Cheese

It’s Friday afternoon. If you are, as always, trying to figure out what you’ll need for the kitchen this weekend, Fort Cheese is proud to announce a brand new batch of mozzarella. We’ve been making the stuff for years, but what’s new – and what’s got our cheesemongerer Pam especially excited here – is the rigorously taste-tested curd, from Antonio Mozzarella Factory in New Jersey. The mozzarella we make is RBGH-free and locally sourced, with extra-premium milk from the dairy cooperative at Jersey Fresh. That means, yes, the fat content is a little higher – it also means the stuff is silky-smooth, tastes delicious and comes from a sustainable place.

The new mozzarella goes for $10.99 a pound at Provisions, and warm samples are available. Stay tuned for tasting details!

Need a shmear on that muffin? We’ve now got single-serve butter! Find 1oz mini logs from Vermont Creamery in the dairy case!

From the Green Mountains of Vermont, where family farmers are tending the goats and cows, Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery‘s artisan techniques produce the finest fresh and aged goat cheese, crème fraîche and European-style cultured butter in the country.  A coop of 20 family farms provide fresh, high quality goats’ milk, while cows’ milk and cream comes from the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery. These are developed into a collection of dairy and cheese products, many of which we carry in this store!

In the dairy case, you’ll find Mascarpone cheese and Crème Fraîche in bright colored tubs, for all your cooking and dolloping needs. Their Butter is made from crème fraîche, which is naturally cultured for a nutty, tangy flavor, the traditional European style. The butter comes in 8oz logs, as well as 1oz & 4oz logs that are salted with crunchy Celtic Sea salt.

And of course, they make cheese! Ask us at the cheese counter, about our current array of Vermont Creamery goat and cow’s milk varieties!

For us, Spring isn’t officially here until Lake’s Edge is back in our cheese case, and so it is!

Handcrafted at Blue Ledge Farm by cheesemakers Hannah and Greg Sessions, these are made from pure, fresh goat’s milk, and shaped into wheels around 1.5 lbs (the perfect size to serve at your Easter dinner).  Snowy white due to a lack of beta carotene in the milk – a phenomenon which only occurs in goat’s milk – they contain a layer of vegetable charcoal through the center as well as just under the enveloping bloomy rind for a touch of drama.

Lake’s Edge is pasteurized, yet its flaky center melts in your mouth like cotton candy. Beneath the rind, though, lies a creamy dreamy layer of softer, near-liquid cheese, making it a joy to taste through the strata.  These wheels are aged just long enough to create depth in flavor, but still remain fresh and lemony, becoming mushroomy and savory near the rind.

Other cheeses that have returned for this spring: Blue Ledge Crottina, a mini version of Lakes Edge, sans the charcoal, and Capriole Sofia, a 1lb brick of similarly ashed goat’s cheese with less of a distinct rind and can be sliced in squares.  Each would be a stunning addition to your spring time holiday cheese plates!