Last week I finally got a chance to get out of the shop, jump in my car and take a ride up to Vermont for a tour of the Cellars at Jasper Hill. Chris was catering a party so he stayed behind to cook and hold down the fort. Ever since my dream of opening a cheese shop became a reality I have been dying to take a tour and see first hand what could be called the engine of the artisan cheese movement in the Northeast. Tours aren't available to the public so my new life as a proprietor and cheesemonger got me a golden ticket courtesy of the Vermont Cheese Council, of which we are memebers.
I arrived at Jasper Hill on Friday morning met my group and began the tour. In order to maintain strict hygiene and food safety protocol we changed our shoes and put on white coats and hair caps. The Cellars is a 22,000 square foot underground cheese aging facility that they've opened up to other small Vermont cheesemakers that can't afford (or aren't interested in) building and maintaining a cheese cave and setting up an operation to handle wholesale selling and distribution. Basically they provide a place for cheesemakers to send their young cheeses to be ripened and marketed by an expert staff.
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