Spring comes to VT. Memorial Day Weekend (part 1)

Having my very first guest over the Memorial Day weekend was a delight! I was able to play tour guide in a place I am just beginning to familiarize myself with. The multi-shaded green landscape was a perfect backdrop to the weekend, painting a most perfect pastoral setting to an adventure over the hills of the North East Kingdom.

The adventures were many and the sites visited varied. I think that I'll cut the blog in half and recount some of the highlights.

After an early morning shift at the cheesehouse, I was off to Burlington airport to pick up Jenine and Ruby. (Jet Blue rocks.) Our first stop after the pickup was City Hall Park in downtown Burlington. That Saturday was the first of the season when the artists and crafters would be coming to the weekly farmer's market to showcase and sell their art. Also, there would be a ton of food and I, big food fan, was ready for some springtime produce. There were some awesome food vendors selling all kinds of delights, from preserves to cheeses to (I think most of you will agree that root beer floats are not produce but we can make an exception)
The square in front of city hall was totally happening. Quite the hippie scene complete with dogs off leash, wild dreaded dudes and lots of grass lounging.

From the market, we wandered around Main and Church Streets in search of brunch. We had all had a long and early start to the day and were ready to chow down on some home cookin'. Big ass lines at brunch are not just a NY thing, as it turns out. We skipped the 35min wait at a recommended joint in town and took a chance at a super cute diner called Henry's. Good call. Henry's was awesome. The food, pipin hot and delicious, the decor gave me plenty of fabulous photo opportunities and the waitresses with their awesome uniforms were fantastic.

Off the Farm: Montpelier, VT

According to the official website, Montpelier is the nations smallest capital city. Fancy that.
It was a rainy Saturday and a great day to spend indoors. I prepared myself for the big city field trip by packing up my trusty MacBook, charger, camera and coffee mug. Since I am car-less here, my bike still hiding from the cold country air, I am totally dependant on anyone who offers to drive me out for an adventure away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Greensboro. Though devastatingly hard to peel away from the beautiful trees and picturesque mountainous landscape, getting a breath of other humans and coffee is vital to my well being. When I was offered a lift to the big city capital, I leapt with excitement. Really. About an hour drive south west, we rolled up and down hills and drove by silos, old barns, odd junked out trailers and came into Montpelier.
First stop, Langdon St. Cafe. Occupying the bottom floor of a three story adorable house, the cafe was started as a cooperative and later was bought and run by two owners. Live music nightly, a fabulous and extensive food and beverage menu makes this place a cultural center and a very busy place - especially on a weekend afternoon. Hot egg and cheese on a bagel and a cafe au lait and I was set for the next few hours.

After warming up with a hot mug and catching up on my emails, I decided to take a stroll along Main St. (is there a town in this country that doesn't have a Main St.?) to check out the scene. The scene was adorable. Bookstores with awesome window displays, an old apothicary/museum of 19th century pharmacy items, more books, and a beautiful golden domed State Capital building that usually gives tours in the summer (which I found out doesn't actually begin till July).

Next on the mini tour was the famed Hunger Mountain Coop. I was super excited at the prospect of purchasing fresh produce as it had been close to a week of packaged, canned and refrigerated food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was ready to come to the inn with an armful of farm fresh greens and other much needed boosts of vitamin rich food. I took the long walk down the old railroad tracks that lead to the hidden coop and along the way spotted this really cool bike-meld sculpture. The coop was beautiful! everything looking so enticing and delicious. I filled up my little cart with produce, perusing the aisles and snatching up some goodies to take back to the horn of unplenty, Greensboro. The cheese counter alone was a plethera of bounty. Cheeses organized by region and state, small farms and well known favorites. Hunger Mountain was celebrating Earth Day with a great big member appreciation day complete with prizes and a cookout! There were samples galore and really intersting local artisanal product. I bought some local 10 grain bread, some Montpelier made chocoalte bars to send off to Brooklyn and the May edition of Saveur. Having gotten myself so accustomed to my beloved and dearly missed Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, I forgot how ridiculously expensive organic food can run you. Here's waiting for VT spring to show it's little tiny head and grace us with some fresh local produce! $103 dollars and 3 grocery bags later, I was still really happy to have my kale and eat it too.

First Days on the Farm. WASHING CHEESES

Friday was pretty awesome in the Cellars at JH.

After the 7am staff meeting, we were divided into teams for morning and afternoon tasks. I was put on the cheese washing duty with a veteran Cellar employee. The goal for the morning was to get vault (cave) #2 tended to. Washing a number of racks of washed rind cheeses in a variety of brine solutions, meads, beers and other exciting fermentations, was the first order of business.

Vault 2 is where all of the washed rind cheeses live and grow. It is a high humidity vault and has a very distinct and often irritating ammonia odor. Jasper Hill Farm makes their own cheese called Winnemere which lives in vault 2. It is a delicious, spruce bark wrapped cheese. Creamy, meaty, musky, salty, gooey, melt in your mouth delicious. At Murray's, Winne was a winner. I never imagined, a year ago, that I would be there to watch the Winne's life cycle, from curd to shipping.

On Friday, I met intergenerational cheeses: from newborns that were just made next door at the cheese house (or shipped over from other farms) to toddlers growing a little bit of peachy fuzz in the vaults, to teens and young adults washed and turned for weeks or months to grown up cheeses, ready to be sent around the country to be enjoyed and consumed.

JHF has been aging cheeses for other cheesemakers in VT since they opened their humongous vaults a year ago. Cheeses from Dancing Cow (Bouree, Menuet), Crawford Family Farm (Vermont Ayr), Twig Farm (Goat Tomme, Soft Wheel) are just a few of the cheesemakers who send The Cellars at JH their cheeses to age (see previous post for affinage hyperlink).

