sort of like riddling Champagne bottles," Gremmels says. "I love the fact that they pair remarkably with reds like Syrah and Claret, with dessert wines, such as Moscato d'Asti, sparklers like Prosecco, and even, surprisingly, Chardonnay." The Rogue Creamery and its products have been certified as "sustainable" by the Food Alliance, an organization that assures the purity of all ingredients - from what the cows eat to the cheese itself - a certification Gremmels defines as "organic with heart." To distinguish their blues even further, the partners are poised to export their Oregon raw milk cheese to Britain and France next year. Janet Fletcher, weekly cheese columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and author of Cheese & Wine, notes that, "American blue cheesemakers are charting their own territory and giving their cheese a personal touch. For example, Rogue River Blue rounds are hand-wrapped in local Carpenter Hill Vineyard Syrah leaves and Troon Vineyard Zinfandel leaves that have been macerated in Brandy." Although she admires such packaging, Fletcher (whose husband, Doug, is winemaker at Rutherford Hill in Napa Valley) differs with Gremmels over suitable pairings. "With few exceptions, I don't like a dry red wine with blue cheese," she asserts. Rather, "I prefer an oxidized wine like Sherry or Madeira. The viscosity and sugar in these wines, or in a botrytis[ed] wine, counteract the salt and pungency in the cheese. And, I really like serving a sparkling wine because the blue cheese can handle the high acidity in the wine." In addition to cheese experts like Lambert and Fletcher, high-profile chefs have been influential in spreading the word. "There's so much going on with American blues in terms of flavors and textures," says Govind Armstrong, executive chef at Table 8 in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, and author of Small Bites, Big Nights. "Some will knock your socks off. For example, the creamy, Danish-style blues from Wisconsin, such as the tangy Black River Blue, wake you up. They have amazing characteristics unmatched by any other cheese." Armstrong is so fond of American blues that he doesn't cook without them. "It's a marvelous cheese to work with in the kitchen, figuring into almost every course. As a component of a salad, it is addictive. Or pick your preference for a blue cheese and add a dollop to sliced steak and smashed potatoes." As for the wine pairing, he praises blue cheese because he maintains, "It can hold up to a rich red like a Syrah or even to a dessert wine." Chef Bryan Voltaggio of Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C., actively promotes regional American artisan cheeses, including those made from domestically produced raw or unpasteurized milk (which the FDA approves, as long as it is aged for 60 days). Among his favored blue-veined cheeses is Bayley Hazen Blue from Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm, which he pairs with a Ruby Port-glazed fig terrine and marcona almonds; or St. Pete's Select Blue from Minnesota's Faribault Dairy, which he pairs with caramelized onion gougère, purée of leeks and butternut squash. "The cheese course forms a bridge from savory to sweet," Voltaggio notes. Resident sommelier Nadine Brown likes to pour a medium-bodied dry red, such as a 2005 Chester Gap Cabernet Franc from Virginia, with Pete's Select Blue. "Both cheese and wine are a labor of love," she notes, "[with] a beautiful artisan connection between the two." This relationship is also celebrated at BIN 36, a wine-centric restaurant in Chicago. Here, executive chef/owner John Caputo, formerly the chef at Jordan Winery in Sonoma County, has created an innovative cheese bar. "It's like a sushi bar for cheese," he says. "Cheese is where wine was 10 or 15 years ago. People want to learn about different ones." Of the nearly 50 artisanal cheeses BIN 36 offers - about half from American makers - along with a choice of 50 wines by the glass, Rogue Creamery Rogue River, Maytag Blue, Buttermilk Blue (from Roth Kase in Monroe, Wisconsin) and Bayley Hazen Blue head the list of American blues available solo or in flights of four or six samples. Each selection comes with its own wine recommendation. Although Port or Sherry would pair well with blues, Caputo notes, he will often match them up with an old vine Zinfandel or a German Riesling of spätlese ripeness. Of the latter he explains, "The tropical [fruit] and citrus notes in the Riesling and the slight effervescence don't get hidden by the saltiness in the cheese." Caputo's diners are true