Things are going well for Katie Hedrich at LaClare Farm, and Barry Adams has the story on her plans for the upcoming World Championship Cheese Contest, and the farm:

Hedrich's success is also helping the family business. This spring, the family plans to use fourth generation family land on which to build a $4.5 million agriculture facility on the north side of the burg of Pipe. The 35,000-square-foot project will include a barn, 48-stanchion milking parlor, retail store, cafe and a creamery for Katie to make her cheese.

She has been renting space in other creameries, primarily Saxon Homestead Creamery in Cleveland, north of Sheboygan, but has also traveled as far as the Cedar Grove Cheese plant in Plain in southern Sauk County. The new plant will also serve as an incubator to help other aspiring cheesemakers.

This hay bale performance is intended to help these Friesian cows produce extra special cream that will eventually be made into gelato. It's a part of the recipe! My favorite is the farmer's face:

Acclaimed Italian Tenor Marcello Bedoni gives a performance to a field of Friesian cows in Lancashire to recreate the original family recipe for Antonio Federici's ice cream which stipulated that opera should be sung to the milk producing cows.

Watch video on youtube

Garrett McCord strikes again with this helpful and entertaining beer and cheese pairing guide. Specifically, porter and cheese:

This St. Patrick's day when you serve the beer -- and just so we're completely clear, when I talk about beer on St. Patrick's day I mean a good porter -- bring out the cheese plate. There's no need to fuss about it and serve it on chilled marble, but these cheeses will compliment your beer, and the beer the cheeses. It'll be a nibble to marvel over for a moment before going to the bar with your buds..

Stout Cow, a farmstead cheese crafted by Pedrozo Dairy in Northern California is one of my personal favorites for pairing with beer. The cheese is soaked in Sierra Nevada stout (a local beer crafted in Chico, California). The resulting cheese is one that's a little bit fruity at first, but then gives way to yeasty flavors of baked bread and chocolate notes before a resounding stout-heavy finish.

Aliya LeeKong at Food Republic posted this recipe for spicy cheese-stuffed fried olives. They sound so amazing/weird that I can't wait to make them!

Fried olives may have originated in the Le Marche region of eastern Italy. There, they take pancetta, ground meats, cheese, herbs and spices and stuff large green olives, breading them and then deep-frying them to a golden crisp. Olive all’Ascolana is the name of the dish.

Jason Sandford at the Citizen-Times has his finger on the pulse of the growing artisan cheesemaker movement in Asheville, North Carolina. Watch out California, Vermont and Wisconsin!

“Cheese-making has been on the rise in North Carolina, which boasts 40 cheese-making operations inspected by state officials, according to Matt Lange, executive director of N.C. Dairy Advantage, a nonprofit created by the state’s dairy producers to support their industry. Of that number about 30-35 are what Lange describes as artisanal cheese-makers — producers who own goats or cows and process milk and cheese on a farm, or operations that source local milk to make cheese. The state also ranks near the top in the number of dairy goats. In fact, the American Dairy Goat Association is headquartered in North Carolina.