5 ways to learn about local artisanal cheese and how cheese is made

Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheese makes this wonderful
"Big Boy Blue" (C.Cancler)

Find out where you can buy local artisanal cheese from Seattle farmers market cheesemakers and learn more about how cheese is made.

1. Buy locally made cheese from Cheese makers at the Seattle farmers markets. Support our local cheesemakers on every visit to your neighborhood farmers market. We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place with easy access to many fine producers of hand-crafted fresh and aged cheeses.
2. Take a cheese class. Cheese 101: Introduction to Artisan Cheese is a fun, interactive cheese and wine pairing session offered by Pike Place Market’s artisan cheese maker, Beecher's Handmade Cheese and presented at Bennett's Pure Food Bistro, 7650 SE 27th Street, Mercer Island, WA 98040. The next class is offered April 7, 2010. To learn more or to register, visit Beecher’s Handmade Cheese.
3. Attend the Seattle Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market, May 15-16, 2010. During the festival, you can attend cheese seminars about making cheese, ripening cheese, cheese history, and more; enter the Grilled Cheese Contest; and enjoy the cooking demonstrations by some of the city’s best chefs. In the wine & beer garden, sample your favorite beverage that pairs well with the artisanal cheeses offered at the festival.
4. Read a book about cheese. Check out Pure Flavor: 125 Fresh All-American Recipes From The Pacific Northwest by Kurt Beecher Dammeier of Pike Market’s own Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. Several other titles are suggested at Beecher’s online book shop.
5. Read Cheese Connoisseur, an authoritative lifestyle magazine about all things cheese: specialty cheese, cheesemakers, and related subjects including wine, travel, and complementary foods.

Charlemagne was traveling and stopped at a bishop's residence at dinnertime.

"Now on that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird. The bishop, being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish immediately, ordered some excellent cheese, white with fat, to be placed before him. Charles..... required nothing else, but taking up his knife and throwing away the mold, which seemed to him abominable, he ate the white of the cheese. Then the bishop, who was standing nearby like a servant, drew close and said 'Why do you do that, lord Emperor? You are throwing away the best part.' On the persuasion of the bishop, Charles..... put a piece of the mold in his mouth and slowly ate it and swallowed it like butter. Then, approving the bishop's advice, he said 'Very true, my good host,' and he added, 'Be sure to send me every year two cartloads of such cheeses."

From a biography of Charlemagne written by a monk at Saint Gall monastery in the late 9th century. (865? A.D.)*

*http://www.foodreference.com/html/qcheese.html. FoodReference.com Cheese Quotes. March 26, 2010.