Wild garlic + cheese goals 🧄 🧀 💚
1. @laffinage.co.uk Locally foraged wild garlic with decadent triple cream cheese
2. @boroughchef Grilled leeks, peas, wild garlic, tenderstem, lemon, buffalo mozzarella, sea salt, & EVOO
3. @fionasfunkyfood Wild garlic, Gruyere, & pickled onion doughnuts
4. @whatkerry_does Wild garlic risotto
5. @juliusroberts Wild garlic flatbreads with buffalo mozzarella, wild garlic shoots, & garlic butter
6. @the_cornish_chef Wild Garlic Yarg gnocchi
7. @cornish.yarg Wild Garlic Yarg
We`ll miss you, Nancy`s Camembert. 💔
ICYMI, @old.chatham.creamery is ending its run of Nancy`s Camembert, a luscious triple cream cheese.
“Ultimately, despite its apparent commercial success, this is yet another reminder of how difficult it is for a cheesemaker to keep an operation financially sustainable,” says @saxelbycheese`s Benoit Breal. “I still hope Nancy’s Camembert will return. That a talented cheesemaker will take on the challenge and find a way to bring back Nancy’s or create a unique cheese in the same style.”
Want to buy Nancy`s Camembert before it`s gone forever? Tap our link in bio for more info.
📸 @chasingcheeseeee & @marlowanddaughters
We are deeply saddened to share that Rick Lafranchi of @nicasiovalleycheese has passed away.
“A true pillar of our community, he was deeply involved in the dairy and cheese industry and made a lasting impact on everyone who had the privilege of knowing him. His kindness, generosity, and genuine spirit touched countless lives,” says Nicasio Valley Cheese in an Instagram post. “His legacy will live on in all that we do.”
"Rick served on the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (@malt_ag) board for many years and was a thoughtful, vocal spokesperson for the agricultural community, always trying to help our struggling dairy community," say Vivien and Michael Straus of @thecheesetrail in a recent newsletter. "Though he worked his tail off for his own cheese company, he was always in service to the dairy and cheese community. Kind, soft-spoken, passionate—everyone loved him."
“To say he was one of the best humans I’ve ever met is an understatement,” Tamara Hicks of @tomalesfarmsteadcreamery in Tomales, California, says in an Instagram tribute.
Prior to his career in cheese, Rick coached high school baseball at his alma mater, Archie Williams High School—then Sir Francis Drake High School—in San Anselmo, California. He also owned a Silver Screen Videos franchise store in the area.
When Silver Screen Videos closed in 2019, Rick said that his favorite movie was It’s a Wonderful Life. “Like Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey, he had a profound and positive impact on the people and community around him,” says Derek Wilson, the sports writer for the @marin_ij.
Our thoughts are with Rick`s family as they navigate their loss.
Photos are from the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Nicasio Valley Cheese, and Cheese Trail.
What could be a more appropriate way to usher in spring, with its attendant vigor and freshness, than snacking on artichokes leaf by leaf? 💚
Eat your greens today—get the recipe for Seared Artichokes with Lemon Aioli at our link in bio.
✍️ & 📸 @raerobey
Dream blunt rotation, cheese edition. 🧀 🌿
Tap the link in bio for our guide to cheese + weed.
✍️ @bigcheese82_
You can NEVER have too much butter 🧈 🧈 🧈
Credit: @middleclassfancy
If you ask Kendra Anderson (@champagne_caviar_chi)—chef, sommelier, and the CEO behind @caviardreamofficial—fish roe doesn’t have to be fancy. In fact, it can be the opposite: playful and accessible.
“No one would ever say, ‘I’m not a french fry person,`” says Anderson. “But they do with caviar and it’s because of the messaging that we’ve all been bombarded with: one of extreme elegance, extreme wealth, extreme inaccessibility.”
Anderson’s guidance on pairing cheese and caviar is all about moving out of an intimidating space and into a curious one. Swipe to browse her delicious suggestions & get the guide at our link in bio. 🧀
✍️ @alana_ped
In his latest column, Josh Windsor (@theaffineur) of @murrayscheese unpacks the surprisingly tricky science behind soaking cheese in alcohol. As Windsor puts it, “Unless meticulously planned, a bath in wine will spell certain ruin for a wheel.”
Tap the link in bio to boost your cheese IQ. ⚛️
In 2020, Morgen Schroeder of @mvcheesery decided to trade a career in corporate real estate for one in cheese—charcuterie boards, specifically. She invested $200 in an online grazing table course that gave off intoxicating "girlboss energy."
"I kept waiting for lessons on, you know, cheese: where it comes from, how it’s made, why it matters," she says. "But those lessons never arrived."
