{"id":46062,"date":"2023-06-09T12:37:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T16:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culturecheesemag.com\/?p=46062"},"modified":"2023-09-19T15:12:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:12:49","slug":"the-hot-list-9-cheese-stars-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturecheesemag.com\/stories\/the-hot-list-9-cheese-stars-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hot List: 9 Cheese Stars to Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cheesemaking is steeped in tradition, some of which extends back thousands of years. These ancient ways and the dedicated people who keep them alive are worth venerating, while at the same time it\u2019s exciting to watch those blazing cheese trails in new directions. The following stories spotlight nine trailblazers whose contributions to the wide world of cheese are already impressive, and we can\u2019t wait to see what they do next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Spilled Milk Creative<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kyra James<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cheese Educator | Own Your Funk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheese was the happiest accident of my life,\u201d says Kyra James, who was introduced to the cheese world while working at Formaggio Kitchen in Boston. With a plan to work in food marketing, she originally took the job to help pay for a Master\u2019s in Gastronomy at Boston University. \u201cI thought I wanted to work for corporate America,\u201d James says. \u201cOnce I learned about cheese, I wanted to stay as close to the land and the animals as I could.\u201d She drew on her customer service background to focus on cheese education, working as the food and wine program manager at the Boston Center for Adult Education, and during the pandemic as the virtual event manager for Antonelli\u2019s Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas, hosting online tastings for clients such as Capital One and the University of Texas. \u201cThe best part of that was learning about Antonelli\u2019s culture and their brand behind the scenes, because they\u2019re so good at staying true to who they are,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, while achieving personal success through sobriety, \u201cmy attention was heightened to how disenfranchised cultures lean on addictive substances while also seeing their growing disconnects to the food they eat,\u201d James says. At the height of the pandemic, she launched Own Your Funk<\/a> (OYF) to help bring food education and empowerment to people who look like her. \u201cOwn Your Funk embodies more than cheese. It\u2019s about understanding who you are from the outside in\u2014using your senses and learnings as power to thrive in the ever-changing American food space.\u201d One of her recent projects was developed for the Carter Burden\/Leonard Covello Senior Program in East Harlem, New York. After they received a grant for innovative education in their nutrition program, they reached out to her about a one-hour cheese tasting. She ended up presenting a four-part series: The first session started virtually in Vermont, where she introduced participants to a dairy farm and the cheesemaking process. The second and third sessions were \u201cCheese 101\u201d and nutrition-focused, respectively, and the final session was a live cheese tasting. \u201cThe progression of knowledge made them more open to trying the cheeses,\u201d James says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now back in her hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, she\u2019s pitched similar customized educational programs to other organizations while substitute teaching, coaching track, and developing consumer-facing experiences for OWF. A board member for the Cheese Culture Coalition<\/a> and a member of the American Cheese Society<\/a> Education Committee, James is working on several fronts to reach a more diverse audience for cheese. \u201cI focus on meeting people where they are,\u201d she says. \u201cMy hope is that if we offer it and talk about cheese in a new way, they will be more interested in being part of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Valery Rizzo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Caroline Hesse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Proprietor | C. Hesse Cheese<\/a> | Brooklyn, N.Y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Caroline Hesse launched her distribution company, C. Hesse Cheese, last fall, it was somewhat of a natural transition from her previous job at Crown Finish Caves in Brooklyn, New York, which shuttered in May 2022. \u201cAs Crown Finish was closing and I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, opening my business felt like the path of least resistance,\u201d she says. \u201cCrown Finish really trained me so well to run a small business. Over my six years there, I onboarded new customers, I did the cold calling, I did the tastings, invoicing, fulfillment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At C. Hesse Cheese, Hesse carries about 20 cheeses from four to five different producers, primarily American artisan makers, plus Switzerland\u2019s Jumi. Most of her business is to wholesale customers but she also has an online shop for consumers. Because she doesn\u2019t require minimum orders, many of her clients are small retailers. \u201cI love helping them build their programs,\u201d she says. There\u2019s such a wealth of cheeses out there that I want to carry and represent, but I\u2019m trying not to bite off more than I can chew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hesse first told me about the plans for her business at the 2022 Summer Fancy Food Show in New York, shortly after Crown Finish Caves closed. She had thought about going into consulting but wanted to be more directly involved with the cheese. \u201cI had customers who were texting me after we had run out of inventory asking where to get cheeses. So, I told everybody to give me a minute and I would get them the cheese.