Artisan Cheese Festival

California’s main cheese event happens next weekend, Friday, the 23rd thru the 25th, in Santa Rosa. For a cheese nerd, this hits all the right buttons.

On Friday, there are farm tours (including a stop at this writer’s own farm – Straus Home Ranch – tickets are still available).

A Best Bite Competition where chefs and cheesemongers come up with their best ideas, pays tribute to those brave and hardworking, first responders of the recent fires.

On Saturday, industry experts instruct on pairings with charcuterie to beer and wine and how to judge cheese.

Then start your evening with a cheese and cocktail pairing.

On Sunday, you can start your morning with a cheese and bubbly brunch.

Then, besides the farm tours (which I LOVE), comes my own favorite event: the Sunday Marketplace. Here you meet 115 producers of cheese, wine, beer, ciders and other specialty foods. One ticket gets you access to tastes galore, including both current and new cheeses while meeting the cheesemakers themselves.

This year the festival has moved from Petaluma to the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds. But parking comes FREE with your ticket purchase.

To purchase tickets, click HERE.  See you there!

Care for a bit of Cheese by the Lake?

I remember coming to Marin French Cheese Company as a child and drooling over their Breakfast Cheese, a tiny round of a young cheese.  It’s like they wrapped it, not quite finished (which can often be a very tasty time in a cheese’s life – depending on the cheese), and let us in on a tasty secret. At less than $4.00, it’s delicious and a great intro into the oldest continually operating creamery in the country.  Over 150 years old!

Then pick up some rustic bread, a salami or jam, some drinks (or they even pre-make sandwiches for you), and have your picnic on the lake just beside their shop and creamery.  

It’s a lovely lake surrounded by weeping willows. Perfect for the family, or dare I say it…romance.  

Inside their shop, you can also sample and buy their cheese as well as rounds from their partner company, Laura Chenel’s.  

Marin French is on the way to both Nicasio Valley Cheese Company (another creamery and cheese shop nearby) and Point Reyes. If you’re going for a hike or wanting to shop in Point Reyes, this is a good first stop along the way. 

Marin French is open 7 days a week, 8:30am-5:00pm. Nicasio Valley is also open 7 days a week, 10:00am-5:00pm.

Next Blog: What about that Mold?

The California Cheese Map is Out!

For the first time EVER, a map shows you every open cheesemaker in California. Address, hours and tour instructions included.

Traveling Highway 99 in the Central Valley? You’ve been passing some pretty great cheese.  

Gold Country? There are small, sweet farms waiting to show you around.  

Pick up fresh mozzarella and ricotta direct from a Los Angeles creamery.  

Travel the north coast and get a grilled cheese by the crashing waves.  

Pet a goat on the Central Coast.

The San Francisco Bay Area. Well, you knew it was all there, but maybe you didn’t know the specifics.  Now you do!

Download the map online, order a free copy to be sent to you, or if you’re a tourism office or business, pick up boxes of maps to hand out. 

The farms and cheese and cheesemakers are all waiting for you.

 

Goats & Rustic Cheeses

bohemian-creamery

Lisa Gottreich’s goat cheeses at Bohemian Creamery have the rustic look that reminds you of a European back road discovery. Imperfect rinds and bold tastes. This is the newest stop on the Sonoma cheese trail.

Here you’ll find a case full of rustic cheeses made from goats (which are sitting in the pasture just behind the shop), cows, sheep and water buffalo and every combination you can imagine. You won’t find these cheeses in a store, so stock up. You’ll be offered a taste of each before requesting a wedge or two be wrapped up for the road.

Caproncino Goats & Rustic Cheeses California Cheese Trail

Lisa has also been making a very unique whey frozen yogurt and whey sodas; light icy treats infused with a different flavor each day

The shop is just along Occidental Road outside Sebastopol amidst several wineries. Open Friday-Sunday, 10:00am-6pm.  Plan a day stopping at several Sonoma county cheesemakers by clicking here.

Bohemian Goat Goats & Rustic Cheeses California Cheese Trail