Tap the link in bio for Schroeder`s full story—and to find out if she regrets her brief membership in the salami rose industrial complex. 🧀
Do you love cheese, cocktails, and live in or near Detroit? Then join us for Aged & Distilled at @100proofdetroit. 🥂
This casual, walk-around tasting brings together some of the most exciting names in cheese—@gruyere_aop, @vermontcreamery, @comte_usa, and more—for a night of signature cocktails, a cheese-filled grazing table curated by the @michigancheesedairyguild, and plenty of bites worth lingering over.
Bring your friends and an appetite! Link in bio for tickets. 🧀🎟️
Yup, sounds about right. 👍️
🎨 Gale Galligan (@robochai)
Gordon Edgar (@gordonzolaedgar) is many things: the cheese buyer for San Francisco’s @rainbow_grocery, one of the most prominent worker-owned grocery stores in the US; the author of several books, including one on cheddar cheese, aptly named Cheddar; and a longtime Californian with a love of punk rock and Teleme, a legendary Bay Area soft-ripened cheese. He’s also the recent winner of the @american_cheese_society’s Meritorious Service Award, which honors cheese professionals who better their community. It’s safe to say this was a highlight of his 30 years in the biz. “I cried,” Edgar says. “It’s really nice to be recognized by peers. It meant something to me.”
We spoke with Edgar about mentorship, the long-term sustainability of co-op models, and the ways in which the cheese world historically parallels the DIY music scene. Read on at the link in bio. 🧀
📸 @mdecoudreaux
✍️ @alana_ped
Come out for Counter Culture, Detroit! Culture & @gruyere_aop are proud to present this daylong workshop for cheese professionals on May 5 at @100proofdetroit. 🧀 🥂
You`ll learn, you`ll network, you`ll eat cheese + charcuterie from all over the globe—what`s *not* to love? Plus, join us after for Aged & Distilled: a night of @michigancheesedairyguild cheese and cocktails you won`t want to miss.
Register for both events at our link in bio! 🎟️
We`re so happy we got to hang with our cheese community in the Sunshine State. Swipe for photos (and smiles!) from Counter Culture Miami. 🧡
Counter Culture`s next stops are in D.C. on April 21 and Detroit on May 5. Buy your tickets today at our link in bio! 🎟
ICYMI, April is National Grilled Cheese Month. We took that literally. 🔥
Tap the link in bio to learn about grilling cheeses from across the globe. (And why they`re a perfect addition to any backyard barbecue.)
📸 @nicole_wolf_photography
Looking for a bubbly drink that tastes like spring break? Or something unique to serve on your Easter grazing table? We`ve got you covered.
Swipe to see five new products that make for delicious cheese accompaniments. Link in bio for pairing suggestions. 🧀
✍️ @alana_ped
🧡 Presenter Change 🧡
Are you ...
✅️ Into cheese education, conversation, and connection?
✅️ Craving a massive grazing table full of charcuterie and accompaniments?
✅️ Based in the DMV?
Then you need to come to Counter Culture D.C. on April 21 at the @nationalunionbuildingdc!
Registration is filling up fast, so don’t wait to get your tickets! Tap our link in bio to buy. 🎟️
Crusty bread, sticky fig jam, golden drizzles of honey—all are popular cheese accompaniments. But how about cheese with a side of music? 🧀 🎼
Handkäse mit musik—literally “hand cheese with music”—is a traditional dish from Hesse: a German state that encompasses the forested, fairytale villages of the Brothers Grimm’s youth and the financial center of Frankfurt am Main. To create the Hessian specialty, sour milk cheese, known as "Handkäse," is topped with a mixture of vinegar, oil, minced raw onions, and sometimes caraway seeds.
While the "musik" could be the fun that the marinade brings, it could also refer to the flatulence the meal may cause—or the music one should play to hide the bodily sounds that may arise. Link in bio to read the full story by @cindybrz.
What better symbol of springtime and renewal than an egg? It’s inarguably a perfect form—an austere vessel, smooth and tranquil but containing multitudes. An egg is potential personified, lying in wait to hatch—or crack—before fulfilling its intended destiny.
While fauna eggs have long been a symbol of spring, candy eggs have at least a century of history behind them—and they share the spotlight when the first verdant shoots pop into existence. But do these unconventional egg expressions also work with cheese companions? Of course they do! In springtime, everything is possible. At the link in bio, we look at cheese pairings for eggs in all their jelly, gummy, and chocolaty glory. 🥚 🧀
📸 @ninagallant_
🍽️ @madstrap
✍️ @pamelavachon_words
@cheeselandinc
🎨 Gale Galligan (@robochai)