\u201d She launched a Kickstarter campaign that summer and moved into her warehouse in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several months in, she\u2019s \u201cfinally had time to sit down and unknot all the yarn that\u2019s in my brain. I realized that since the business started, I was trying to figure out this thing that I was feeling\u2014it\u2019s not anxiety, it\u2019s not dread. It\u2019s just overwhelmed.\u201d But for Hesse, who admits that she gets bored easily, that\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing. \u201cI feel like my brain is changing in how I process. It\u2019s what I\u2019ve always wanted\u2014to have multiple things going at once. Logistics is one part of my brain, writing descriptions of cheeses is another part of my brain, and networking and meeting people is another part of my brain\u2014 and I use them all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Orphee Paillotin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Founder, Cheesemaker | Alpinage Cheese<\/a> | Oak Creek, Wis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m French, so I\u2019ve been eating cheese all my life,\u201d says Orphee Paillotin. It\u2019s doubtful, though, that he ever thought he\u2019d be making <\/em>cheese in Wisconsin. Paillotin came to America\u2019s Dairyland via the corporate world; his former employer has a subsidiary in Racine. When he met his girlfriend, Paula Heimerl, whose parents were co-founders of Saxon Creamery, he began to realize that American cheese was not limited to packaged slices. \u201cI was in transition, and I wanted to do something with food,\u201d he says. In 2019, he began taking classes at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison Center for Dairy Research <\/a>(CDR) and eventually got his cheesemaker license, intent on making raclette for the American market. He quit his corporate job last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why raclette? \u201cIt\u2019s a cheese that can please a lot of people, a family cheese for gathering around the table,\u201d Paillotin says. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to be a cheese expert to enjoy it. It\u2019s fun. It\u2019s also a winter dish and it\u2019s freaking cold here in Wisconsin.\u201d His original goal was to make a raw milk farmstead raclette, mimicking the traditional French Alpine recipe as closely as possible. \u201cI had never eaten raclette as a table cheese, but we quickly found out that most people here were going to eat it that way, and it was too pungent. I changed the flavor profile a bit to make it a little fruitier, sweeter than its counterparts in Europe.\u201d Now, he says proudly, \u201cWe\u2019re making an American raclette.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding a raw milk source with a creamery was a challenge until the CDR connected him with a family farm in Kewaunee County. \u201cI wanted to make the cheese hands-on, and it was the only farm that was willing to open their door to me,\u201d he says. The farm is two hours away from where he and Paula live in Milwaukee; they make cheese there once a week and bring it back to an aging facility much closer to home\u2014which Paillotin used his savings to build\u2014where the wheels are washed and aged in the traditional way on wooden boards. \u201cIt was scary at first, and all my friends thought I was crazy, but when we had a cave everything fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s still a lot of work. \u201cI see people making cheese a different way now,\u201d he says, adding that he is training the team at the creamery to help with production. He has also started developing his next cheese. \u201cWe are making Reblochon\u2014 working on it, but it\u2019s not done,\u201d Paillotin says. I will make this one pungent; I have to please the cheesemongers as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Jack X Li<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Veronica Pedraza<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Head Cheesemaker | Blakesville Creamery<\/a> | Port Washington, Wis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, Veronica Pedraza was working in a Chicago restaurant where, among her varied duties, she was sourcing cheese for the menu\u2019s cheese plate. \u201cI became fascinated by the fact that we were getting all these different cheeses and they were made from the same four ingredients,\u201d she says. Tired of the restaurant grind, she started to consider a move to either cheese or butchery. \u201cI just started writing cheesemakers whose cheeses I liked, asking if I could apprentice. The one who took the bait was Jeremy Little at Sweet Grass<\/a> [Dairy].