believers; the chef estimates that 75 percent of them now order cheese with their meals. At The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, considered Los Angeles's premier cheese shop for the past 30 years, manager/buyer Tony Princiotto observes that clients who are getting into artisan, farmstead and organic cheeses, blue or otherwise, are as interested in provenance as they are in quality. "More and more, consumers want to know where their food comes from," he says. Like a fine wine merchant, cheese purveyors like Princiotto have mastered the language of differing cheese styles, flavors, ages, aromas and even good and less-good months. "I tell customers to buy [cheese] in season - the spring and fall when the cows are happy," Princiotto says. "Handmade American blues are not available all year round. Made in limited quantities, they are generally tied to the lactation period of goats and cows and sheep. And the spectacular ones are in great demand," he continues. On average, Princiotto keeps about a dozen American blues in stock (including six from Rogue Creamery) among the 400 cheeses he sells. The accepted pairing rule that cheese and wine produced in or near the same region marry well is the ideal, but what's most important is that neither overwhelms the other. "Robust blue cheeses should be matched with equally strong red wines - bold to bold, like an Amarone," Princiotto maintains. "Or, go for contrast - salty cheeses with sweet wines, for example, Sauternes or Muscat Beaumes-de-Venise." Whether beginning a meal with a blue or finishing with one, slicing into a homegrown wedge of this singular cheese - a sweet irony in the land that gave birth to processed cheese spread - brings us a little closer to the goal of eating locally and puts us back in touch with the artisan cheesemakers in our own backyard. Food Editor Carole Kotkin manages the Ocean Reef Club Cooking School in Key Largo; is a syndicated columnist for McClatchey Publishing; is co-author of Mmmmiami; and co-hosts Food & Wine Talk on WDNA FM. Savoring the BLUES These suggestions from Rogue Creamery can be applied when sampling any blue cheese: Well before serving time, unwrap and plate the cheese. Once it has reached room temperature, allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes, which gives the blue molds time to blossom. Using your fingers, pinch off a bit of the "paste" (cheese from the inside of the wedge). Raise it to your nose and let the tendrils of rich, sharp aroma tickle your olfactory senses. Now place the crumble on your tongue and move it around a little. Let the cheese fill your mouth and nose with flavor. Feel its texture as the cheese spreads over your tongue; savor its richness and blue tang. As it dissolves, note the tiny crystals that add a barely-there tooth to the blue's inherently earthy flavors. Now taste a pinch of the rind, reflecting on how its saltiness, texture and flavor complexities differ from the paste. - CK Blue Bruschetta From Maytag Blue Cheese 2 loaves baguette or ciabatta Extra virgin olive oil 2 cloves garlic 2 cups diced tomatoes 1/4 cup fire-roasted red peppers 1 cup chopped black olives Fresh thyme Fresh cilantro 8 ounces Maytag Blue Cheese, crumbled Cut bread into slices. Brush with olive oil. Crush garlic cloves and spread on bread. Place in preheated 400° oven for 10 minutes. Chop tomatoes and fire-roasted peppers and add olives, cilantro and thyme. Spread vegetables on toasted bread and add crumbled Maytag Blue Cheese to each slice. Place in oven for 5 minutes, until cheese melts. Makes about 24 pieces Mission Figs with Rogue River Blue & Prosciutto From Rogue Creamery 12 dried Mission figs, halved 8 ounces Rogue Creamery Rogue River Blue, crumbled 12 slices prosciutto, cut lengthwise Toothpicks Stuff each halved fig with approximately 1/2 tablespoon of blue cheese crumbles. Wrap each cheese-stuffed fig in a slice of prosciutto, secure with a toothpick; broil quickly until prosciutto is hot and curling. Serve immediately. Makes 24 hors d'oeuvres Blue Cheese Gougères From Executive Chef Bryan Voltaggio of Charlie Palmer Steak 1 cup whole milk 7 ounces unsalted butter 1/4 teaspoon salt 7 ounces all purpose flour 5 large eggs 2 sprigs rosemary, minced 4 tablespoons St. Pete's Blue Cheese In a medium-size saucepan, bring milk, butter and salt to a gentle boil over medium heat. Remove pan from the heat, and using a wooden spoon, add the flour to the milk/butter mixture all at once. Stir vigorously until all the flour is incorporated. Transfer the dough to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Start