Last week the topic of the latest installment in Edible’s How-To lecture series was Dairy. Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers started off the evening with a discussion of affinage, or the art of maturing and aging cheeses, showing three different blocks of the same cheese at different stages courtesy Jasper Hill Farm.
Fromager Tia Keenan continued with a lecture on cheese boards, using cheese from Lucy’s Whey. Keenan showed how to arrange cheeses from left to right, and from mild to complex. She also urged folks to have fun with pairings and play with sweet and spicy flavors, like nori, sesame brittle, strawberry jam, or our favorite, chocolate and blue cheese.
The audience also got to try their hand at making butter. Mary Jo Romano of Organic Valley and Regina Beidler, an Organic Valley farmer from Vermont led the audience in the process, adding whipping cream to a Mason jar, tightenin the lid and then sending the jars around so everybody could take a turn shaking it into butter.
Last not but not least, the Food Freaks truck took care of dinner…with grilled cheese sandwiches, of course.