\u201d She spent a year at the Georgia creamery, and then, at Little\u2019s urging, spent another year behind the counter at Saxelby Cheese<\/a> in New York City. But she didn\u2019t take to mongering. \u201cI think my back-of-the-house persona came out,\u201d she says. Anne Saxelby introduced Pedraza to Mateo Kehler, who offered her a job at Jasper Hill Farm<\/a>. She worked there for a few years before leaving for Meadowood Farms in New York to make sheep\u2019s milk cheese. \u201cI wanted to see if I was a good cheesemaker or if I was just making good recipes and had good milk,\u201d she says. Then one day at breakfast during the 2017 American Cheese Society Conference, she sat down next to Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese. \u201cAll Andy said to me was, \u2018I know a woman with a lot of goats\u2014do you want me to put you in touch with her?\u2019 A month later I got cold called from [Blakesville Farm\u2019s] business manager who said, \u2018Andy says you\u2019re the person to talk to; we want to build a farmstead creamery.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedraza embraced the opportunity to be involved in a woman-owned business that was positioned for success. Blakesville Creamery<\/a> was licensed in July 2020; the owner gave Pedraza complete creative and operational control, and in just three years her small-format, seasonal cheeses have won multiple national and international awards. Her \u201cfavorite child\u201d is Afterglow, a lactic set 5-ounce wheel washed with local cherry ale that\u2019s inspired by the French cheese Langres. \u201cEven though we make cheese that isn\u2019t what you\u2019d associate with Wisconsin, there are resources here,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to make artisan cheese in an area where there is no infrastructure to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sophie Gentine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brand Manager | Deer Creek Cheese<\/a> | Sheboygan, WIS.<\/em>
Wisconsin Licensed Cheese Grader #777<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art was the door through which Sophie Gentine entered her family\u2019s business, Deer Creek Cheese<\/a>. When she was just 14, she began designing Deer Creek\u2019s whimsical cheese labels, starting with pencil sketches she would show to her parents, Julie and Chris, before finishing the designs in watercolor or acrylic paint. \u201cI\u2019ve done some of the fonts as well, like the ones for Indigo Bunting, Imperial Buck, or Rattlesnake\u2014I wrote out a whole alphabet,\u201d Gentine says. While studying Retail and Consumer Behavior and Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin\u2013 Madison, she started helping her mom with recipe development and social media, but it wasn\u2019t until the summer of 2021\u2014after a few years working in digital marketing for the beauty industry\u2014 that Sophie joined Deer Creek Cheese full time as brand manager. \u201cI have to be a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades because I\u2019m the boss\u2019 kid,\u201d she says. She also works events and shows with her dad, who inspired her to become a licensed cheese grader. Gentine passed Wisconsin\u2019s two-part test in early April and now holds license number 777. \u201cHalf is the sensory part, half is knowing what the salts, fats, moisture, and pH should be\u2014the science part,\u201d she says. \u201cI hope to someday have the same palate as my dad because he understands flavor in such a nuanced way\u2014I feel so lucky to have trained under him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gentine says that working with other female graders and cheese professionals\u2014such as Masters Gallery Foods\u2019 VP Sandy Toney and Whole Foods\u2019 Global Cheese Buyer Cathy Strange\u2014has been important for validation and for learning how to better describe what she\u2019s tasting. \u201cWhat I\u2019ll notice is that I\u2019ll pick out a flavor that\u2019s related to an experience I\u2019ve had, like getting hairspray in my mouth,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s sometimes difficult to describe\u2014what am I tasting, and what does that mean in a technical sense?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a cheese grading license adds another layer to quality control for Deer Creek\u2019s cheeses, and another level of knowledge that will help sustain her career in the industry, Gentine says. \u201cIt would be cool to see how I could shape our business to incorporate my interests and maybe even have a brick-and-mortar store.\u201d While she knows her parents will eventually retire, she hopes that doesn\u2019t happen too soon. \u201cI love the industry so much; I can\u2019t see myself doing anything else, realistically. It\u2019s just so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sam Rollins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Head Cheesemonger & General Manager | Cow Bell Fine Cheese<\/a> | Portland, Ore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not uncommon for people in cheese to have a restaurant background, but Sam Rollins was born into one as the son of legendary Oregon restaurateurs Vernon and Charlene Rollins, who operated New Sammy\u2019s Cowboy Bistro for 30 years. \u201cThey grew most of the vegetables on the property; it was a labor of love for them and always a model for me,\u201d he says. His parents hoped Rollins would take over the restaurant, but his interest in food took him in a different direction. He got a job at Provisions Market Hall in Eugene as a barista, and six months later, was asked to step in as a manager. \u201cI was given this amazing opportunity of managing a specialty food store\u2019s cheese and charcuterie department while having no idea what I was doing,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were really generous about letting me make my own mistakes and learn as I went.