This elegant main course is perfect for entertaining! Comté gets mixed with Dijon mustard, herbs and shallots to create a succulent filling for pork tenderloin. A simple pan jus is just the right finish. The pork can be stuffed and tied up to 24 hours in advance. Refrigerate; then bring to room temperature and season before proceeding.

Preheat oven to 425˚F. Line large baking sheet with aluminum foil and coat with oil.

PRI's Living on Earth has a great interview up with "fermentation fetishist" and microbe-connoisseur Sandor Katz.

Jackee Foster has a passion for cheese and local foods that has led her to set up a home on Martha's Vineyard. She began her culinary career in Ireland where she learned to appreciate local ingredients coming daily and fresh from nearby farms. Upon returning to the U.S., she was introduced to cheesemaking through Lourdes Smith and soon after relocated to Martha's Vineyard to work with Mermaid Farm making cheese. Foster is only beginning her career and is overflowing with further cheese and dairy development ideas.

"Since I started, I've been wanting to get into goat's milk cheese," she says. She is currently researching the possibility of setting up a mobile cheesemaking unit and a mobile milking parlor for use by local dairy farmers. "The idea is to build this infrastructure that can go mobile. There are other people on the Island who would like to be doing something like this."

Yahaya Wandwasi, a Ugandan dairy farmer, got his start with a single cow in 1994 from Heifer International. From this one cow, Wandwasi was able to build a financially sustainable farming life that now includes a dairy, property, and a small coffee plantation.

Wandwasi says he used to get 25 litres of milk daily from the cow he got from Heifer International – Uganda. He sold the milk and raised the money to engage in other farming ventures.

He says when he had saved sh400,000, he bought a piece of land.
“I started with 100 coffee plants and planted more as I got more money. I now have over 400 Arabica coffee plants,” Wandwasi says.

Read the full story here.

Photo by New Vision

The BBC's Fuchsia Dunlop writes about a trip to the Yunnan province of China, where she watched the making of "milk cakes," an unsalted goat cheese
used in local cuisine. China's cheesemaking industry is small, and Dunlop touches on why this cottage industry sprung up in Yunnan:

And even if in Yunnan, "milk cake" is regarded as part of a Chinese regional cuisine, there is no escaping the fact that this region is a special case.

The province lies on the fringes of China, its population a hotchpotch of nationalities whose dietary habits are far removed from those of the Han Chinese.

And although Mrs Luo's Han Chinese neighbours also make cheese, she herself is a member of the Yi ethnic minority - a reminder that dairy foods were never really part of the Chinese mainstream.

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Okay, so maybe you know about Raclette parties and their fun, backwards-fondue style, but what if you're all alone and find yourself craving that hodge-podge of cheesy goodness? L’Emporte-Pièce in Montreal has you covered: enter the Raclette grilled cheese, an epic sandwich packed with the Swiss cheese and all the fixings.

For Matthieu Bonneau of minuscule grilled-cheese counter L’Emporte-Pièce (and a co-owner of the new Smoking Valée in St. Henri), it was a sandwich waiting to happen. His version incorporates some of the fixings traditionally served with raclette, including charcuterie and cornichons.

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Photo by Like_the_Grand_Canyon

All this week the BBC is looking into professions where there's room for growth and farming is a good example. In this video, Gareth Barlowe, a sheep farmer in the UK, shares his story on becoming a farmer and the farming life. He started young - at 17 - and has grown to love working with animals. He says there are challenges to farming, but you get to be your own boss, have your hands in every part of your business, and spend all your time outside and away from a stuffy office.

Watch the video here.

Milkshakes are creamy, cool and delicious, but why not kick it up a notch? Shakes blended with alcohol are the new rage, and for good reason. Come on, it's booze and ice cream!

At Hill Country Barbecue Market in Washington, the maple bourbon milkshake pays homage to the retro diners and soda fountains of the 1950s. Served in the classic style with two straws in one large glass, this shake made for sharing combines a rich blend of bourbon with vanilla ice cream and maple syrup infused with vanilla beans. The whole thing is topped with maraschino cherries in the classic tradition.

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Photo by Josep Ma. Rosell

Robots are playing a bigger role in farming these days. From automatic planting machines to robotic cow udder cleaners, high tech is the way of the future for large farms that are struggling to turn a profit. Robotic machines can also save farmers time:

Robot technologies like these can buy farmers a little more time off.

"Just this past Christmas we had a customer of ours that had started up two of our (robotic milkers) with their herd," says Mark Futcher, product manager for an automatic milking machine made by DeLaval. "That Christmas morning was the first time that gentleman had ever been witness to his children finding their Christmas stockings."

Read the full blog post here.

While the artisan cheese movement has national roots in the 1980s, it's only been in the past few years that the state of Florida has seen a rise in artisan cheesemakers. The Tampa Bay Times chronicles the story behind three such cheesemakers: Winter Park Dairy, The Dancing Goat, and BufaLatte.

"Zoning said we could have a dairy on our 8 acres. The intention was to create the highest value dairy product that there is — that's cheese. We helped write state code, because it had never been done before. We were first in the state to do raw milk cheese," Green says.

Read the full article here.