One of Sonoma County’s most creative artisanal creameries, Bohemian Creamery offers a variety of goat, cow, sheep, and bufala milk cheeses.
Bohemian Creamery is a one-of-kind creamery with over 17 different cheeses on its roster. Owned by Lisa Gottreich, it lies just a mile outside downtown Sebastopol California on a hilltop overlooking the Laguna de Santa Rosa, the Mayacama mountains and their herd of Alpine dairy goats.
It’s Lisa’s creativity that makes this place so unique. Each cheese looks, smells and tastes different than any cheese you’ve ever tried. Lisa mixes milks and tries out combinations of cultures that make her tiny creamery explode with passion and color. You will find her cheeses on the menu at some of the best Bay Area restaurants.
With goats on-site, and spring clover enriching their milk, the wild blue rye molds powder the natural rind cheeses and the salty marine layer infuses the aging rooms. It is here where the inspiration for all Lisa’s unique goat, sheep and cow cheeses are born. Best of all, the shop is open and Lisa leads a fantastic tour that truly explains how cheese is made. You will walk away so well-informed.
Twist & Shout – Shaped from a 1,200 year old remedy presented to the Queen of Sicily to lift her from her dark spirits. A sheep’s milk cheese infused with saffron and toasted peppercorns then cooked for hours in its own whey before it is aged for a three month minimum. Smaller format is dipped into beeswax for a softer, sweeter confection. Photo by Lena KaralnikBo Peep – a small, semi-soft round of bloomy ripened sheep milk cheese, mild and richly moist. Perfect with fresh fruit or compote. Photo by Mission CheeseBoho Belle – Is made with organic Jersey cow milk in the Bel Paese tradition. Each wheel is aged 6-8 weeks to allow for the natural development of geotrichum, a thin layer of white mold that enhances the vanilla flavors of this soft, rich cheese and helps maintain its deep, yellow rind. A semi-soft paste, Boho Belle is the perfect finish to any dessert. Its creamy texture and subtle finish pair nicely with bolder wines and fresh fruit.
Poco Loco – a soft-ripened wonderfully gooey round of bright white delectable water buffalo milk cheese laced with a sprinkling of Italian ground coffee bean for something entirely different. Balanced between fresh and ripe, perfect with summer salads, bread and fruit, but with enough power to sidle up to bolder wines.
Surf and Turf – an organic goat’s milk cheese ripened to a soft thickness in a St. Maure style cylinder, then rolled through a layer of Sonoma Coast harvested toasted nori seaweed and lightly aged.
Scroll through your Instagram feed these days and you’ll find people taking their cheese board designs to the next level. What’s great is that you can really use anything you want. You can be creative and use cheeses, fruits and ingredients that you like.
Be you and let your personality shine through! Here are 5 of our favorites this month!
Tickets on sale now for this cheese festival, coming this March 27-29, 2020
This cheese festival brought to you by The California Artisan Cheese Guild, brings together cheesemakers, farmers, educators, authors, chefs, cheese mongers, brewers, distillers, and winemakers from all over California for three days of cheese tasting, education and celebration.
Tickets for all of the weekend’s events are now on sale, including:
Attend the guided walking tours and you will learn how cheese, ciders, and other products are made. You will get to meet the producers, farmers, and cheesemakers behind their favorite local products.
“Tucked in the rolling hills of Two Rock, you’ll meet Don and Bonnie DeBernardi at the DeBernardi Dairy. The DeBernardi Dairy is now home to Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese as well. Spring is kidding season and there isn’t a better – or cuter – time to meet the “kids,” the newest floppy-eared additions to their farm.
Taste Don’s farmstead cheese which pays tribute to his family’s Swiss heritage. Continue on to AppleGarden Farm where you’ll meet owner Jan Lee who, along with her husband, transformed former grazing land near the historic town of Tomales into an organic orchard.
Tour the farm, learn about cider apples, dry farming, and taste the fruits of their labor! Third generation dairy farmers, the Lafranchi family has been ranching in Nicasio for one hundred years, and began crafting farmstead cheese with organic milk from their herd of Holsteins in 2010. Tour their beautiful pastures, visit the creamery, and taste their award-winning cheeses that capture the sense of place on this 1,150-acre family ranch.”
Seminars & Pairing Demos
Seminars and Pairing Demonstrations to take place at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa, Relish Culinary Adventures in Healdsburg, and Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates & Gardens in Fulton.
Here is an example of one of the seminars featuring author & winemaker Janet Fletcher. Seminar 3: Cheers to Cheese!
