My email this evening to Holly Gale of Smoky Valley Goat Cheese who’s consulting on my cheese cellaring project. “Finally hit an aging hurdle. These Valencays went in there in mid October, so nearly 2 months. They looked like this when they did. They held up really well until the last week or two. What’s interesting is that they seem … Read More
Cellaring Cheese
One of my goals this year was to start to get my feet wet at making cheese. I failed. I have not made cheese. But what has happened is a very happy thing: I’ve become good friends with cheesemaker Holly Gale and have had the opportunity to help their farm in a variety of ways – in exchange for cheese. … Read More
Cellar Dream-Come-True
I knew when I built my wine and root cellars, that they would bring me joy – but I had no idea it would happen so thoroughly, so quickly. Today I made a batch of very, very large saucisson sec. It was time to try again after my last slightly hurtful failure, and the humidity in my cellar has been … Read More
I’m Thankful for This Soup
I’ve been really grateful for the abundance around me lately. I feel a little like I’ve won the lottery [I don’t buy tickets]. This soup kind of summed up my happiness of late. It’s a purée of winter squashes from my former lawned front yard, with celery and leek from my backyard garden + a whack of chevre from Holly. … Read More
The Smoky Valley Cheese Tasting
I haven’t written about last Saturday’s event, which was an epic cheese event, but others have here, here, and here. Sarah and/or Chris edited this ode-to-the-evening-video to include in Chris’ post, and I couldn’t help but share it. Some good news about Smoky Valley Goat Cheese – they sold out in a few hours at the market this morning, CSA … Read More
FROM LOCAL FARMS – Smoky Valley Goat Cheese
Used to be that fine goat cheese was something my wife and I would enjoy while traveling in France. Ten years later, as did the Smart car and Sephora, artisan goat cheese showed its face in Edmonton. When Smoky Valley Goat Cheese arrived at our City Market this spring, I wrote about it immediately. It changed our household food culture … Read More
Operation ‘Save Our Artisan Goat Cheese’ has begun
While taking care of production duties on the ‘From Local Farms‘ project, I learned from Holly – our regional artisan goat cheese producer slated for an episode – that their operation is facing a winter of financial-non-viability, and that they are at risk of being forced to close their doors. One of the sad, hard truths I’ve learned about while … Read More
Smoky Valley Goat Cheese – Feta
No, their goat feta is not pink. It’s fantastically textured, confidently salty – but decidedly not pink [it was the roasted forono and bull’s blood beets’ fault]. We’ve recently had feta from what I thought would be a fairly good source: the Italian Centre [I heart the ICS]. But this stuff killed it. No competition. The more I try their … Read More
From Local Farms Project Update
This project is getting pretty big pretty fast, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Starting in September, I’m going to have a blog-doc-short episode featuring each of the following biggest and brightest talents in local artisan food production – and the list is growing daily: Sunworks Farm, Nature’s Green Acres, Smoky Valley Goat Cheese, En Santé Winery, Serben Free Range, … Read More
Smoky Valley Goat Cheese – Mountain Tomme
Having posted tasting notes of their St. Maure and Valencay, I was pleased to have yet another lovely looking goat cheese to tackle from this relatively new, yet fantastic producer. Holly, who tends the goats, cheesemaking, and market booth mentioned that this particular cheese will achieve more of what she’s looking for by the fall. She’s got me excited too … Read More