Behind the Curtain at the World Championship Cheese Contest

The World Championship Cheese Contest came and went in Madison this week. With it, hundreds of industry volunteers, cheesemakers and international judges unloaded, unboxed, unwrapped, inspected, labeled, opened, sniffed, tasted, spat out, rewrapped, reboxed, and reloaded 2,504 cheeses one by one, wheel by wheel, wedge by wedge, all in a quest to find the best.

Mission accomplished. While the Dutch and Swiss again took top honors (the World Champion was Vermeer, a lowfat Dutch Gouda made by FrieslandCampina - yes, that's right, the frickin' Dutch beat us with a lowfat Gouda), Wisconsin cheesemakers did well overall, earning gold medals in 30 of the 82 classes.

Held over the course of three days at the Monona Terrace, the World Championship Cheese Contest is one of the best cheese events held in Wisconsin. That's because it's expertly executed by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA), which has been running the contest since 1957.

Once held in obscurity in a butter cooler in Green Bay, the contest now takes center stage at a sprawling convention center in the state capital. Today, the WCMA, led by executive director John Umhoefer, calls on more than 200 volunteers to help run the three-day contest. Many - perhaps even most of the volunteers - are Wisconsin cheesemakers who happily carve three days out of their own cheesemaking schedule to schlep around cheese made by others from around the world.

From Monday morning through Wednesday mid-day, two distinct bodies of cheese people fill the voluminous Exhibition Hall at Monona Terrace. One group wears white caps and white jackets, and stands in front of the red velvet curtains. These are the judges. From Argentina to Australia, 20 international cheese experts wind their way to Madison to spend three days inspecting, sniffing, tasting and spitting out everything from Gruyere to Gorgonzola (they spit out each cheese so as to not have hundreds of samples mulling around in their tummies - I'm not sure all the Pepto Bismol in the world could cure that kind of stomach ache).

The second group wears blue hats and white coats, and mostly works behind the red velvet curtains. This is the "B Team", as they are affectionately called, and these are the folks - all Wisconsin cheesemakers and industry volunteers - who unbox and unpack each and every piece of cheese for the judges to inspect, and then repack and rebox to put back on pallets to be zipped back to the cooler by another set of volunteers who have moving pallets down to a science.

While both of these teams are busy working, a separate team in a separate room, mostly filled with computers, printers and cans of caffeine, tally the judges' scores. This team - led by the amazing Jane Cisler at WCMA - is the invisible hub of the contest, always working, often running, to get scores entered as soon as possible and up and live on the contest website. Without Jane and her team of volunteers, the contest simply would not happen. They are truly the wizards behind the curtain.

By Wednesday afternoon, judges have whittled down the 2,504 cheeses to just 82. These are the Gold Medal cheeses - the top cheeses in each of the classes. This year, the contest mixed things up a bit, and had the judges pare the top 82 down to a "Sweet 16", which were then judged in front of a sold-out live audience at an evening gala in the Monona Terrace ballroom. More than 400 super foodies showed up to mingle with cheese industry folk and taste 50 cheeses from around the world, all the while watching the final round of gold-medal judging.

At about 8:20 p.m., the crowd was rewarded for its patience with the naming of the Second Runner-Up (an Appenzeller from Switzerland), the First Runner-Up (a washed-rind Winzer Kase from Switzerland) and finally, the World Champion - the aforementioned lowfat Gouda.

As hundreds cheered for the Dutch judge as he hefted his native country's wheel of cheese above his shoulders (the actual cheesemaker won't accept his medal until an April banquet in Milwaukee), the wizards both in front of and behind the curtains - the volunteers, the B Teamers, and the rest of the judging crew - all took a moment to stand and smile, satisfied with another year of finding the big cheese. Well done, crew. See you in 2014.

Bacon Supper

As if we didn't already know that bacon makes everything better, the folks at the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference this week set out to take my favorite food group to a whole new level.

Bacon at a cheese conference, you ask? Yes, ma'am. After spending three days talking, breathing and eating nothing but cheese with nearly 100 of the top movers and shakers in the American artisan cheese community, we were all ready to experience a different level on the food pyramid. I suppose we could have had a salad, but really, who needs rabbit food when bacon is on the menu?

To prove my point, Sheana Davis, founder and owner of The Epicurean Connection in downtown Sonoma, hosted a Bacon Supper as the parting gift to her cheese conference attendees this evening. In attendance was Ari Weinzweig who wrote the book - yes, literally - on bacon. It's called Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon and features stories of pork bellies, hush puppies, rock n' roll music and bacon fat mayonnaise.