“To kick your cheese course up a notch, open a bubbly. In the session, we’ll pop the cork on fine sparkling wines from California’s acclaimed Roederer Estate and sample them with cheeses that rise to the occasion. From triple crèmes to aged wheels to buttery blues, many cheeses love that effervescence. Planet Cheese publisher Janet Fletcher and a Roederer Estate winemaker will be your guides in this tasty look at the age-old romance between bubbles and cheese. “
Planet Cheese publisher Janet Fletcher and a Roederer Estate winemaker will be your guides in this tasty look at the age-old romance between bubbles and cheese. “
Visit the California Artisan Cheese Festival website for more information and details about the festival. You can buy your tickets here. We can’t wait to see you at the festival! Cheers!
Looking for that once in a lifetime cheese making experience? This class is for you! Upon arrival you will roll up your sleeves, put on a hairnet and get your hands wet in a Vat full of curds and whey! You will learn how to use the equipment and see the cheese aging room before being treated to a full ranch tour that includes everything from the Milking parlor to the Loafing barn. Naturally there will be plenty of cheese tasting before lunch in their family party room.
“Trust us when we say that this party is like no party you’ve ever attended. This is a have-to-be-there, FOMO-inducing, adrenaline-pumping cheesesplosion. Expect rabid cheese fans. Expect a grown man in a cow costume. Expect a lot of cheese — like, whatever you’re imagining is a lot of cheese? Imagine more. You honestly haven’t lived until you’ve cheered at the top of your lungs (with a mouth full of brie) for someone to cut a perfect quarter pound of cheese on a stage in front of hundreds of like minded cheese heads.”
The next Cheesemonger Invitational is January 19th, 2020 at 4PM The Midway (located at 900 Marin St, San Francisco, CA 94124)
From crisp and lean to rich and warming, this class introduces winter-friendly wines perfect for the colder seasons. Cheese expert Laura Werlin will introduce you to her favorite wines to keep you warm and the delicious winter cheeses that love them.
Time: 6:00 – 8:00pm Date: Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 Instructor: Laura Werlin Location: This class will be held at our home in Ghirardelli Square! Address: 900 North Point Street, SF CA 94109
Visit Cowgirl Creamery’s original creamery for a 60-minute presentation on West Marin, their beginnings, and their cheese. You’ll get an up-close curd-making demonstration and a guided tasting of all of the Cowgirl Creamery cheeses.
Explore three award winning creameries and sample local artisan cheeses, right where they are made. Enjoy exclusive visits to dairy farms and frolic with the sheeps, goats and cows! Learn all about cheesemaking from local experts and taste over a dozen artisan cheeses. Savor a locavore picnic in the beautiful countryside.
Enjoy all these events in cheese this month! For a complete list of California cheese events visit our events page here.
Bivalve Dairy, a 6th generation farming family, and one of California’s newest cheesemakers, is expanding its line of cheese, using milk from their farm that’s located on the pristine and iconic Tomales Bay of Marin County.
Bivalve Dairy’s Railcar 924
The texture of Railcar 924 cheese makes it the ultimate melter for your favorite holiday dishes. It’s great in Potatoes Au Gratin or a classic fondue.
Mendonca: A Portuguese-style island cheese with tangy and grassy flavors, ends with a spicy, piquant finish. Perfect for a cured meat and cheese board.
Mt. Vision: A cheese with fresh cream and salted butter flavors that develop into lemongrass, sage and white pepper closer to the rind. (don’t you love these descriptors?)
Available alongside existing Bivalve favorites (you’ve got to try their Foundry Fresh), can be found at San Francisco’s Stonestown and Marin Civic Center Farmers Markets. The cheeses are worth the trip.
California cheesemakers have great gifts for the holidays. Here’s a list of them. Get your orders in before Christmas!
Cheese Trail Home Delivery
New for the holidays in 2021, the Cheese Trail has begun offering curated collections of farmstead cheeses and local delicacies, supporting California’s cheesemakers, farmers, and artisan producers. $69-$99. Free delivery in California, +$20 to all other states (excluding AK & HI). Shop our collections.
