One of my favorite visits in my recent trip to Wisconsin was our tour and tasting at Chalet Cheese Cooperative led by Master Cheesemaker Myron Olson, who is the only certified Limburger maker in the US (Myron is also certified in Baby Swiss, Brick and "German Brick," or bierekase). He is a tome of information, and a jolly, contented, white-mustached soul who is both proud and practical.

We were taken a tour of the plant, where the massive vats were slowly mixing the sweet milk that would become Brick cheese, then into the odiferous Limburger make room, where two men were working on opposite sides of the room washing small Limburger rectangles with the "mother brine" and flipping them methodically so they were completely coated and wet. They ripen from the outside-inward, as all surface-ripened cheeses do, and keeping them moist is a part of the process.

Myron talked us through the make process of each cheese, then we sampled them in the sales room. As we stood and listened, locals stopped in to buy blocks of their favorite cheeses...for prices that made me, as a northern CA resident, sigh with jealousy (see picture).

Keep your eyes open for Limburger, that infamous "stinky cheese" that most of us have heard of, but few have actually tasted. It's around. And, without contest, Myron will be the man who made it. Straight from the heart of Wisconsin.