Cheese art for the Glorious 4th

Ok, so I haven't posted in a loooooooong while. Sorry 'bout that.

But here's a small bit of news, in honor of the nation's birthday (that nation is the US of A, natch): The cheese art movement is continuing apace, as Slashfood reports.

Sarah Kaufmann has been creating large and small sculptures out of cheese since 1981. This July 4th, Sarah is hand-sculpting cheddar cheese to design a scene (with a 15-foot circumference) of popular Wisconsin icons in a "Spirit of '76"-style parade.

In the past, people have crowded around Sarah as she produced her cheese masterpieces. For the next couple of days, people can once again gather to see the cheese turn into three dimensional characters. Today through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the public is invited to the Madison, WI Sam's Club to taste the cheese and purchase their own piece of the 5,000-pound cheddar.

For the full story, click here.

Will garbage kill Mozzarella?

In southern Italy, around Naples to be more precise, they have a few time-honored traditions. One is the manufacture of one of the world's greatest cheeses (and my personal favorite), Mozzarella di bufala.

The other tradition is less refined: organized crime is omnipresent there, and works its way into the most mundane of businesses. For the past few years, that sad fact has manifested itself in the most unseemly way -- a trash crisis that has overwhelmed Naples.

Now, that well-reported urban nightmare is beginning to affect the rural regions outside the city. And, as the New York Times reports, cheese is threatened:
"In the last few months, sales of buffalo mozzarella have dropped 40 percent, the product’s trade association says. The problem makes for a near-perfect morality play about Italy: For years, the nation’s paralyzed political class has done little to halt huge-scale illegal dumping of trash, some of it toxic, around Naples. That area happens to produce some of the best mozzarella.

A new trash crisis peaked yet again, and last week fears that food might be contaminated seemed confirmed when health officials announced elevated levels of the carcinogen dioxin in samples of buffalo mozzarella. Last weekend, South Korea banned imports of the cheese, and Italy began scrambling to avoid deep damage to one of its most emblematic products."

Click here for the full story.

Cheese Can Save the Planet

You may think of cheese as just a little bit of dairyland wonder.

Or, perhaps, you're a bit more obsessed by the stuff, planning entire meals around the cheese course.

But did you know that besides being such a tasty nibble, cheese holds the potential to solve many of the planet's biggest problems? That's right: cheese can save the world.

So it seems, anyway. Every day or so, there comes another story about this or that scientist-entrepreneur trying to use cheese byproducts in an earthy-crunchy way.

A few weeks back, I noted the experiments in New York state to turn whey into fuel. Now, here's a piece in a European trade journal about a cheese plant in Pennsylvania that wants to be self-sustaining, energy-wise. Here's an excerpt:

The Fairview Swiss cheese plant in Pennsylvania, owned by John Koller & Son, will soon be powered partially from biogas made from food waste like whey, according to Pennsylvania's agriculture departmant.

Click here for the full story.

Celebrity Cheese: Robin Gibb

There are (many) blogs that are devoted to celebrities. There are (a few) blogs that are devoted to cheese. But never has there been a blog that tackles the important subject of celebrities and cheeese.

Until now.

My friend JuJu gets a little bored with my stuffy sermons about this cheese variety or that one. She wants me to liven this joint up a bit.

But how? I wondered.

"From time to time," she told me, "you should write about celebrities who like cheese."

Thus inspired, I bring you the inaugural post about a celebrity who likes cheese. As luck would have it, our first Celebrity Cheesehead is himself a bit cheesy: Bee Gee Robin Gibb.

Apparently, Gibb requested some Feta on a tour of Bulgaria (the man has to make a living, and he can't exactly fill Wembley Stadium anymore).

According to the Sofia Echo, this is what the famous falsetto from Down Under wants to eat before his One Night Only show in Bulgaria on Oct. 25:

Before the concert Gibb wants fruits and cheese, including Bulgarian sheep cheese “because he had heard of it a lot from Bulgarians abroad.”

Click here for the full story.

And if you happen to be in Sofia tonight, go check out Gibb's show. You know he will play "Stayin' Alive." And you know you'll like it.

Three Sisters Serena

The women who chose Three Sisters Cheese as the name of their company probably wanted to conjure up images of lightness and harmony.

Think of the Andrews Sisters, singing about the boys who went to war. Or the Dixie Chicks, singing to bring boys home from war.

Oh, I know only two of the Chicks are actually related. But maybe all is not perfect blissful symmetry with the dairyland siblings, either.

Maybe the youngest, as a girl, was a tag-along, a source of adolescent annoyance to her elders. Or perhaps the middle child, as a teen, flirted a bit too ardently with the older girl's boyfriend.

Who knows? Family ties are mysterious -- sometimes they're sweet, sometimes sharp. Striking the right balance between tender and tangy is no mean feat.

Judging by their Serena variety, anyway, I'll bet the cheese-making sisters get it mostly right. Because this farmstead cheese, made from the unpasteurized milk of a herd of Jersey cows, is a marvelous example of how contrasting tastes, when balanced just exactly so, can make a powerfully good combination.

It's a semi-hard variety, full of firm, nutty flavor. The first tastes are all sweet cream -- lush, full-bodied and buttery. But then, in an instant, the flavor turn to a sharp bite, a slight swirl of tanginess that evens out that initial sweetness.

In fact, Serena kind of reminds me a little bit of Parmigiano. Though it is not nearly so complex and refined as that greatest of cheeses, it does seem slightly related. Not a sister, perhaps, but at least a second cousin, once removed.

Try some. While you're at it, remember to share it with your family.

At the Cheese Shop, Python style

The weekend cheese video: Here's an old bit of silliness from Monty Python. Just in case you forgot it.

Al Gore must like cheese

Now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, it seems an appropriate time to ask: Is Mr. Ozone-man a Cheesehead, too?

I'm not mocking Gore's girth. That would be mean, not to mention childish. No, I'm curious whether the planet's leading planet-saver has heard the following news.

A scientist in upstate New York has been awarded a state grant to study whether cheese and cheese byproducts (whey, mostly) can be used as fuel. This from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A Syracuse researcher has won a $400,000 state grant to study the feasibility of making ethanol out of the whey left over from cheese-making. Whey will come from the Kraft Foods cream cheese factory in Lowville, N.Y. The project may point the way toward a supplemental source of revenue for upstate New York's dairy industry, said lead researcher John Fieschko.

According to the story, the technique has already been tried successfully in New Zealand. But this test may help bring the process to the United States.

This is exciting news for cheese-lovers and earth-lovers alike. So, in honor of Gore's Nobel, this is the slogan for today:

Save the Planet. Eat Some Cheese.

Full story: Could cars run on cream cheese?
New Orleans Times-Picayune (registration required)