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The Cheese Insider

When Janice and I started our journey into the world of cheese six years ago I never imagined that it would lead us to where we are today.

It all started when Janice returned home from a trip to Madison, and her first visit to a Wisconsin cheese plant. She had been carrying a map in her car, produced by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, that shows where all the cheese-making plants, as well as many of the cheese shops, are located throughout the state. She had made a wrong turn south of Waupon and soon discovered that she was headed towards Waterloo. Rather than getting all worked up by this, she pulled her cheese map out and saw that there was a cheese plant four miles outside Waterloo, Craves Brothers Farmstead Cheese.

Janice navigated her way to the rural location, walked up and knocked on the door. There she met George and Debbie Crave, the head cheesemaker and his wife. They threw out the welcome mat and gave her a queen’s tour of their state-of-the-art cheese plant and dairy farm. The farm has over 1,200 cows and the majority of the milk they produced goes into making a variety of cheeses, including Mozzarella, Mascarpone, string/rope cheese, and a few other original cheeses that they created.

Since that chance encounter with the Crave’s, they have become friends, and now make an annual trip to Door County to teach a class at The Savory Spoon Cooking School in Ellison Bay. George and Debbie epitomize the local cheesemakers of Wisconsin – friendly, fun people that start every day with a good attitude.

Two weeks after Janice stumbled onto the Crave Brother’s farm, she talked me into taking a six-day road trip with the sole purpose of visiting as many cheese plants as we could fit in. We travelled over 1,100 miles on that trip and never left the state. We met so many cheesemakers and visited so many cheese plants that it is hard for me to remember them all. I do remember driving through the rolling hills of the driftless region of Wisconsin near the town of Cashton, looking for the Carr Valley cheese plant near LaValle.

The night before visiting the Carr Valley plant we found a small house to rent near Ontario, on the banks of the Kickapoo River. The first thing we noticed as we were settling in was the sound of horses going down the adjoining country roads. We soon discovered that we were in the heart of Amish country. Almost all the farms in that area are run by Amish families. The closet neighbor to the house we rented was a small farm that had a sign for bake goods and homemade candies nailed to a tree in front of the house. We wandered down there after dinner and were greeted by a swarm of young kids who quickly led us to the barn where their parents were milking the small herd of cows. The only lighting in the barn was by candle, and both parents were sitting on small stools while they hand-milked the cows. We really enjoyed talking with the family, and they could not have been nicer. This was truly a slice of ol’ world Americana.

The next day we continued our “cheese” journey to meet Sid Cook, the Master Cheesemaker of Carr Valley Cheese Company, what an interesting man he turned out to be. This plant typifies what Wisconsin had many of during the hey days of small cheese plants in Wisconsin. It was located on a four corners (roads), and surrounded by dairy farms, thus making it very easy to transport the milk before the introduction of the milk hauling trucks of today.

When we returned from that trip, I said to Janice: “Wow, I really liked those people we just met, why don’t we look into having a small artisan cheese shop.” Well, here we are five years later, selling great artisan cheese made right here in Wisconsin. If you haven’t experienced some of the great cheese being produced by a very small number of talented artisan cheesemakers, I urge you to do so. Here in Door County we have two cheesemakers worth checking out. Chris and Ann Renard of Renard’s Cheese, south of Sturgeon Bay, and Jesse Johnson of Door County Creamery in Sister Bay.

At our shop, Schoolhouse Artisan Cheese, in Egg Harbor, we feature the largest selection of artisan cheese made by some of the best cheesemakers in the state. We are continuing to look for new artisan cheeses; the only requirement is that they be really good, and that they be made in Wisconsin. Pretty simple formula, and really fun for us to do – eat great cheese and support the dairymen, dairywomen, and cheesemakers in our state.