These irresistible sliders, inspired by Chef Josef Lageder of the Balboa Bay Club, are always a crowd pleaser. Try them for lunch, or as an appetizer at your next party. Make both variations or try just one— they’re as fun to make as they are to eat!

Preheat the broiler. Place the buns, cut sides up, on a baking sheet and broil 2-3 minutes, or until lightly toasted.

Spread each bun (cut side) lightly with jam. Set the top buns aside and reserve. Arrange the ham and Comté on the bottom buns. Broil 2-3 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. Top with the reserved buns and serve.

Via the New York Times, we learn that a suit from the National Resource Defence Council, Union of Concerned Scientists and others has restarted a decades-long process of removing human antibiotics from use in commercial agriculture.

A federal magistrate judge on Thursday ordered the Obama administration to alert drug makers that the government may soon ban the common agricultural use of popular antibiotics in animals because the practice may encourage the proliferation of dangerous infections and imperil public health.

The use of penicilin and other common drugs in livestock has been blamed on a rise in antibiotic-resistent bacteria in recent years. The fight to keep these drugs in circulation in farms is not over, however: 

Caprino Royale produces goat cheese on a farm outside of Waco, TX. Recently, however, their goat's milk cajeta has been stealing the show at high-end Dallas restaurants. Customers and chefs can't get enough of this sweet, tangy, caramel-like milk jam.

Tippit calls the cajeta a sleeper. “It caught us by surprise,” she says of its success. Now her husband, Eric, has just finished a separate cajeta room on their farm, where Tippit can have six pots going at a time without taking over the cheese room.
“We’re a cheese company first,” she says. “But the more people taste it, the more people want it: We could have a cajeta business.” If only they had unlimited milk.

Read the full article here.

The Hunger Games, a book about starvation, has inspired a slew of recipes based on passages from the book. Emma Downs of The Journal Gazette has compiled a group of recipes in case you're looking for inspiration. She even tweaked a few to make them a bit more appetizing for those of us living in the pre-apocalyptic era. Glad to see that a goat cheese dish made the cut!

Goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves:
“Gale spreads the bread slices with the soft goat cheese, carefully placing a basil leaf on each while I strip the bushes of their berries. We settle back in the nook in the rocks … . The food’s wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths.”

To celebrate the opening of their third hybrid store, Publix Super Markets in Florida commissioned a 500 lb. cheese sculpture that was crafted in house by Sarah Kaufman of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

The sculpture helped call attention to the full-service artisan cheese department a the new 56,000-square-foot hybrid concept store here in the chain’s Jacksonville, Fla., division. These cheese departments are a feature of all of the chain’s new hybrid stores and GreenWise Markets, Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten told SN.

Read the full story here.

Photography by Publix Market

James Bertini, found of the Denver Urban Homesteading Market, recently ran into a problem while giving away samples of raw milk at his Denver location. Colorado law requires raw milk patrons to buy a share and sign a waiver with specific dairy farms before purchasing raw milk, but there's a gray area when it comes to handing out samples where no money is exchanged. The idea behind the sampling was to expose new consumers to the flavor of raw milk, but this didn't sit well with the Denver Health Department.

Tennessee's House Speaker Beth Harwell and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey went head-to-head in a milk off on March 20 to celebrate Ag Day on capitol hill. We're not sure who the winner is, but love the creative way to honor dairy farmers!

'Tis the season for maple syrup, no matter how deceptively summerish it feels in the northeast. What better food to drizzle syrup over than a grilled cheese? Check out this recipe from Closet Cooking:

While I was in Montreal, a friend at Van Houtte coffee suggested something new, a grilled cheese sandwich served with maple syrup and as soon as I heard the idea, I knew that I would have to try it! The sweet and savoury combination often works out well and when you combine two of my favourite things, grilled cheese sandwiches and maple syrup, you are bound to get a winner. Like I needed an excuse to try a grilled cheese sandwich in a new way!

Click here to see the recipe

Craig Ramini left his corporate job in Silicon Valley to become a water buffalo rancher and cheesemaker in Marin County, California. Ramini is still early on in the process, but he plans on making mozzarella from his herd of friendly, furry giants.

It was his innate love for big animals that convinced Ramini to leave the corporate world behind.
“There's something about the presence of large animals that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling,” he said. “I knew that made me happy.”

Ramini's farm will be open for tours during California's sixth annual Artisan Cheese Festival this weekend. Guests will be able to see the water buffalo up close and coo after the new calves.

Read Ramini's full story here.

Photography by Don Fulano

And now a peek at what life is like for Peter and Louise Dunn, making cheese in France, and raising goats. Not too shabby;

Louise and Peter have been farming goats since 1990. Other farming activities such as pigs and raspberries have come and gone but the goats have stayed. The herd, begun with 35 females and two males from the UK, has now grown to around 70. The Dunns have always farmed organically as a matter of strong principle, whether certified or not. In 2000, when the dairy they were supplying was planning organic lines, they re-registered for organic certification. The dairy was taken over and the plans disappeared in smoke but happily another dairy came along who now buy most of the Dunns’ milk for organic goats’ cheese.