Congratulations to the 2010 American Cheese Society* Best of Show Winners
1st: Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Uplands Cheese Co.
2nd: Bonne Bouche, Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery
3rd: Tarentaise, Spring Brook Farm
Marion Street Cheese Market is proud to carry outstanding cheeses recognized by the American Cheese Society in our Market! Stop in and taste these delicious cheeses!
MSCM carries 10 of the 1st place winners:
Bellwether Farms Fromage Blanc
Jasper Hill/Ploughgate Creamery Hartwell
Nettle Meadow Kunik
Meadow Creek Dairy Appalachian
Sartori Bellavitano Gold
Jasper Hill/Cabot Clothbound Cheddar
Roth Kase Gran Queso
Spring Brook Farm Tarentaise
Uplands Cheese co. Pleasant Ridge Reserve
Vermont Butter and Cheese Bonne Bouche
MSCM carries 10 of the 2nd place winners
Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor
Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam
Vermont Butter and Cheese Coupole
Tumalo Farms Fenacho
Bleu Mont Dairy Bandaged Cheddar
Carr Valley Billy Blue
Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese Farmer’s Rope
Capriole O’Banon
Nordic Creamery Goat Butter
Capriole Sofia
MSCM carries 11 of the 3rd place winners
Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill
Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog
Old Chatham Sheepherding co. Nancy’s Camembert
DCI Cheese co. Liederkrantz
Fiscalini Cheese co. San Joaquin Gold
Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy Queso de Mano
Beecher’s Flagship Reserve
Capriole Piper’s Pyramide
Meadow Creek Dairy Grayson
Everona Dairy Piedmont
Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy Red Cloud
*The American Cheese Society is an active, not for profit trade organization that encourages the understanding, appreciation, and promotion of farmstead and natural specialty cheeses produced in the Americas and Canada. By providing an educational forum for cheesemakers and cheese enthusiasts, the Society fills an important gap in today’s specialty food world.
comte dinner @ marion street cheese market
RESERVATIONS STILL AVAILABLE!
wednesday, june 23rd
cocktails @ 6:30 pm ◊ dinner @ 7:00 pm
◊ special guests ◊
daphne zepos of essex st. cheese + philippe goux, affineur of marcel petite
◊ spectacular chefs◊
chef john caputo of bin 36 + chef leonard hollander of marion street cheese market
◊ five course dinner ◊
closing act = comte cheese course
$55.00/person includes dinner + 1 glass of craft beer or 1 glass of fine wine
+ $18.00/person for fine wine pairing
+ $15.00/person for craft beer pairing
gratuity + beverages are not included
Opening Day Wed., June 16!
Welcome to the Oak Park, Illinois Mid-Week Market web site. More than a farmers’ market, closer to a street festival, the Mid-Week Market features locally grown fruits and vegetables, food vendors offering a wide selection of ready-to-eat items and local retailers selling goods and services – all in the heart of downtown Oak Park on Lake Street, just east of Harlem Avenue. Local microbrews and wine are available for on-site consumption as well, along with food demonstrations and live music. Held each Wednesday from mid-June through mid-September, the Mid-Week Market is open from 4 – 9 p.m. For more information, e-mail midweekmarket@oak-park.us.
comte dinner @ marion street cheese market
wednesday, june 23rd
cocktails @ 6:30 pm ◊ dinner @ 7:00 pm
◊ special guests ◊
daphne zepos of essex st. cheese + philippe goux, affineur of marcel petite
◊ spectacular chefs◊
chef john caputo of bin 36 + chef leonard hollander of marion street cheese market
◊ five course dinner ◊
closing act = comte cheese course
$55.00/person includes dinner + 1 glass of craft beer or 1 glass of fine wine
+ $18.00/person for fine wine pairing
+ $15.00/person for craft beer pairing
gratuity + beverages are not included
Yes, I was the lucky monger chosen to go on a whirlwind tour of some fantastic Wisconsin cheese makers. Thank you European imports! I am in my first year of working with cheese so this was a great opportunity to really learn what the world of cheese making is all about. We visited large and small scale operations including Brunkow (from them we carry Lafayette Cold Pack Cheese Spread and Bruun Usto), Roth Kase (Grand Cru Gruyere Surchoix), Widmer (Four Year Cheddar), Carr Valley (Gran Canaria) and Crave Brothers (Les Frere). Each factory used the same basic procedures to make cheese: Heating milk, adding culture, straining whey, salting, molding, and aging. The uniqueness of these cheeses occurs with sometimes only the slightest tweak of these processes. A few degrees of temperature change, a different culture, the use of steel vats versus copper, what type of surface the cheese rests on when ageing, can drastically change the outcome of the product. To create the desired outcome takes years of experimentation, hard work and patience! Cheese makers are true craftsmen!
I also had the opportunity to talk with some great artisan cheese makers face to face! IN PERSON! I was certainly star-stuck (because I’m a cheese geek) by Willy Lehner, who makes the mouth watering earthy Bandaged Cheddar from Bleu Mont Dairy, which is one of my personal favorites. Mike and Carol Gingrich are a very quaint farming and cheese making couple. They make their farmstead alpine style Pleasant Ridge Reserve exclusively from their own grass-fed cow’s milk. P. Ridge (as we like to call it sound here) is becoming a quintessential mid-west cheese. It is grassy, nutty with a firm smooth texture. The Gingrich’s also provide milk at the end of their season to Willi to experiment with and make his own cheeses.
A few other fun facts about Wisconsin cheese and their cheese makers:
- Some of these cheese makers, like Widmer, Carr Valley and Brunkow, have been producing cheese for over 100 years.
- Wisconsin produces over 25% of the nation’s cheese.
- The Midwest’s “driftless” area, which primarily covers Wisconsin contains more plant variety than the entire state of Illinois, creating a unique terroir. ( Driftless refers to the escape from glaciations during the last glacial period.)