Mt. Tam Cowgirl Creamery • Petaluma, CA As a respectful nod to the majestic beauty of Mt Tamalpais, located a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, Cowgirl Creamery named its signature cheese Mt Tam. Creamy and elegant, Mt Tam coats your tongue with a rich, buttery flavor that carries an earthy hint of white mushrooms. The triple-cream Mt Tam is made from unblended, organic, single-herd milk from the Straus Family Creamery. (8 oz)
Artisan Crisps Rustic Bakery • Petaluma, CA Rustic Bakery provides these sweet and crunchy crisps made with simple, high-quality ingredients–a fabulous accompaniment to artisan cheese. (5 oz)
Cowgirl Creamery Cooks book Between them, Cowgirl co-founders Sue Conley and Peggy Smith spent decades in the Bay Area’s most loved and respected restaurants. Cowgirl Creamery Cooks collects 75 of their favorite recipes for cooking with cheese, as well as their vast accumulated wisdom about tasting, buying, serving, and appreciating all kinds of cheese. More than 60 photographs of delicious cheeses, finished dishes, and the rolling hills of coastal California from celebrated Canal House photographers Hirsheimer & Hamilton narrate the story of the Cowgirls, the rise of the organic dairy movement, and the enjoyment of good cheese.
Wow your guests with this impressive set that includes just about everything you need to get the party started. This set includes eight cheeses plus jam, chocolate, and flatbread crackers from three incredible Northern California specialty food artisans. Mango Habanero and Raspberry Habanero jams .
Treat yourself or send a party in a basket for the beautiful experience of Marin County’s finest. This collection is a sampler of our unique cheeses and two of Marin’s finest artisan accompaniments.
Includes 3 8-ounce wheels (2015 ACS Winner Traditional Brie, Triple Creme Brie and Camembert) , 3 4-ounce wheels (Petite Breakfast, Petite Supreme and Petite Truffle), our local honey (Marin French Cheese Honey by Bonnie Bee — harvested on our creamery ranch!), Jamnation Can You Fig It fig jam handcrafted in San Francisco and our favorite California spreader knife.
When you’re planning a get-together and need a festive board or a special delight in seasonality, this selection of six farmstead cheeses—all handmade in small batches at the farm—will bring a unique taste of place to the table! Includes our fresh chèvre Laychee, a seasonal Laychee*, a round of Velvet Sister and wedges of our raw, aged Boont Corners.
A Trio of Interviews beginning with Soterios talking with Ryan Friesen, head distiller at the Blinking Owl distillery in Santa Ana. Friesen is also the vice president of the California Distiller’s Guild and has no shortage of recommendations for the adventurous imbiber.
Listen to the podcast down below. Vivien comes in at around the 12:53 mark. Enjoy!
Johnson is next joined by California Cheese Trail founder Vivien Straus. This self-described “cheese girl” grew up on the West Coast’s first organic dairy farm, and has a lot to say about the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds of a California creamery.
Finally, Johnson chats with Lucas Kwan Peterson, host of the Los Angeles Times’ new video series, Off Menu, which chronicles his culinary explorations of Southern California—particularly the rich Asian culinary scene he discovered there.
Ah the holidays are here. That also means our favorite seasonal cheeses are back!
Cowgirl Creamery’s seasonal Devil’s Gulch
Cowgirl Creamery’s winter seasonal cheese, Devil’s Gulch, starts with organic Holstein milk from John and Karen Taylor’s Bivalve Dairy. The rich, bloomy rind wheels are dusted with a mixture of sweet and spicy ground heirloom peppers from Allstar Organics.
Flavor notes: Bright, sweet spice tempered by the rich creaminess of the paste
Devil’s Gulch is named for a narrow ravine carved along the base of Mt. Barnaby, just down the road from the Allstar Organic Farm in Marin County.
Here we have a limited-edition cheese made with fresh goat milk, diced cranberries and a touch of cinnamon.
Enjoy the combination of sweet-tart cranberries and tangy fresh goat cheese all season long crumbled over an autumn salad, in a sandwich, or paired with dried fruit, candied nuts, charcuterie and celebratory libations.
Come check out the cheesiest new spot in Santa Cruz, California.
Photos – Central Coast Creamery
Santa Cruz is known for it’s scenic coastal views, surf spots and of course its famous boardwalk. Now you can find some of California’s best cheese in town. Last month, Central Coast Creamery opened its fantastic shop in Abbott Square Market.
You’ll also find sheep milk and cow milk ice cream from Negranti Creamery.
To celebrate their one month anniversary, they just recently launched their delectable grilled cheese menu.
Whether you’re heading to Santa Cruz to hit the waves or to play some carnival games at the Boardwalk, stop by Central Coast Creamery at Abbott Square Market to round up your trip.
Our hearts go out to all those this week affected by the California fires.
It’s always heart-warming to see community to come out to support each other; from opening homes to evacuees, to finding room for livestock (yes!) and feeding those who are hungry.
We are grateful to the firefighters and all that helped during this time. As of Thursday, the Kincaide Fire was 60% contained. May Southern CA be on the mend soon as well.
Support local businesses that were affected by the fires as much as you can! Many of them had to stop operations for a period of time.
