Sartori Cheese Company of Plymouth, Wisconsin took home the award for "Best Cheese" at the 2012 Dairy Innovation Awards held in Oslo, Norway last week. The cheese in question? Espresso BellaVitano:

"It is wonderful to see U.S. cheesemakers being recognized and winning best of class awards in these very competitive and prestigious competitions," said Jeff Schwager, Sartori President. "Wisconsin and U.S. cheese companies are making some of the best cheese in the world – and the experts are acknowledging that fact with these recent results."

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Photo by Skånska Matupplevelser

And the results are in! Tampa, FL has been crowned the hometown of the Cuban sandwich, after more than 7,200 votes poured in to NPR.

The sandwich is, of course, the invention of cigar workers in Tampa's Ybor City. The standard version is cold or hot-pressed, with shredded pork, glazed ham, swiss cheese, pickle and mustard on white Cuban bread. (The Tampa version also has Genoa salami, which Miamians consider an abomination.)

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Photo by Ron Dollete

The folks at Jasper Hill Farm are trying something new.

The makers of award-winning Bayley Hazen Blue and Winnimere want to create an Alpine-style cheese that will round out their offerings and help support a local, sustainable economy in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.

The deadline has passed, and we've received over 160 applications to the 2012 tasting panel, from cheese lovers of every description. We're reading through them now, and should be contacting winners soon.

If you missed this year's deadline, don't worry—we'll be back next year with an all-new cheese to taste! In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for reports from our tasting panelists, coming in late May.

Get out of your morning rut with this healthy and easy breakfast! Arrange slices of Comté on a plate or platter and serve them with fresh bread, homemade Fig & Walnut Jam and fruit. The Fig & Walnut Jam is quick and easy to make, and it’s wonderful with the flavors and aromas of Comté (the jam can also be used in a mouthwatering Comté grilled cheese sandwich or on a cheese platter).

Emiliano Lee, of Farmshop, gets poetic when it comes to cracking open an 85 lb wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano. We love it:

When an 85-pound wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano from the Cravero family of affineurs is opened, "it's really, really beautiful," says Farmshop market manager Emiliano Lee. "It's almost like looking at a cliff, all these rocky crags where the curds were when you've taken the wheel apart, and those little bits that fall out of the center are the gold right there."

On Saturday he cut into a wheel of Parmigiano aged for 30 months in vaults in Bra, Italy -- also, coincidentally, the home of Slow Food, and "it doesn't get much slower than aging cheese," says Lee, who uses several various knives to coax open the cheese.

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While the recent popularity of Greek style yogurt has been wonderful for dairy farmers, the growth in the industry has left farmers and yogurt makers alike wondering how they are going to sustain such high production when there's only so much milk to be had:

"We're really concerned about the long-term prospects in the northeast for milk supply," he said. "Its been a struggle for us. We expect over the next few years it will continue to be a struggle and I kind of scratch my head and wonder where all that milk is going to come from."

"Five years ago we didn't know what we were going to do with all the milk and now with the yogurt plants coming on it's been drying up the milk supply," said Robert Gilchrist, who markets fluid milk for Agrimark, one of the biggest milk-cooperatives in the region, with 1,200 farms. He said Agrimark couldn't always deliver enough milk to yogurt makers when they wanted it last

Two German art students have constructed a guillotine and are planning on executing a sheep as part of their project. Since it's a controversial stunt, they've turned the animal's fate over to the public, who can vote on whether or not the lamb lives online. We hope this sheep dodges the guillotine!

"There were people who wanted to forbid us to do this. There were people who celebrated the idea from day one. And there were some people who were afraid of us," says Materne in a video of the "performance piece" uploaded online last week.

The two are inviting users to vote on the young sheep's fate at Die-Guillotine.com

Here's a video 9in German, of the two artists putting together their guillotine. The hookah seems to be an important part of the process

This super DIY cocktail calls for homemade ham-infused cognac and Manchego tuiles baked in your own oven. Let us know how it tastes if you're feeling ambitious!

For luxe ham cognac: Iberico (Pata Negra) ham leg, 1.5 liters of Hennessey VS Cognac
For honey syrup: 1 quart of wildflower honey, 1/3 cup of water, three large sticks of Caribbean cinnamon
For manchego tuiles: 2 cups manchego cheese, grated
For ham and cheese cocktail: 2 ounces luxe ham cognac, juice of one lime, 1 ounce honey syrup, 1 manchego tuile, rosemary (for garnish)

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Photo by Krista

This creamy, cheesy dessert is evocative of cheesecake or a Danish. Perfect with some ice wine on a summer day!

Goat Cheese Ice Cream pairs with many fruits, but we make it two ways: roasted red cherries go into our spring and summer versions, and in the fall we switch to Cognac figs. The cherry or fig compote can also be served on top of the ice cream, rather than layered into it.

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Photo by Stacy Newgent

Creole Cream Cheese gives this ice cream recipe a little something extra. Definitely a different summer treat!

Creole cream cheese was historically eaten in Louisiana from the 1800s to the 1980s. Production of the product ceased until Chef John Folse's Bittersweet Plantation Dairy began manufacturing and distributing Creole cream cheese in the fall of 2002. Use this unique Creole favorite in this recipe or as an alternative to sour cream.

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Photo by Jessica Merz