\u201d One of his cheese suppliers was Cow Bell Fine Cheese<\/a>, an importer and distributor in Portland. In 2018, when he and his partner decided to move there, Rollins reached out to the owner for a job. He finally landed one during the pandemic; Cow Bell had laid off all its employees but brought Rollins and another monger in to open a small retail shop. \u201cPeople in Portland were so eager to support local businesses,\u201d Rollins says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cow Bell now has eight employees, which likely helped give Rollins the time and space to prepare for the
Cheesemonger Invitational<\/a> (CMI) Masters in March, where he won one of two spots on the American team that will compete at September\u2019s Mondial du Fromage<\/a> in Tours, France. He\u2019ll travel to France twice this year, having earned an all-expenses-paid trip to the Comt\u00e9 region in July for writing the winning 2022 Comt\u00e9 Scholarship essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love everything about CMI\u2014people working together and supporting and learning from each other. I want to feel that same sense of collegiality on a global scale,\u201d Rollins says. \u201cThe level of expertise in Europe is way above and beyond what we\u2019re doing here. The role of the monger here is to make cheese accessible and fun\u2014playing into the friendly side of things rather than the finesse side. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re not capable of it, but it\u2019s a mind switch.\u201d That said, he\u2019s looking forward to seeing what his fellow competitor, Courtney Johnson, brings to the table. \u201cI think she has a great shot of doing something cool at Mondial and I\u2019m going to try to keep up with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Jacob Lewkow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Zach Berg<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Co-Owner | Mongers’ Provisions<\/a> | Detroit and Berkely, Mich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zach Berg always thought he would be a chef. The Michigan native worked at Zingerman\u2019s Deli<\/a> in Ann Arbor after graduating from the School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University, followed by culinary school in Napa Valley, and stints at Bay Area fine dining restaurants. And then he ran into Ari Weinzwieg, Zingerman\u2019s co-owner, at a book signing. \u201cHe said, \u2018You look miserable, go back to cheese.\u2019 And he was right,\u201d Berg says. He took his former employer\u2019s advice and got a job at San Francisco\u2019s Bi-Rite Market, where he worked for four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like to say that as the cheese industry was growing up, I was growing up,\u201d Berg says. He became a Certified Cheese Professional and won second place in the 2014 San Francisco Cheesemonger Invitational. As his career was taking off, he began to think about moving back home. \u201cThe triple threat I used to tell people was that I wanted to start a business, meet a woman, and start a family. I left Michigan in 2008 because I couldn\u2019t advance my food career there yet. I moved back in 2016 because of the impossibility of owning a business in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he was still in the Bay Area, Berg reconnected with his childhood best friend, Will Werner, who also moved back to Michigan. The two got jobs at a chocolate company and tried to get the owner to sell it to them while they ran chocolate and cheese popups at the shop and at local breweries. \u201cThat\u2019s when Will and I realized that there was an opportunity to do something with a little more diversification. We were able to sell more chocolate than before with the cheese popups,\u201d Berg says. They launched Mongers\u2019 Provisions with an 8-foot deli case they installed in a butcher shop in Metro Detroit. \u201cIt went gangbusters. Within the first weekend people were telling us we were outgrowing the space.\u201d The partners soon found their own location in Cass Corridor, one of the city\u2019s earliest neighborhoods to gentrify, and opened their first store in 2018, right before the holidays. They opened a second location in Berkley in November 2021. Between the two stores, they now have 17 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo stores are it; we\u2019ll figure out how to do more with the resources we have,\u201d Berg says. He has a two-year-old and Werner has six-year-old twins. \u201cWe walked into this agreeing that it would be important that we recognize when it was enough, and we would always put our relationship first. The goal is balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leah Park<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Owner | Milkfarm<\/a>| Los Angeles, Calif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leah Park loves to travel\u2014so much so that she almost didn\u2019t get the job that launched her life in cheese. At 26, after an early career as a pastry chef in high-end hotels in California and elsewhere, she took off around the world for a year-long backpacking trip. When she returned, she realized she wanted to do something different. She had some familiarity with cheese because \u201cin the pastry department at the finer hotels, cheese was always around,\u201d Park says. She called the Cheese Store of Silver Lake to ask about an open position but told the owner she was planning to take a road trip before she could start. \u201cHe said, \u2018The job might not be here when you get back,\u2019 and I got there in 20 minutes.