OK. Back to the matter at hand, washing cheeses. We begin by sanitizing and cleaning all of the tools, buckets, carts, brushes and racks we'll be using throughout the course of the morning. Soaping, washing and bleaching everything before using and as we move through different batches of cheese and different kinds of cheeses. We have a detailed list of the specific racks of cheese that need tending to and pull them out of the vault. The photo below gives a little idea of the kinds of washes that are used for the vault 2 cheeses. There are brines, bacterial solutions, alcohol of all sorts.



The younger Winnemeres still need to be brushed with their bacterial solutions. The older ones are washed with beers. What is so cool about the Winne beer washing is that JHF uses regional specific beers to be sold to either the West, Central or East Coast markets. The beers infuse the cheese with amazing flavor. One of my goal is to sample different beer washed Winnes and see if I can detect the subtleties. We out out a rack of cheese and lay it out on the cart. Two small containers are filled with solution or beer. With a large paintbrush, we aggressively rub the cheese down and scrub of as much of the white mold that has developed on the cheese during the course of its live in the vault.
We go through the racks, gently turn and flip the cheese over and brush them down with solution. While they are in the vault, they dry out and drip a little, their orange sticky surfaces often adhering to the metal shelves they rest on. In order not to tear the thin rind, you have to carefully twist them off. Every rack of Winnemere is clearly marked with a date as well as the specific beer that we need to use.

When that task is completed, they get rolled back to their home. (Later that afternoon, we'll head back into the vault to find some matured Winnes to pull out and wrap up for immediate shipment.)

In the afternoon, we were going to receive a large shipment of 4 month old wheels from a local VT cheesemaker who ages her cheeses in vault 2. Like parents, we will tend to the cheese, wash it down weekly, then bi weekly, turn the cheese every couple of days to keep it from sticking to the pine boards it ages on. We will care for the cheese untill it is ripe and ready. JHF now ships all of the cheeses it ages directly from our very large and well stocked shipping warehouse.

Below is a photo of the new cheeses being unwrapped and shelved. Under that image is one of those same cheeses, older and orange, being turned on the boards.



At the end of the day, we had a little cheese tasting. A delicious Winnemere (had a crack running through the top and was deemed unsellable.) A super yummy - ('like a combination of peanuts and bacon' as a fellow intern noted) Dancing Cow Bouree.

Cheers! Ready for the weekend!

Next post: Greetings from Montpelier, VT.
Stay tuned!

First Days on the Farm. CHEDDAR.

Wednesday, April 15th marked the beginning of my internship at Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, VT. On Tuesday afternoon, the mini-van was packed with enough t-shirts and socks, my bike, cheese books, camera, art supplies and snacks. My delighted and slightly nervous parents and I arrived at the Lakeview Inn on Breezy Point Rd. at 3pm.

After climbing up to the 3rd floor, unpacking some bags, scoping out the joint and getting acquainted with my new abode, we stopped at the library (free wireless and awesome book collection) and the Willey's Market down the road (the only game in town, and open only until 5:30pm) to check out the downtown scene. No signs of farm produce yet, but I'm crossing my fingers for spring ramps and fiddleheads. Evening came, parents drove off into the dirt road sunset and I waved and thought about the months to come... This is what I wanted, a once in a lifetime learning opportunity on one of the most innovative and exciting cheese making and aging facilities in the country.
Day one began with the sunrise above. I was up at 6, headed to the farm (about 2 miles from the inn) for the 7am morning meeting. There is a lot to do, needless to say. My internship will some days in the cheese house and some in the cellars (cheese caves). Most of the work is serious manual labor, as you will note in the posts to come. The first day was cheddar centered. The Cellars at Jasper Hill age Cabot's award winning Clothbound Cheddar in vault #6. A humongous hangar sized concrete structure housing hundreds of 35 lb wheels of cheddar aging in various stages of readiness. The Cheddars are usually ready at 12 months but will need a lot of tending and care throughout their stay. Caring for cheese at the aging stage of their development or affinage, (hyperlink worth reading!!) is a full time job. Like little babies, cheeses need to be washed, cleaned, patted down, turned and snuggled. Really. Each cheese is unique and requires a different and distinct routine.
So, after a brief training on operating the mini lift (used to reach those 30 ft shelved in the vaults) and a demo on correct hand washing and Cellars hygiene and sanitizing, I was taken into vault 6, aka The Great Kingdom of Cheddar. Jasper Hill needed to ship out 192 wheels of Cabot Clothbound that day so our job was to take down the ready cheddars, dust them of mites (which I will talk about next post) and get them ready for shipment.

After lunch, I was put on Larding duty. I hate to be the one to break the really bad news for all of you non-porcine eaters and vegetarians. Many cloth bound cheddars (not the rectangles from the grocery store) are rubbed down with lard. The lard promotes a strong and mite-less rind, provides a barrier for air which would create unwanted mold and dryness. All that to lead up to the next job, re-larding the cheddars.

From larding, we went to packing and wrapping the cheeses for shipment. First, counting 140 sticker labels to put into the packages with the cheese, wrapping the huge mothers in giant waxed butcher paper, weighing each one (34-36lbs) and boxing them up.

Cleaning up the cellars means washing down everything that was in contact with cheese. Sanitizing with a dilution of chlorine bleach, squeegeeing the concrete floors, walls and surfaces and putting all tools, gloves, racks, shelves and other supplies to dry. And that was day one. Day one. Shit. I should have brought along my masseuse.