8/03/2009

Back to the origins...of milk


La Casa dei Formaggi has joined efforts with Chapel Hill Creamery (the main supplier of milk) to experiment with new fresh cheeses.
This experience is providing a deeper understanding of the interaction between the cows diet, the milk, and the cheese. The team working there is amazing. More to come.

2/03/2009

Mille Spezie


Wine Authorities is featuring a new cheese from la Casa dei Formaggi called Mille Spezie (thousand spices).

It is a creamy, buttery cheese with Jamaican Pepper (clove pepper) dispersed in it. The flavor is very aromatic and you can have a burst of flavor by retaing the spices in the cheese or you can remove them for a more gentle taste. It pairs well with pears cooked in red wine.


12/22/2008

Formaggio Toro Ubriaco (Drunken Bull)

La Casa dei Formaggi is featuring a new cheese exclusive for Wine Authorities labeled Toro Ubriaco. This cheese was first released on December 12 2008 in Bull city, Durham. It is made using the skins of Sangiovese grape from Grove winery.

The Formaggio Toro Ubriaco (Drunken Bull) has its origin in Eastern Italy. Several folk stories describe the genesis of this cheese. Some stories link its origin to WWI when the farmers, trying to defend their stocks from soldiers’ raids, would hide the cheese under grape skins. Other stories trace the origin to the lack of resources among farmers as being the main reason why the cheese was born. The oil to treat the cheese rinds was very expensive; hence, some farmers used the grape skins to keep the rinds moist and clean. The result was a very aromatic cheese that would last much longer. There is also a story about a crooked cheesemaker who tried to hide some wheels from his boss by dumping them into a fermenting must barrel. This cheese became the ‘forte’ of that dairy and soon the trick of aging the cheese in grape skins proliferated among many dairies of the area and beyond.

Terra Madre 2008




La Casa dei Formaggi partecipated at the Terra Madre event held concurrently with Salone del Gusto in Torino from October 23 to 27-2008. The meeting brings together food communities, cooks, academics and youth delegates for four days to work towards increasing small-scale, traditional, and sustainable food production. There were 20 cheesemakers representing the USA from Indiana, Connecticut, California, Oregon, Vermont, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin. These cheeses are part of the American Raw Milk Cheese Presidium, designed to help protect endangered American raw milk cheeses and to encourage their production while adhering to a protocol consistent with the values of Slow Food.

9/14/2008

News and Events


La Case dei Formaggi participated in the Slow Food Nation festival in San Francisco (August 29-Sept. 2, 2008).

La Casa dei Formaggi has been featured in the local magazine, the Independent weekly (Sept. 3, 2008). Many thanks to reporters, Cynthia Greenlee-Donnell and Sheryl Cornett.

Also, many thanks to all who contributed, including Chapel Hill Creamery and Wine Authorities who celebrated their first birthday on Sept. 10, 2008 (with cheese from La Casa dei Formaggi).

La Casa dei Formaggi will be featuring its Piedomont (NC) cheeses in the Piedmont (Italy) for the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre in Torino (Italy), October 23-27, 2008. Read all about it at the Slow Food website.



7/06/2008

CHEESE: the almost-perfect food

Cheese is made from milk, our first food during the beginning of our lives, and an ideal medium for transferring the vitamins, minerals, and other compounds essential to healthy development.
Cheese is preserved milk, and contains almost all of the nutrients necessary to human life. It lacks only vitamin C and fiber. Cheese also contains some additional natural antibiotics, introduced by bacterial cultures added during the cheesemaking process.
Artisanal cheese provides an ideal balance between high-quality fats and protein. Several naturally occurring components of cheese have been shown to have anticarninogenic and antioxidant properties, such as the fatty acids present in the milk when cows enjoy fresh pastures…

7/03/2008

Formaggio

Questo e' solo un messaggio di prova per verificare le caratteristiche del blog e la lunghezza dei post. La casa dei formaggi ora ha un suo Blog. Messaggio di prova con fotografie. Messaggio. Prova di pubblicazione messaggi e fotografie sul Blog. Prova. Prova. Prova.