- Roth Kase uses giant robots named Heidi and Sam to flip and wash their collection of hundreds of wheels of aging cheese.
- The Crave Brothers farm provides clean renewable energy for itself and to 120 homes in the surrounding area by putting good use to their cows organic waste through their computerized anaerobic digestion system! To learn more about their sustainability story go to http://www.cravecheese.com/press-details.php?NBC-Nightly-News-segment-called-Making-a-Difference-about-converting-cow-manure-into-electricity-to-power-our-farm-and-cheese-factory.-7
Overall the trip was great and added to my valuable cheese brain files. If you want to know more, come by the store and ask any of our cheese mongers about our great Wisconsin cheese.
And boy, oh boy- those cheese heads know how to drink…
-Lauren D / Cheesemonger
Enjoy a beer dinner featuring Symposium Ale, the collaborative beer brewed by Illinois Craft Brewers Guild member brewers for the Chicago Craft Brewers Conference (April 7-10). Four delicious courses, served with one of the four base beers (Strong Scotch Ale, Imperial IPA, Imperial Stout, Barley Wine) and finally the Symposium Ale (barrel-aged and blended base beers) with dessert.
Symposium Ale Dinner – Make reservations by calling 708.725.7200 or click on the reservations link on our HOME page.
$60 including beer/ but not tax and gratuity.
First Course
Baby arugula + ruby grapefruit + cashews + hop honey vinaigrette
—Double IPA
Second Course
Sunchoke soup + crispy sunchoke + malt powder + Spanish olive oil
—Strong Scotch Ale
Third Course
Artisan cheese course + stout jam + candied nuts
—Imperial Stout
Fourth Course
Heirloom Pork Belly + Barleywine gastrique + Graue Mills grits
—Barleywine
Dessert
Deconstructed Symposium
A cacophony of delights created from the elements of the symposium ale
— Symposium Ale
Join MSCM for Mother’s Day Brunch, or perhaps a more relaxed dinner. The brunch menu and the dinner menu are both delicious. Space is filling fast, call for your reservation today – 708.725.7200!
An Evening of GREED with MSCM and Al Gini
and you thought LUST was provocative??
Executive Chef Leonard Hollander has crafted a gourmet greed-themed dinner menu and Loyola University Chicago’s Al Gini will be providing the food for thought with a discussion on another deadly sin: GREED. Join us to celebrate and/or condemn Tax Day 2010! So, if you hunger for dinner and a show, join us for an evening of greed on Tuesday, April 13th @ 7:00pm. $40 per person. Make your reservations by calling 708.725.7200
The Menu
asparagus bisque + smoked asparagus + black truffle crema
golden beets + honey glazed almonds + capriole chevre
roasted sableish + forbidden rice + charred scallions
coconut coffee tart + vanilla bean honey + cayenne crisp
A customer told me a story about ending up in the hospital after sharing a single bottle of red wine with two other people, over a large meal. He became violently ill a couple of hours after leaving the restaurant. While in the ER he feared at first that he would die and then, as more of his insides keep surfacing, was afraid that he would not. This guy drinks moderate amounts of wine on a weekly basis and does not usually buy things from the bargain shelves. I don’t know exactly which wine he and his party consumed but I know the restaurant, the sommelier and the wines and none of them are badly made or have a lot of unnecessary chemical additives. This experience caused this wine drinker to decide that tannins are to blame for his violent adverse reactions. Now, stays away from bold, tannic reds which he loves but feels he can’t drink. What really went wrong?
Somewhat ironically, tannins usually don’t bother people. However, this term is common so we use it. The truth is that two other compounds found in wine are far more likely to cause you to feel badly: sulphite and histamine. If you can eat dried fruit, drink white wine or drink orange juice, you do not have a sulphite intolerance; there is far more sulphite in your container of OJ than in any of the bottles on my shelves. Histamine can be problematic, especially from those who suffer from asthma. It’s thought that people intolerant to wine cannot degrade histamine properly because they are deficient in diamine oxidase (the enzyme fulfilling this role). However, a recent study I saw showed no correlation between histamine content and wine intolerance. Red wines have 0.6 – 4.0 grams/litre of histamine and whites a lot less. So if your doctor says it’s ok, try taking an antihistamine before you drink red wine the next time and see what happens.
The offending wine might have been simply an ingredient – active or inactive – the cocktail that made our friend from above ill. Stress, dehydration, food, quatinty consumes and bugs hanging about in your system could also contribute to an adverse reaction. I also hear often that people are allergic to wine. That may be true, but genuine wine allergies are extremely rare (a true allergic reaction involves an immune response to an allergen, most commonly a protein). Sadly, there’s so little conclusive medical research about adverse wine reactions that there’s very little that can be done for those who have more or less random negative reactions to wine. Seems like the only thing we can be remotely certain of is this: most, if not all, unpleasant reactions to wines are food intolerances. There’s something to chew on.
Cheers, everybody! -Winemonger Candy
The cheesemongers want you to know that we have some beautiful cheeses on sale right now! Be sure to stop in and include these beauties in your dinner, lunch or even breakfast plans this week:
Mt Tam 20% off – a triple cream cheese at the ladies from Cowgirl Creamery. Soft, rich, buttery and all organic.
Roquefort 20% off – the only handmade Roquefort still left in existence. The real deal French Roquefort. Due to some tiffs over tariffs Rouquefort has been a true luxury over the past few months but the price has finally come down. Yippee!
Langres 30% off – A lovely little French softie made in the high plains of Champagne. Langres cheese traced back from the 18th century and has a depression at the top of the cheese in order to pour champagne over the cheese before serving. Great for a special occasion or a decadent evening in front of the TV.
