Tag Archives: cheese

Claudia Lucero: DIY Cheese Kit Queen of Portland, Author, and Inspiration

March 14, 2017Great Companies, Productscheese, cheesemaking, Claudia Lucero, DIY, food artisans, Kits, Urban Cheesecraft, Urban HomesteadingMara Rose

In 2006, Claudia Lucero moved from her lifelong home in San Diego, California, to the “maker” capital of the country: Portland, Oregon. It wasn’t long before she started making pickles, sauerkraut, butter, yogurt, and eventually cheese. Her cheesemaking began with Paneer and ricotta, then she moved on to goat cheese and mozzarella, and she was totally hooked. She was in the midst of a personal transformation that included a deep desire to know the sources of her food and focus on quality over quantity in many aspects of her life.

Inspired by cheesemaking recipes in books and a homesteading magazine from the 1970s, Claudia found cheese recipes that called for 5 to 50 gallons of milk at a time—not exactly practical for a casual cheesemaker in the city. But that didn’t stop her. She started tweaking and experimenting with those recipes to make them work for the small-scale urban cheesemaker with no more than a gallon of milk. From this philosophy, Urban Cheesecraft was born.

Continue reading Claudia Lucero: DIY Cheese Kit Queen of Portland, Author, and Inspiration →

Cheesemaking Tips from Gianaclis Caldwell, Author of Mastering Basic Cheesemaking

September 14, 2016Great Companies, Sourcing, Tricks & Tipscheese, cheesemaker, cheesemaking, curds and whey, DIY, food artisans, Food Preservation, Gianaclis Caldwell, Homestead, Raw, sourcing, Urban HomesteadingMara Rose

Mara Rose
Founder & CEO, Hatch Lab

Meet Gianaclis (Gee-on-a-klees) Caldwell. She lives in Southern Oregon on land her parents bought in the 1940s, where she was raised to be self-sufficient—not because it was cool but because it was necessary. Her family grew much of their own food, and they had cows for milk and dairy products. She explains, “My mom canned all summer. She knew exactly how many quarts of string beans, how many quarts of tomatoes we needed to make it through the winter.” Though Gianaclis moved away from the land for nearly 23 years and enjoyed a succession of careers including as a nurse and an installation artist, she returned to the property with her husband and daughters in 2005 to build Pholia Farm. Continue reading →

Cheese Therapy and the Art of Buying Curd with Jessica Beer of Cured

September 12, 2016Great Companies, Sourcing, Tricks & Tipsartisan cheese, Boulder, cheese, cheesemaking, Cured, food artisans, Food Preservation, Homestead, local farmers, sourcingMara Rose

Mara Rose
Founder & CEO, Hatch Lab

Meats, cheeses, carefully chosen wines, chocolates, pickles, and goodies from local farms—these are some of the beautiful things you’ll find at Cured, a small specialty shop in Boulder, Colorado. Just visiting the shop is a treat in itself, and I’ve been doing so for years. I was delighted to sit down with Jessica Beer, cheesemonger, cheese buyer, and the store’s general manager, to learn a bit more about how to be an informed cheese consumer.

Jessica began her cheesemonger journey at the young age of 15 in northwest Philadelphia. Told by her parents that it was time for her to get a job, Jessica knew exactly what she wanted to do. So she walked into her local cheese shop, The Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop, which had been operating since the early ‘70s and had a 60-pound log of provolone hanging from the ceiling, and boldly asked for a job. To her delight, they complied and she began working weekends and after school for the next seven years. She speaks more fondly of the experience than most do about their first job, saying, “I worked there all the time and I just fell in love with the smells and the tastes and the stories and talking to people.” And while Jessica has explored other passions over the years, four years ago when she moved to Colorado, she returned to the world of cheese, first at Whole Foods as a cheese specialist, and then at Cured. Continue reading Cheese Therapy and the Art of Buying Curd with Jessica Beer of Cured →