VT Cheesemakers Festival

I finally bought tickets for the VT Cheesemakers Festival this year. I am a huge fan of cheese, any kind of cheese, and when I bought my tickets all I could think of was how I haven't made it to any in the past 14 years. The first festival was in 1996. I am a Vermonter, it is my duty to attend these things. Once I perused the website I realized there was going to be a large number of attendees and over 40 cheesemakers from Vermont. I knew there were a lot of cheesemakers in this state, but I had no idea how many, and from the website's info, seems we've got the highest number of cheesemakers per capita. No wonder I have a desire for owning goats and making cheese, it's my birthright.

I met the Editor-in-Chief of Culture Magazine, Elaine Khosrova. She had a table set up amongst the other tables overflowing with cheese. It was great to talk with one of the amazing women who is responsible for this incredible publication. Because there are only four issues a year, I anticipate each release date as if I'm experiencing a month of Sundays. It has a cheese centerfold, seriously.

Although there were a great deal of fine food purveyors with 30 artisan food folks and an additional 20 beer and wine folks, I stayed on message with the cheese.

I sampled several varieties and I wanted to bring home just as many, yet I settled on three that I planned on eating entirely in one sitting. I've learned it's best if you're going to buy only three cheeses, buy ones with very different flavor profiles. I chose to not pay attention to that at all and just picked up three cheeses I really liked. Two were goat cheeses, one soft with a white bloomy rind from Sage Farm Goat Dairy called 'Madonna' and one hard from Lazy Lady with arind the color of asphalt spotted with white blooms. The other was similar to a comté made from cow's milk, super nutty and delish called 'Rupert' made by Consider Bardwell Farm.

Each cheese was excellent in a very different way and between my husband and I, we did in fact eat the majority of that cheese in one sitting along with a few grapes and wine. I enjoyed this event because it was busting at the seams with samples of all sorts and because it was a great feeling to find new flavors and to be re-introduced to incredible artisanal products made right here in Vermont.