While Ari entertained us with bacon trivia (Q: What was the title of people who once shepherded hogs from farm to market? A: Drovers), chefs Duskie Estes and John Stewart, the husband and wife proprietors of Zazu Restaurant + Farm and Bovolo Restaurant in Sonoma County, and owners of Black Pig Meat Company, prepared a four course meal featuring their Black Pig Bacon.

All of Black Pig Meat Co.'s pork is sourced from Pure Country Pork, a sustainable hog operation certified by Food Alliance. The pigs are a heritage breed, raised naturally and allowed to roam on pasture. As Duskie says: "We like to think the pigs really only have one bad day."

Duskie and John have risen to fame with their Black Pig Bacon, which is dry cured with brown sugar and smoked with real applewood in a process that takes nearly a month. This is compared to most supermarket mass-produced bacons, which are wet cured and injected with liquid smoke in a process that takes less than a day. The difference in taste is remarkable. Black Pig Bacon is salty, smoky and sweet, and its flavor resonated in each of the dishes.


Our first dish was a Bacon Terrine, prepared by Chef Antonio Ghilarducci of The Depot Hotel in Sonoma, paired with Delice de la Vallee cheese and bacon brown sugar jam, prepared by Sheana Davis of The Epicurean Connection.

Three words: Best. Appetizer. Ever.

Next was a roasted brussel sprout and Black Pig Bacon salad with almonds, shaved Lucca, a mild alpine Italian-style cheese made by North Bay Curds and Whey in Tomales, and extra virgin olive oil from Tallgrass Ranch in Sonoma.

Nancy and Tony Lilly, makers of Tallgrass Ranch olive oil, happened to be sitting across the table from me (that's Nancy, standing up, below). Their farm is on a ridge in the Sonoma Valley overlooking the San Francisco Bay. They began planting their olive grove in 1998 and today hand-harvest enough olives to send between 40 and 100 gallons to market every year.

While I had olive oil producers on one side, on my other side sat Alec Stefansky, brew master at Uncommon Brewers in Santa Cruz. Alec had brought his Bacon Brown Ale - yes, beer infused with bacon. It turns out he had just finished up packing 257 cases of this brand-new beer, which shipped out of the brewery last week and is headed to distribution in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. (Maybe we can smuggle some into Wisconsin).

Next up was the main course. Brace yourselves, bacon lovers: the menu consisted of smoky baby back ribs, accompanied by backyard collards and bacon, cowboy beans and bacon, fingerling and bacon fat aioli potato salad and bacon, and Roelli Red Rock Cheese (from Wisconsin!) cornbread. Let's break it down in pictures, shall we?

First: ribs, cooked so slowly and amazingly that the meat fell off the bone

Second: backyard collard greens. I have never cared for collards and now I know why: I've never had them prepared properly with bacon. For a northern girl who views green food with suspicion, I had seconds and thirds of these babies

Next: cowboy beans -- a little on the spicy side, but once they mixed in with all the other food on my plate, felt right at home

And, of course: fingerling and bacon fat aioli potato salad

Finally: bacon and Roelli Red Rock cornbread. Yum!

Put it all together and it looked like this!

For dessert, we had not one, but three amazing treats. First was a bacon and currant rum gelato, paired side-by-side with Sheana's Creme de Fromage gelato, which tasted even better than cheesecake.

And then, we had a one-of-a-kind "PB & C" chicharron peanut butter cup, made with fried pig skins, crumbled into a peanut butter cup. Here are the chefs themselves, with their amazing chocolate creations:

A huge thank you to Sheana Davis, Duskie Estes and John Stewart of the Black Pig Meat Co., Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's and all the folks who prepped and cleared dishes for what was one of the best meals of our lives. Can't wait until next year's Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference!

2012 World Championship Cheese Contest

Brace yourselves, Wisconsin. More than 2,500 cheeses are coming to Madison for the World Championship Cheese Contest in March. Are you ready?

In good news, the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association is ready to roll. They've been hosting the World Contest for decades, and have a streamlined process of receiving, sorting, spitting, evaluating and awarding cheeses down to a science. That's a good thing, because this year, a record-breaking 2,503 entries from 24 nations around the world were entered.

All cheeses will be judged between March 5-7, with viewing open to the public during daytime hours at the Monona Terrace. The real shindig, however, will happen the evening of Wednesday, March 7, when the public is invited to attend an exclusive tasting of more than 20 international and Wisconsin cheeses, and witness the final round of judging, live and in person. Tickets for "An Evening at the World Championship Cheese Contest" are $25 and are going fast. Buy yours now at www.cheesecontest.com because this event WILL sell out.