the mixer on low speed and add the eggs one by one. Be sure to let the mixer thoroughly incorporate each egg into the dough before adding the next egg. Add the rosemary and the cheese and mix to integrate. Preheat oven to 350°. Transfer dough to a pastry bag with an Ateco No. 809 round tip. Pipe the gougères onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. They should be the width of a quarter and 1/2" thick. Wet your finger with water and gently round out the tops of the tip of each gougère. Bake the gougères at 350° for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden. Makes 2 dozen Balsamic Asparagus with Original Blue From Point Reyes 1 pound asparagus, woody ends trimmed 2 teaspoons olive oil 1 shallot, thinly sliced 1 teaspoon black peppercorns 1 bay leaf 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 1/3 cup (2 ounces) Original Blue cheese crumbles 2 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces Grill or steam asparagus until tender-crisp. Sauté shallot and peppercorns in olive oil until shallot is soft. Add bay leaf and balsamic vinegar and cook until sauce is reduced by half. Strain the sauce and return to pan. Whisk in blue cheese and butter until melted. Serve warm drizzled over the asparagus. Serves 4 Beet Salad with Blue Cheese and Walnut Vinaigrette From Carole Kotkin 1 1/2 pounds beets (about 6 medium-size) with the skin on, rinsed and scrubbed 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 head leafy green lettuce (romaine or other), washed and dried 2 bunches arugula, washed and dried 1/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted at 350° for 8 minutes 1/2 cup walnut vinaigrette (recipe below) Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 cup (about 4 ounces) American artisanal blue cheese Preheat oven to 350°. Place beets on a large piece of aluminum foil; rub each beet with olive oil and wrap up the sides of the foil to enclose the beets. Place on a cookie sheet and roast until a knife pierces easily into the center of the beet, about 1 hour. Cool beets. Remove skins with the tip of a paring knife and cut into a 3/4" dice. Place diced beets in a bowl. Add lettuce, arugula and walnuts. Drizzle with walnut vinaigrette and toss gently to coat. Season to taste. Divide among 4 salad plates. Garnish each salad with 1 tablespoon crumbled blue cheese. Serves 4 For the vinaigrette: 2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar 1 tablespoon finely diced shallots Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 2 tablespoons walnut oil 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil In a small mixing bowl whisk vinegar, shallots, salt and pepper together; slowly whisk in oils. Makes 1 cup Gnocchi alla Rogue Creamery Oregonzola From Chef Mauro Golmarvi of Assaggio Ristorante, Seattle 1 pound fresh gnocchi 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 cup dry white wine 6 ounces Rogue Creamery Oregonzola, diced 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley Freshly ground black pepper Cook gnocchi until just done, drain and add remaining ingredients to your cookpot. Toss gently. Serve immediately. Serves 4 Crater Lake Blue Cheesecake with Port Wine Peppercorn Sauce From Chef Lisa Lawrence of Rogue Creamery For the crust: 2 cups graham cracker crumbs 1/2 cup melted butter 2 tablespoons granulated sugar For the cheesecake: 4-5 ounces Crater Lake Blue, crumbled 24 ounces cream cheese (brick-style) 8 ounces sour cream 5 eggs 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350°. Combine graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar, press onto bottom and sides of a 10" springform pan. Bake crust 5 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and crumble Crater Lake Blue evenly over bottom of warm crust. Lower oven temperature to 325°. Beat cream cheese until soft; add 1/2 cup sugar and sour cream, and slowly add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until combined. Add lemon juice and mix well. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for approximately 60 minutes, or until cheesecake is just set and beginning to turn slightly golden around the edges. Remove from oven and let cool 2 to 4 hours. For best results, refrigerate overnight. For the Port sauce: 3 cups Port wine 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns 1 cinnamon stick Combine all ingredients in medium saucepan. Simmer until reduced by half. Strain. Keep at room temperature. To serve, drizzle over cheesecake. Serves 8 to 12 - CK

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