Posts Tagged ‘cowgirl creamery’

Cowgirl Creamery – Petaluma Creamery Tour

April 6th, 2010

Last week I had the pleasure of an inside peek at Cowgirl Creamery’s cheesemaking operation on First Street in Petaluma. The original creamery is located in Point Reyes, but high demand for the drool-inducing Cowgirl cheese compelled them to open up another creamery in 2008. When I dropped in last week, they were making their newest year-round cheese, Wagon Wheel, and their seasonal spring cheese, St Pat.

Here are some snaps of the Cowgirls’ creamery on the banks of the Petaluma River, plus a few shots of the finished products and of the Cowgirls, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith, guest stars at the recent California Artisan Cheese Festival.

: Giant mixing vats for the organic milk, with round cheese molds (the white tables in front)

: Big round molds and cheese presses for Wagon Wheel, Cowgirl Creamery’s heavenly “everyday cheese.”

: Laying out rounds of St Pat, pre-aged

: Fuzzy rounds of St Pat, the seasonal spring cheese, out of the molds and ready to hang out in the aging room

: St Pat cheeses are wrapped in organic stinging nettles that have had the stingers removed.

: Spring and summer cheeses are thought to be the most flavorful because the cows that produced them have been munching on fresh green grass, which improves the quality of the milk.

: Inside the refrigerated aging room.

: Boxes of round cheeses stacked in the aging room

: First step to artisanal cheesemaking: Pasture

: Step 2: Breeding

: Step 3: Cheesemaking

: Step 4: Affinage

: Step 5: The Cheesemonger

: “My character can’t escape being in the cheese that I make.”

: A big vat for the organic milk that goes into the creamery …

: … and a vat for the whey that comes out. In the background: the Petaluma River and a Ghirardelli sign painted on a barn.

: Delivery truck outside the creamery, the first step in the cheeses’ journey to the far corners of the world.

: The finished products, with fabulous wines. St Pat is on the right; another seasonal cheese, Devil’s Gulch, is on the left

: Wagon Wheel in various stages of the aging process, from youngest (right) to oldest.

: The Cowgirls themselves, Sue Conley (left) and Peggy Smith, check out the wines paired with their cheeses at the 2010 California Artisan Cheese Festival

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Posted in Fooooooooood., Photo Galleries, Sonoma County, USA: California

Tags: cowgirl creamery om nom nom photos Sonoma USA: California

Five Delicious Finds in the Ferry Building

March 17th, 2010

If you’re visiting San Francisco, make sure you bring your appetite to its downtown gourmet hub, the Ferry Building. Here are some tasty treats you won’t regret checking out once you get there:

Fried foods-to-go at Delica. This fabulous Japanese deli serves yummy bento boxes and à la carte items, including kaki-age tempura, shrimp cake and potato croquette, fried to a perfect light crunch. My favorite is the kaki-age tempura, a haystack of veggies (burdock, carrots, onions and edamame) and shrimp in a light tempura coating.

Kaki-age Tempura

Mt. Tam triple-cream cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. Even if my cousin weren’t the fabulous Cowgirl herself, Sue Conley, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention their award-winning organic triple-cream Brie. It’s incredibly versatile, pairing well with many varietals of wine — its light, nutty, buttery taste and texture goes beautifully with white wines while its earthiness and depth of flavor pairs nicely with red. I love Mt. Tam with fresh fruit, fruit preserves and hearty wheat or olive-oil crackers. I always thought I could never get tired of Mt. Tam, and lately — having much greater access to cousin Sue — I’ve been testing that theory and have found so far that I’m right.

Mt. Tam cheese. OM NOM NOM

McEvoy Farms Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I love how light, yet rich and complex is this olive oil, which has strong green undertones that connect well with fresh herbs. I’ve been lucky enough to see and smell the olive trees lining the gorgeous, rolling hills of the McEvoy Ranch just north of San Francisco, and I’m angling for a tour of the place when springtime is in full swing. I’ll keep you posted.

McEvoy olives and olive oil. Photo by Slow Family Online

Béquet Sea Salt Caramels. The Farm Fresh to You store sells these (along with other drool-inducing impulse buys) in bins for 50 cents apiece at the checkout counter. Don’t miss the Celtic Sea Salt and Salt Chocolate caramel chews — silken, buttery caramels punctuated with bursts of salty crunch. The seductive texture and flavor combination will forever make unsalted caramel seem so blah.

When it comes to caramel, sea-salted is the way to go.

Tartlettes from Frog Hollow Farm. Fruit as at the heart of everything Frog Hollow Farm does, and fresh seasonal preserves go into these light, tart, sweet fresh-baked pastries. These tartlettes are pretty ideal at any time of the day — for breakfast with coffee, for dessert with crème fraîche, or at wine tastings topped with a slice of Mt. Tam cheese (above).