This year, several new nations have entered cheese into the contest, including India, Romania, Estonia and Croatia. They'll join the returning nations of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,  Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

Forty international judges will work from Monday, March 5 through noon on Wednesday, March 7 to sniff, taste and examine each entry, working in teams of two.  The top three scoring cheeses and butters in each class will earn gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Each two-person judging team pairs a U.S. judge with an international expert.  This year, judges hail from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, joining 20 judges from 13 states in the U.S.

More than 250 dairy industry volunteers -- including yours truly -- will provide support as judges work through more than 50,000 pounds of cheese and butter entries. I know I'm looking forward to my official "B-Team" ball cap again this year. Hey - there has to be a perk to hauling heavy boxes of cheese to judging tables all day, right?

It's important to note that the World Championship Cheese Contest is a technical evaluation of cheese entries, using an objective measure of cheese defects to select the products in each class that best exemplify perfection for a cheese variety. The highest scoring cheeses and butters earn a gold medal, with silver and bronze medals awarded to second and third place finishers in each class.

The Contest is open between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Monday, March 5 and Tuesday, March 6 in the Exhibit Hall of the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, Wis.  First round judging will be completed Wednesday, March 7 from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

This Championship Round, set for 7 p.m. during the Wednesday, March 7 public event, will be broadcast as a live, video-streamed program on the WCMA website.  In addition, contest results and digital images will be posted on the website throughout the competition.  Visit www.worldchampioncheese.org for complete contest coverage.

In 2010, cheesemaker Cedric Vuille from Formagerie de La Brevine in the tiny village of La Brevine, Switzerland, was named World Champion in the Championship Round for his Le Gruyere Switzerland. The Swiss cheeses have been popular, often winning the World title. A U.S. World Champion is long overdue. Fingers crossed 2012 is our year!

Birthday Sheep

Turning 40 years old isn't so bad when you're surrounded by your favorite people, especially when those favorite people happen to live on a sheep dairy and it's lambing season.

Last Wednesday was my big 4-0, so the hubby and I trekked to Hidden Springs Creamery near Westby to hang out with Dean and Brenda Jensen and their 350 sheep for the day. Brenda had hinted last fall my birthday would conveniently fall during prime lambing season, and really, who doesn't want to spend their 40th birthday in a barn surrounded by newborn bleating lambs? Hello, dream trip!

We arrived late afternoon, just in time for transporting the 11 lambs born that morning to an Amish neighbor's farm, as Brenda had run out of clean stalls (this occasionally happens when you have 275 moms giving birth to an average of twins in a 30-day period). Another 75 ewes will lamb in May, giving Brenda a longer milking season, and thus more milk to make cheese later into the season.

How do you transport newborn lambs, you ask? You pick them up from their stalls, carry them to the farm pick-up, carefully place them in tubs in the cab, and carry the extras on your lap. It's amazing how warm, snuggly and quiet a newborn lamb is - I think the one I was holding in my lap for the 3-mile ride may have actually fallen asleep after it pooped on me.

After returning to the farm, it was time for milking. Greg and Dave are the Jensens' evening milkers, and they're pretty good at what they do. Here's a look at milking sheep:

The Jensens are currently milking about 150 ewes, which takes just a little over an hour in their new double 10 Swedish parlor, a huge improvement over their home-made milking station they used the first five years they were on the farm.

After milking, we took a tour of the lambing facilities. The lambs start their lives in the nursery, born in straw pens, and then are moved to bigger pens as they age. On March 28, most of them will be sold at market - just in time for Easter dinner - and the Jensen farm will be a much quieter place.

The ewes still waiting to give birth, meanwhile, are so fat and fluffy that they look like caricature sheep - you know, the ones that came with your Little People Play Farm set? They're all wool, with short stick legs, kind of like this:

The Jensens' farm is absolutely breathtaking. Situated in the heart of Amish country, it's all hills, fences and pastures. Their morning milker is an amish neighbor, hence the buggy in the photo.

After morning milking, the evening's and morning's milk are combined, gravity fed into a stainless stell tank on wheels, and driven about 40 feet to the farm's creamery, where it is again gravity-fed into the farm's cheese plant, where Brenda makes cheese about four days a week. Here's a glimpse at the milk transportation process:

We didn't stick around to make cheese with Brenda in the morning - I've made cheese with her a couple of times before, once with my daughter, so we said goodbye to the Jensens and rolled down the driveway, although not without saying goodbye to the barn cats and Augustus Burdock Jensen, the farm dog.

Many, many thanks to Brenda and Dean for your hospitality, laughter and kindness in helping me celebrate the big 4-0! It couldn't have been any better.

Photos by Uriah Carpenter, copyright 2012.