* Le Grand Fromage

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

You know me. That spider would have had absolutely

no freaking chance.

In April, I met a charming man named David who engaged us all around a dinner table with the story of how he and his partner Cary came to own the Rogue Creamery. Falling in love with the cheeses and the shop, they happened upon a Right Place/Right Time scenario. Just as it was being closed forever, they assumed ownership over a handshake and a promise to keep the creamery running the right way, the old way. Boy Howdy do they not disappoint!

An unassuming little brick building along an ordinary road in a small town, the Rogue Creamery headquarters is usually a blink away from obscurity on the route to I-5. It has made cheese since my parents were kids, and chances are, if you grew up here, you have your own cheese curd story. Nearly every local who walks through the door can remember back to the day when everyone knew Ig’s schedule and came down for a bag of fresh, salty, wiggly looking chunks of heaven.

For those of you not in the know about cheese curds, it sucks to be you. With a following not unlike that of a popular doughnut chain that advertises their product with  “HOT NOW!” neon signage, a fresh cheese curd frenzy can decimate a shop’s stock in less time than a clearance sale at Nordstrom Rack. Compared to the sound of “balloons trying to neck”, curds have a freaky-deaky texture that creates a squeaky noise on your teeth as you chew. The fresher the curd, the better the squeak action. Kids, as expected, go bonkers over them. I was lucky to have experienced them as a kid in the northeast, and if I had Fresh Curd Radar, I’d eat more cheese.

Part of this externship package was the opportunity to do some cheesemaking with the Rogue all-stars. When your little adopted home state of Oregon KICKS THE WORLD’S ASS at making blue cheese (or, Bleu, for the rest of the planet), you don’t miss a chance to play with them. You just know that if they have blue cheese right, they got it goin’ on elsewhere.

I could write a full posting here on the lovely history and legend of this amazing little creamery, but screw you. Get your ass down here and be charmed in person. You deserve a good romantic story and a few bites of cheese while you listen to the tale and you press your nose against the glass as the cheesemakers work right in front of you.  I can’t do that for you. What I will tell you, though, is all about my three days with Rogue Creamery.

“Wanna do some Cheesemongering?”

Sure!

My first two days at the creamery were all about the end product. With two full cases of creamy goodness to play in, I got to learn a little about the cheeses made at Rogue. I also got to scope out other creameries around the country/world that they think are pretty cool, as their favorites are on sale as well. Tom, the Grand Fromage Hawker, was just in from co-winning the award for the nation’s best cheesemonger, so I was lucky enough to be taken under wing by the Dude Himself. Juggling cheese knives and a whole host of other things, he took whatever time he could give me to help me settle in at the shop. Day one was a little bit of Watch And Learn, with a little sampling here and there. Day two, with the help of the girls, I got to take off like a rocket.

In the quiet morning time  I was told, “Hey, taste whatever you want!” and like a good student, did what I was instructed. I made my way through the Rogue case, mostly cheddars with all kinds of flavors from lavender, rosemary and chocolate stout to three levels of heat by way of chipotle, cayenne and habanero. As far as the blue cheeses go, the smokey one had just come back as the top smoked cheese in the nation, so it warranted sampling, along with the sexiest Caveman I have ever run into. With a room temperature texture like soft frosting, not unlike a brie once it hits the mouth, Caveman has salt crystals that burst upon your tongue and just make you damned happy. I believe we sold out the stock in the shop on my second day, and we sent fore more wheels. We didn’t have the seasonal Rogue Blue, the other national award winner on hand, as it is not ready for release until September.

I stuck my head into the other case and quickly designed a suit that would keep me warm, yet agile as I slept in the case at night and pigged out during the day. Resisting the urge to embarrass myself like the dude in Chocolat on Easter Eve, I sliced dainty portions of some of the most killer cultures known. I fell madly in love with a grape leaf filled with a smoked chevre cheese that made me weep. I sent my buddy Erin porno shots of a knob of Constant Bliss, a brie-like cheese with sexy white mold and a creamy center… I think I made her day.

I got my orders. Literally.

I was put in touch with the plant manager, Craig. Over the course of a few emails, I quickly figured out that this guy was something special. I get few emails that are correctly punctuated, well constructed, informative and deserving of standing while reading them. When I met Craig on day three, I understood why. An Iraqi war vet, he runs the plant of the creamery like a military exercise, and with incredible result. Employing the methods of brilliant efficiency and experience that only the US military can impart in a member of the service, Craig had that place organized, fluid, immaculate and inspection ready at every second of the day.

