The US has a huge appetite for sheep's milk cheese—it's the number one importer globally—but only around 1 percent of the sheep cheese we consume here comes from American creameries. There are a variety of reasons sheep's milk hasn't taken off in the US the way goat's milk products have in recent decades, but a ban against importing high-quality dairy sheep genetics from Europe is a big one. Now that the ban has been lifted, sheep dairies are working to catch up. Stef and Sue interview Portuguese-born animal scientist, breeding advisor, and cheese specialist Mariana Marques de Almeida, who's leading the way on this exciting effort. 

Mariana is working to seriously level up sheep dairying in the US with Ms. J and Co., a large Wisconsin sheep dairy and breeding project she opened in 2015. She and her business partners hope that by making high-quality genetics from her Spanish Assaf sheep available to farmers and selling great milk to existing sheep dairies, making sheep's milk cheese will become much more common here in the US than it has been. 

Links: 

More on Mariana and Ms. J and Co.: https://www.msjandco.com/

More on Sue & Birchrun Hills Farm: https://birchrunhillsfarm.com/

More on Stef & Valley Milkhouse: https://www.valleymilkhouse.com/

More on Alex: https://www.alexandrajones.net/

What kind of cheese did you eat when you were young? For Benita Kasbo, Syrian-American cheesemaker and owner of Kasbo's Market, the answer is jibneh, a savory, meltable brined cheese her family made at home when she was growing up in New Jersey. These days, Benita makes it for her own family, infusing each block of curd with fruity and floral mahlab, a fragrant spice made from ground cherry stones—and, since launching her business in 2020, she's been selling it through select outlets in New York City and North Jersey. In this interview, Benita shares her story and her mission to expand the definition of what cheese can be for the American palate with Stef and Sue. 

Links: 

More on Benita and Kasbo's Market: https://kasbosmarket.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/kasbosmarket

More on Sue & Birchrun Hills Farm: https://birchrunhillsfarm.com/

More on Stef & Valley Milkhouse: https://www.valleymilkhouse.com/

More on Alex: https://www.alexandrajones.net/

When Charuth van Beuzekom founded Dutch Girl Creamery outside Lincoln, Nebraska in the mid-2000s, there wasn't much in the way of educational resources for a beginning cheesemaker. Charuth shares the story of the grant-funded educational journey to cheesemaking locales around the world that got her started, her friendship with Sue (who was in a similar stage of her business around the same time), and how much her farm—and Nebraska's artisan cheesemaking scene—has changed in the past 20 years. Sue and Stef also ask Charuth about her cheeses, like the award-winning Rosa Maria and Dolle Mina (named for her activist mother), learn about how she and her husband juggle vegetable farming and milking goats, and get the story on how a tragic fire at the farm and creamery in 2021 became an opportunity to reimagine Dutch Girl's farming, cheesemaking, and business operations to be sustainable in a new era. 

Links: 

The famous photo of Charuth's Dutch activist mother with the Dolle Minas: https://publichistory.humanities.uva.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/origineel-1.jpeg (the words on their stomachs mean "my belly is my own")

More on Charuth & Dutch Girl Creamery: https://www.shadowbrk.com/

More on Sue & Birchrun Hills Farm: https://birchrunhillsfarm.com/

More on Stef & Valley Milkhouse: https://www.valleymilkhouse.com/

More on Alex: https://www.alexandrajones.net/

Sue, Stef, and Alex are back with more of the only podcast by cheesemakers, for cheesemakers! The new season drops Monday, Oct. 20, with new episodes released every 2 weeks. We're excited to share interviews with some of our favorite American artisan cheesemakers, including Molly Semler of Von Trapp Farmstead in Vermont, Charuth von Beuzekom of Dutch Girl Creamery in Nebraska, Allison Lakin of Lakin's Gorges Cheese in Maine, and more. We're talking about everything from homesteading to sheep genetics to immigrant cheese traditions to our favorite styles of feta, and we're so excited to share it all with you!

For more info: 

• Get in touch with us on our website / Facebook / Instagram
• Find Stefanie Angstadt at Valley Milkhouse / Instagram
• Reach Sue Miller at Birchrun Hills Farm / Instagram 
• Connect with Alexandra Jones on her website

Summertime is when cheesemakers and dairy farmers are at their busiest — and that’s saying something. So we’re taking a little break to make hay (literally!) while the sun shines, with brand new episodes with more cheesemakers we admire coming at you this fall. In the meantime, catch up on our back catalog, be sure to subscribe, and please rate and review us — it means so much. Thanks to all of you for your support, and we’ll be back in your ears soon with more cheesy content!

Startup dairy, diversifying the industry, creative milk marketing, racism, income inequality, the urban-rural divide — we dig into all these important topics and more in today’s interview with our good friend Rebecca Seidel, farmer-cheesemaker at the forthcoming One Horn Farm! She’s a third-generation dairy farmer reviving her family’s Berks County dairy who brings a really unique perspective on dairy thanks to her agricultural upbringing, off-farm education, and a decade of experience in dairy and cheesemaking. Such an inspiring chat! Follow Rebecca on Instagram @caseinmicelles and Twitter @casein_micelles for her thoughts on ag and news about One Horn Farm’s upcoming debut.

On today’s episode, the cheese dames chat with Mark Gillman, second-generation cheesemaker at Connecticut's Cato Corner Farm! Mark is one of the crew of cheesemakers collaborating on the Cornerstone Project, using an open-source recipe for making cheese with native cultures harvested from his own herd to best express the terroir of his farm. He’s also an award-winning cheesemaker — and his Bloomsday, a cheddar-esque washed rind wheel, is a featured guest cheese in Collective Creamery shares this coming week!

Our cheesemakers are back from their whirlwind trip to Vermont, where they got the chance to sit down with a true OG of American artisan sheep cheese, David Major of Vermont Shepherd! David has been raising sheep and making award-winning wheels on his Putney farm for 30 years, and now, the third generation of his family has joined in on the cheesemaking fun. In this episode, we talk with David about what it was like to start a sheep dairy way back when (buying plastic bowls from the drugstore and drilling holes in them for molds, for example), cheese marketing, and how much the sheep cheese scene has changed.

When we first interviewed Kate Turcotte at the American Cheese Society Conference last summer, she and her husband were preparing to take over cheesemaking operations at Vermont’s iconic Orb Weaver Farm. Now, they’re up and running as Orb Weaver Creamery and experimenting with new cheeses, so we went back up to Vermont to get an update. Plus, you’ll get to hear from our amazing producer, Jordan Heil, on mic for the first time!

Don’t forget: Collective Creamery subscriptions for Summer 2019 are on sale now! Households in Southeast PA and Spring Lake, NJ can sign up for our summer season of cheese (shipping to surrounding states will return when the weather cools in the fall). Click here for more info.

Our cheesemakers spent this past weekend cruising through the farm fields of New England, gathering even more maker interviews for future episodes — so we’re busting this interview with Sean Fitzgerald of Cherry Grove Farm out of the archives! This episode is a perfect companion to our last ep featuring Sean’s co-cheesemaker Paul Lawler. We hope you enjoy!

For Pennsylvania folks: our Summer Cheese Share is now open! Find out more and sign up for a season of cheese with Collective Creamery here.