\u201d Thinking she\u2019d stay for two months, she ended up working at the shop for six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCheese changed my life,\u201d she says. \u201cSilver Lake was such a hip neighborhood. It kept me connected on the ground floor to people who were moving and shaking and doing things\u2014plus it was fun. It opened my eyes to a different side of the culinary industry that wasn\u2019t so laborious and in the basement under halogen lights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She left the Cheese Store in 2013 and opened her shop, Milkfarm, on April 7, 2014, in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. \u201cThe name resonates with me because we\u2019re so far away from farms and farmland that we don\u2019t actually think about where milk and cheese comes from,\u201d Park says. \u201cSometimes cheese has this stigma of being highfalutin and intimidating. I wanted to make the name accessible to everybody, so I decided to put the words together to create a brand.\u201d She tells an impactful story from her time in Silver Lake, when a customer asked for Sage Derby cheese, pronouncing it \u201cSag\u00e9 Derb\u00e9.\u201d \u201cShe thought it was a fancier product than it actually was,\u201d Park says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Milkfarm, which was recently named to Wine Enthusiast<\/em>\u2019s list of \u201cThe 10 Most Iconic Cheese Shops in America,\u201d the casual environment and friendly vibe support her mission to offer a positive experience for everyone. \u201cIf someone comes in with $5, I want to make sure they feel comfortable spending it on cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: Ana Isabel Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lisa Lopez<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cheesemaker | River Whey Creamery<\/a> | Schertz, Texas
Outreach\/Social Director | The Cheese Culture Coalition<\/a>
Cheese Educator | Lisa’s Daily Cheese Plate<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in a small town east of San Francisco, Lisa Lopez was a picky eater who loved cheese. When her mother took her to a creamery, Lopez got her first look at how her favorite food was made. \u201cThere was something about the liquid turning into a solid that messed with my child brain,\u201d she says. But the visit made another impact. \u201cWe weren\u2019t treated unkindly, but I didn\u2019t see myself there, I didn\u2019t see Latino people making cheese. I thought maybe Mexican people couldn\u2019t do this.\u201d Lopez draws on that experience in her work as a board member for the Cheese Culture Coalition<\/a> (CCC). \u201cWhen we talk about representation so that children can see us in the industry, it really does matter because I was there,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later in Texas, where she has now lived for more than two decades, Lopez was working in the corporate world when she met Susan Rigg from River Whey Creamery<\/a> at a chocolate and cheese tasting. \u201cShe had come from a similar background,\u201d Lisa recalls. \u201cThere was something about that night; I saw that Susan was able to transition her career into something she loved, which was cheese. That\u2019s when the bug bit me.\u201d In 2019, Lopez started selling Rigg\u2019s raw-milk cheeses at a local farmers\u2019 market but had to quit when she got a promotion at her job. In her free time, she took cheesemaking classes, attended all of culture<\/strong>\u2019s Virtual Counter Cultures, and earned her first certification from the Academy of Cheese<\/a> (She is working on her second.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomewhere in all of that, I had been listening to Cutting the Curd<\/a> for some time, and one day the CCC women were on,\u201d Lisa says. \u201cThe message of trying to diversify really hit home with me.\u201d She joined the board in 2021 and works with schools to schedule the CCC\u2019s cheese education classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last October, Lopez took the full-time leap into cheese when she began working at a water buffalo creamery as an apprentice. In February, River Whey\u2019s production manager called her \u201cout of the blue\u201d to offer her a job. \u201cIt was a no-brainer for me because Susan\u2019s values about cheesemaking align with mine,\u201d says Lopez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, she would like to strike out on her own. \u201cI hope to be the first Mexican-American woman in Texas to own a farmstead creamery and use natural cultures to make my cheeses.\u201d Lopez says. She was recently awarded the Cheeselettes<\/a> Back in the Vat grant to work with the cheesemakers at Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. \u201cI realize that I have a lot to learn about natural cheesemaking, but I am doing everything I can to prepare myself for the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These nine trailblazers whose contributions to the wide world of cheese are already impressive, and we can\u2019t wait to see what they do 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