Donning the appropriate attire, I clomped into the creamery “make room” in very fashionable rubber boots (Again with the borrowed boots! I knew I should have brought my hot pink and black Chookas down with me!). Once inside, I splashed through the sanitizer bath and settled in to see what was what. One look told me that I was in the presence of a very sanitary domain and I was perfectly safe eating off the floor if I so desired. In fact, Craig told me that he even swabs the cracks and has them cultured for safety. Like I could not tell by looking at him, right?? The dude has his shit DOWN.

We watched the delivery truck await the status of their shipment. Some lucky devil, certified to do so, gets to climb up on top of that milk truck, rain or shine, and test the milk for the presence of antibiotics and other undesirable lurkers that may disqualify the batch. The load also has to be checked for another complicating factor- breakdown.  If the truck is partially filled and sloshes too much during transportation, a bad yet tasty problem occurs. A load of butter is not gonna do jack for the farmer’s morale when the truck is turned around, so its in the driver’s best interest to baby the tanker en route.

Craig handles the pasteurizing process. Placed between the receiving silo and the warming vat on the make floor, Craig is THE dude in charge of heating the milk to standards (or above) and that is some serious shit to be in charge of. I would tell you more about the gadgets, gizmos and time/temperature gear, but I was sworn to secrecy. I also can’t tell you about the concoctions tossed into the vat besides flavoring agents, so don’t go sniffing around here.

How It Goes

Vern and Russ, my two guides for the day, were the cheesemakers in attendance.  With vast and varied cheesemaking experience between them, I was in for a good ride.  It started with watching about 8000 gallons of buff colored milk flow into a warm, jacketed stainless steel vat the size of a city bus, only three feet deep. Seeing milk like that, fresh out of the cow and tinted a shade of pale gold (beta carotene from the yummy diet) was unreal. Pouring out of the pipe into the vat came a cascade of aromatic moo juice that instantly made me think of footie pajamas, puppy breath, chocolate chip cookies and my childhood blue blankie with the satin rubbed off the trim. It was not sexy, it was comforting.

While the vat filled, Russ and Vern set up the pressing block molds for later than afternoon. Inside metal jackets was placed a nylon cheesecloth, well, to wrap around the cheese, of course! This mold would later be filled, wrapped and then closed up.

The great balancing act began once the vat was filled with the warmed, pasteurized goods. Digital thermometers were dragged through the ever-stirred milk and at a very specific temperature and pH, the race was on. Whist I stared at the ceiling and whistled, conspicuously not looking at the vat, a toss or two of something went into the milk. From this point forward, the constant vigilance of monitoring and balancing acid, temperature and time of exposure to heat was paramount to a successful outcome- a kick ass cheddar cheese.

What exactly was tossed into the milk is nunya bizness, but know that it stabilized the milk and began the happy little buzz of life that leads to the makings of a cheese curd. Vern showed Russ and me a nifty technique to check just when the viscosity of the milk was close to set enough- he floated a plastic cup along the surface of the liquid and when it ceased to travel after a small push, the liquid was binding together. He showed me a manual test to see how the curd was “healing” with a splitting over the fingers when drawn upwards through the solids.

It dawned upon me shortly thereafter that “handmade” cheese is really hand made, as in- hands have got to be in it. So much of cooking and baking is by feel, and experienced hands, like palates, tell of the progress of a food as it is being prepared. This is no different.  In other cheesemaking establishments that are fully automated, it is strictly forbidden to have direct contact with the product in any stage. That tells me that the cows supplying the milk must be on such strict diets and physical activity restrictions in order to produce consistent milk so that the automation process flows much smoother.  This, thoretically, eliminates the margin of error in multiple batch production, I suppose, as the cow can never have a day off to go mow down a field of clover and have their milk turn anything but lily white. I doubt a happy cow on bagged chow  gives gorgeous, natural milk the likes of what Rogue receives. Sounds like I am never buying crap cheese ever again, sorry Brian!

When the curds  are set to the proper density, the game changes. A frame with horizontal wires is run down the vat. Mirroring that, another frame is run alongside which bears vertical wires. A do-si-do between Vern and Russ gets the curds cut into long rectangular blocks. One more pass width-wise yields a small cube of curd, not unlike the tofu one sees at the stir-fry counter at New Seasons. At this point, I began to have flashbacks of my last kayak trip with Brian. With the automated Stirrers Of Death clawing up and down the vat in a spiral like in some Ray Bradbury film adaptation, it was time to rake the curds. I got a rake, dug into all the far corners of the vat and got to paddle, in essence, until my arms fell off. No, seriously. With the vat being heated by steam, I was melting as I paddled to save my curds from imminent clumpage. I looked down at one point and found one of my arms had vanished. Collecting myself, I hauled my tired ass and body parts to the break lounge for ice water and limb reattachment. The workout was awesome, if not a bit much for an 86 degree room filled with milk steam vapors.

