When Sue Conley and Peggy Smith announced their retirement last month from Cowgirl Creamery – the cheese company they grew from plucky startup to leader in the modern farm-to-table movement – the tributes came in thick and fast.
To their devoted followers, this was no surprise.
Since its founding more than two decades ago in a converted hay barn in the California town of Point Reyes Station, Cowgirl Creamery has become one of the country’s most beloved cheese brands. It is credited with kickstarting a renaissance of artisan cheesemaking; Conley and Smith, meanwhile, have become something akin to cheese royalty.
Amanda Parker, the company’s managing director, describes the duo as “rock stars of American cheese”.
“Peggy and Sue really took a visionary approach toward stewardship of land, of the preservation of tradition,” Parker says. “Their impact continues to be huge.”
Today Cowgirl Creamery regularly tops must-eat lists from Bon Appétit, Food & Wine and other food publications; it has been described as “the most perfect cheese on the planet”. Its best-known offerings – “Red Hawk”, which has a brine-washed rind as salty as the oysters flourishing in the nearby Tomales Bay and “Mt Tam”, a triple-cream cheese named for the Bay Area mountain – have finished first place at the American Cheese Society and Good Food Awards.
Despite their success, Conley and Smith’s early vision of producing world-class cheese made with milk from West Marin dairy farms was originally considered rather renegade, coming at a time when America’s supermarkets were dominated by mass produced or imported cheeses.
“They educated a whole generation about cheese,” says Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse, where Smith worked for 17 years. Waters says Cowgirl Creamery has been instrumental in shaping the modern food scene, with its emphasis on seasonality, craftsmanship and locally sourced ingredients.
“The great thing they did was learn from others and bring that back to California, and create their own versions,” she says. “Those important questions we all now ask ourselves: where does it come from, where and how was it grown, how was it made, how far did it travel … Peggy and Sue were absolutely on the forefront of that.”
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Don't get sand in the cheese..
Don't get sand in the cheese..
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Don't get sand in the cheese..
No surprise that they have very photogenic smiles.
Re: Don't get sand in the cheese..
Is this the appropriate place to put John Cleese's cheese shop routine?
- Bicycle Bill
- Posts: 9015
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- Location: Surrounded by Trumptards in Rockland, WI – a small rural village in La Crosse County
Re: Don't get sand in the cheese..
Being an artisan cheesemaker is one thing. Anybody can do a one-off 'boutique' product, whether it's in California, Kewaskum, Connecticut, or Kalamazoo.
But bragging on and on about "locally-sourced"? Whereinthehell do those foodie mags and other people think the milk that produces the 3.3 BILLION pounds of cheese per year in Wisconsin comes from? Railroad tank cars from Mexico???
-"BB"-
But bragging on and on about "locally-sourced"? Whereinthehell do those foodie mags and other people think the milk that produces the 3.3 BILLION pounds of cheese per year in Wisconsin comes from? Railroad tank cars from Mexico???
-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?
Re: Don't get sand in the cheese..
Everything we turn our hands to, we excel at.
yrs,
rubato
yrs,
rubato
Re: Don't get sand in the cheese..
A lot of it comes from sheep and goats.Bicycle Bill wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:54 amBeing an artisan cheesemaker is one thing. Anybody can do a one-off 'boutique' product, whether it's in California, Kewaskum, Connecticut, or Kalamazoo.
But bragging on and on about "locally-sourced"? Whereinthehell do those foodie mags and other people think the milk that produces the 3.3 BILLION pounds of cheese per year in Wisconsin comes from? Railroad tank cars from Mexico???
And Wisc. produces more than 30 billion pounds of milk.
yrs,
rubato