Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Day 847 : New Amsterdam Market's - Cheese Market and Dairy Fair

This past Sunday at the New Amsterdam Market was all about cheese and of course a celebration of local and sustainable dairies, farm and regional producers / purveyours.

Present at Sunday's Market were the following creameries and local purveyours offering samples of their standby cheeses, new experiments, classic reinterpretations and more. I unfortunately arrived with barely fifteen minutes left of the market but was still able to visit a few of my favorite local creameries, for those of you I missed, I hope to see you all very soon!



Argyle Cheese Farm Argyle NY
Berkshire Cheese Makers, Dalton MA
Calkins Creamery, Honesdale PA
The Cellars at Jasper Hill, Greensboro VT
Consider Bardwell Farm, West Pawlet, VT
Cooperstown Cheese Company, Milford NY
Crowley Cheese, Mont Holly VT
Culture Magazine
Eastern District, Brooklyn NY
Edgwick Farm, Cornwall, NY

Finger Lakes Farms, Ithaca NY
Goodale Farms, Riverhead NY
Lucy's Whey, New York NY
Meadow Creek Dairy, Galax VA
Murray's Cheese, New York, NY
Nettle Meadow Farm, Warrensburg NY
Old Chatham Shepherding Company, Old Chatham NY
Salvatore Bklyn, Brooklyn NY
Saxelby Cheesemongers, New York NY
Twin Maple Farm, Ghent NY
Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company, South Woodstock VT






A couple shots of some of the cheese-y offerings available at the market.

Since I arrived at the end, I most certainly did not have the chance to try everything but what did really stand out for me was Edgwick Farm's new soft ripened goat's milk cheese with an ashen center. Crisp and light, yet creamy and tangy with a nice bright milky finish. The perfect summertime cheese -- approachable yet complex, dynamic and well rounded!


I also had the pleasure of trying a variety of Vermont Farmstead's new creations and I plan to cover those separately on the blog tomorrow but the highlights for me of their newer cheeses were definitely : The Smokehouse Tilsit and the Hot Pepper Windsordale. The Smokehouse Tilsit was creamy, buttery, and round yet not heavy with nice rustic fruity smokey-ness, perfect with an IPA. The Hot Pepper Windsordale was a welcome surprise -- I tend to find pepper infused cheeses to be this bizarre combination of two flavors in the hopes of creating a sense of harmony and in actuality, loosing the integrity of each. This was not the case here -- spicy piquant fire-y notes walked hand in hand with the buttery, nutty, roundness of the cheese -- an excellent combination of two flavors that can be very difficult! 

There were plenty of other new discoveries present at the Market that I think I would have had the pleasure to enjoy more if I had arrived earlier, but these discoveries were a great start!

What a great cheese weekend in NYC! I cannot wait for the next one.

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