As the process of curding is going on, much testing and scribbling down of data is done. Nope, its not just a simple matter of tossing stuff into milk and hoping it goes your way like we home cheesemakers do. The whole process from filling the vat to loading the press forms is vigilantly monitored and gently manipulated by hand in the desired direction using heat or cooling as needed to keep the bacteria happy and the cheese on target.  Russ and Vern are also chemists, it seems, and they read the roadmap of each vat carefully. There is no QC department checking behind them like Inspector 12- They ARE the inspectors. Tell me the Cheez Whiz folks do the same thing and I will parade through Pioneer Square in my birthday suit at lunchtime.

Somehow, through a miracle of artistry, Vern and Russ wrangle all the curds into one end of the vat behind a dam of rakes and a drain basket. The plug is pulled and the whey drains off, revealing the curds. Leftover whey is returned to the farm for reutilization as animal feed or fertilizer. I kept wanting to grab jugs and fill them for Brian, the man who can, and just about does, live on whey protein alone. Once the curds were drained enough to get pushed around, the cheddaring process began.

I got to learn something that day. Cheddar, I was told, is a process of cheesemaking, not a flavor of cheese. The way the curd is stacked, compressed and folded constitutes the given name, denoting the style of make. The aging process gives the sharpness (or lack thereof), and at Rogue, there is no booster used to lend that chalky, flaky or tannic flavor as with most commercial, short-attention-spanned manufacturers.  This, like all Rogue cheeses, is left to the cow and the aging for flavor and texture, not some dude at the switch of the “Additive X” machine.

The workout did not abate. I got to help wrassle the curds into two lengthwise slabs along the bottom of the vat. Yes, that meant leaning over the vat, cutting off all femoral circulation, and scooping up stray curds, pressing them into a block with rakes and then, when the temp and time was right, going back into the vat to do it all over again. The guys wielded the knife and cut the slabs into 12X12 blocks once the curds had settled enough to compress themselves. The exercise began in earnest… Leaning into the vat, flipping blocks of curd that feel and weigh much like 20 pounds of silly putty, and trying to stack them on top of one another so that they stick is just not a job for anyone of any body design. One should not be wimpy in the back and arms, like me. One should also not have a skewed center of gravity, lest they find themselves in flying superhero position, feet off the ground, trying not to fall face- first into the vat. This is what is affectionately known as “Captain Curd-ing”, and I promised not to draw attention to the only one with close enough official rank to actually be the namesake of the term. I also think if I tell you who earned the name, he might send out a strike force and have me “neutralized”. Suffice to say, I do not have that physique, and I am grateful to have not embarrassed myself.

The slabs of curd get cut and stacked about four tall, with temperature and time intervals being checked to yield the best texture for the cheese curd itself.  Once the set is right, the fun part begins. Out comes the old Shred-O-Matic from the 1950’s.  With wheeled blades and a set of spinning tines like an old fashioned push lawnmower, this gadget takes slabs of curd and cuts them into cute little rectangular wormies. This is some fun stuff to watch.

Salt. Its a miracle mineral. Its hygroscopic- loves water. It makes food taste good.  It changes everything on a cheese curd. With a pail full of the white stuff, Russ made three separate passes with fistfuls of salt over the curds and let them get stirred in. With each addition, the pH would change, a little more of the happy bacteria would pass away, water would be drawn from the curd and flavor would infuse into it. A miracle of osmosis leaves us with that wonder of wonders- Squeaky Cheese!

Not to be satisfied with just any cheddar, three cases of Rogue Brewery’s Morimoto Soba Ale was dumped into the vat and left to marinate, if you will, for a short time. I gotta tell ya, after almost 6 hours of this cheesemaking stuff, that beer was smelling damned fine, and I don’t even like beer.

With energy fading, I was happy to let the guys do the rest of the heavy lifting. Curs were weighed and evenly distributed between the metal cases that were lined with cloth earlier in the morning. I pressed the curds down, gift wrapped them, placed sanitized lids on top and let Russ flip the cases on their sides. A pair of hydraulic presses started in on rows of curd cases and, lo, a block of cheese was born! Left to compress and drain overnight, the blocks would be unmolded in the morning, wrapped in vacuum sealed bags and left to age for four months until cutting time. Yeah, right. I can just see Kraft waiting four months for ANYTHING…

When Cary and David took over the creamery, it was declared that if one made curds, one was allowed to take a small bag home with them. A nice touch. I stood outside in the hot afternoon sun, along that unremarkable stretch of road with a bag of something remarkable in my hand. I savored each and every single note squeaking upon my enamel, the entire bag of curds never ever making it into a refrigerator. Hand made, hand fed. The way it should be. And that, cheese fans, is how you win awards- with everyone’s hands in there.

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