Two big things are happening this week -- one good and one bad!
Let's get the bad news over with first :
The New York State Department of Agriculture has decreed that cheesemakers are no longer allowed to cut individual pieces of cheese at Greenmarkets because the process of cutting the cheese has been categorized as a form of "processing" the cheese. This means that for cheesemakers like Cato Corner Farm and 3 Corner Field Farm they have to pre-cut all their cheese before arriving at the market which means they have to predict how much cheese consumers will purchase -- do you want to overshoot sales? Or undershoot sales? For cheesemakers like Ardith Mae who primarily have small cheeses already sold individually, it is less of a big deal. The question therefore becomes -- what will this new law do to cheesemakers at New York City Greenmarkets? Will it cause them to completely renovate their business? Will they stop coming to greenmakets because of the new regulations? We can only hope that won't be the case.
In my opinion I think the new ruling is completely ridiculous, part of the fun of going to a cheesemaker at a greenmarket is your conversation with them, trying their cheese, learning about their passion for their cheese and consequently procuring the amount that you would like that is not necessarily measured out to a quarter, a third, a half of a pound or more.
Now onto the good news, West Coast cheese giant, Beecher's Cheese, is opening their first cheesemaking facility/cheese shop/restaurant on Broadway and 20th Street. Beecher's Cheese has been an institution for seven years at Pike Place Market in Seattle but we all in the New York cheese community are excited to welcome them to the East Coast! Beecher's opens Friday June 24th so stay tuned for my reviews later this week.
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