When you want to check out cheeses at the Portland Farmers Market, you first need to think about what you end goal is. Is it to try a lot of new and different flavors of cheese? To come back with a cheese or two that you can have at home with part of a personal meal like with pasta or a sandwich? Are you looking for a hard cheese to grate? Soft cheese to spread on bread? Or do you want to make a cheese plate? What kind of milk cheese are you looking for? What kind of profiles do you want to have, based on what else you are pairing the cheese with? There are lots of great cheeses available, so having some sort of frame is important. The second thing you need to do is visit everyone you are interested in, taste everything you can and don’t feel bad about taking notes about taste and price- and then make your choice. Let me cover some of your options on Saturday’s market at PSU.
Let’s start with goat milk cheese, and Juniper Grove Farm. They are a goat dairy so their cheese is all from goat milk, and they offer usually 9-12 cheeses at their stand. Getting a tomme here would be great for a cheese plate. I love getting their cumin tomme, but they offer several other cheeses too. Besides, the Cumin Tomme I favor, they also have Tumalo Tomme, both have an earthy flavor. They also have a farmer’s cheese (regular or lavender infused) or goat gruyere that you can make grilled cheeses or other sandwiches with- they always have the farmer’s, the goat gruyere varies. In terms of their chevre, you might like Thor’s, which is a smoked over wood chevre, if they have it. They also have a few mold ripened cheeses, which vary depending on the day.
If you are looking to try a lot of ways goat milk can be used for cheese, this is the stand for you as they personally will slice a sample at your request if you want to try something other then the two they may already have cut on plates for sampling, and they can often cut a piece to your order with their scale. The other cheese booths have cheeses that are already packaged, so with them you get the amount that they have already pre-decided.
When I am looking for chevre for personal use, I often go with Fraga Farms. I get the plain one so I can taste the freshness on its own or use that as a versatile base for what I need. But they also chevres that have flavorings, like oil and herbs, or a tapenade. With these chevres, I like to spread it simply on anything you could put butter or cream cheese on, or you can have it with some fresh berry jam to make the chevre spread to your taste. They also have a few other simple farmhouse cheeses. Larry is always there to talk about his cheeses with the obvious care he has for them. On grand opening day of the market, we talked about his favorite ways to have the original flavor cheese. He recommended I try it with berries to bring out the fruit, and told me about how the week before during the surprise windstorms the power to the farm went out and the generator was out, so his family and a few other helping hands were hand-milking all their goats in the dark! Stories like these re-emphasize why you want to buy direct from the people who are working so hard to make these products and reward their passion in person, let them know you appreciate their efforts (and in this case, I can eat their product in like 2-3 days just by myself).
Dee Creek Farm also offers goat cheese, but in very small sizes compared to what Fraga has. What they excel at however is flavored chevres, such as in garlic and chives flavor (last year the chive flowers gave it a visual of purple flecks) and the herbes de provence flavored chevre, which makes it more on the dip side. They also make some cheese that taste like other cheese, such as like a cheddar style, or tomme style caerphilly. I do like them, but price-wise they are a bit more on the more costly side for the amount of cheese you get, but might work well if you only want a little bit of chevre such as enough only for two or three servings.
On to the cow cheeses. Jacob’s Creamery has a very small selection of cheeses- but they offer a variety of dairy products. Lisa Jacobs (in the orange hat) makes a small variety of cow milk cheeses so it varies depending on what she wanted to make, but the best thing are her flavored cream cheeses, flavored butter, creme fraiche or mascarpone or ricotta sometimes, pudding and you can also get fresh milk if you are early enough. I usually go for the salmon cream cheese- better then the flavored cream cheese you can get at the store prepackaged. I also love her flavored butters- once I was lucky to grab a honey walnut one and it was a wonderful mingling of sweet cream with nuttiness. I often will pair one of her cream cheeses with bagels I get from Tastebud for breakfast for the week.
Willamette Valley Cheese has a lot of really great cheeses. At the Cheese Bar Spectacular, F would often pick out Willamette Valley cheeses from platefuls of cheese tastings. They sell more cheese then they offer samples for- usually there are 2-3 that are cut into small tastes, and because they are by the entrance of the market on the northwest side sometimes it can get crowded and a small line of tasters training through, person by person. We particularly like their Brindisi, Perrydale, or Boerenkaas on a cheese plate- they usually have the Brindisi, and also the other award winning ones such as Horseradish Havarti, Smoked Peppered and Chive Jack, some Aged Gouda, and variations of the havarti and gouda. As mentioned though, they don’t have samples of all of them, so you might have to take the plunge sometimes.
Taking a different approach with all the cheeses they offer is Rogue Creamery, located more towards the middle of the market, which offers samples of all their cheeses from little self serve lidded containers. They are similarly well regarded and won awards for their cheeses, particularly their blue cheeses, and they have interesting flavored cheeses such as lavender or chipotle, and with Rogue Beer (the Rogues are not the same company) such as Morimoto Soba and Chocolate Stout. So if you like blue cheeses or unusual flavorings with the cheese, stop here. Oh, and they have cheese curds.Their offerings are pretty consistent throughout the market season except for a seasonal here or there, but it’s very convenient to have access to all the Rogue Creamery offerings here in one booth.
Usually only a booth or so down from Rogue and specializing in Sheep and Cow’s milk cheeses is Ancient Heritage Dairy. These are good cheeses- I especially like their bloomy cheeses like Adelle and Valentine- you can see the rich decadence from the sample plate, oozing that creamy cheeseness.
I rarely but once in a while stop at Monteillet Fromagerie, which offers goat, sheep, and a mix of the two milks in their French style cheeses, but perhaps they are in line with your taste for cheese. They have a mixed goat/sheep cheese Causse Noir I like, another sheep cheese, and several chevres and soft sheep or goat milk cheese. He also often has some fresh very chubby raviolis which he has already added those chevres and probably using the eggs from the chickens (which he also sells… and also duck eggs.) And butter.
As you can see, there’s enough variety to get the cheese you need here if you wanted to keep it local with no problem. I remember when I visited with my sister in Vermont (she was living in New Hampshire I think at the time), and I was still a Chicago citizen, how jealous I was of all these cheeses being so available to visit and get from the East coast markets, and how different the milk was when it was freshly purchased in a little 8-12 oz at the farmers market (come to think of it, wish they had that at Portland Farmers Market, then I can have it with the baked goods at the market… though I understand the difficulty of a earth-friendly container in that size).
Well, you can get a fabulous variety of cheeses here in Portland too. It doesn’t mean I won’t still be visiting my friendly cheese mongers, but I love supporting the local cheese artisans and hearing their stories of making the cheese and milking their goats and a moody cow. You can put together a totally locally produced cheese platter to rival any cheese platter that has cheeses from the American East coast artisan farms or even France in one stop shopping here at the Portland Farmers Market (and don’t forget the charcuterie from the meat vendors in the previous post). And with all the wonderful wines in the area, and beer, why wouldn’t you want a cheese plate accompaniment?
There’s something about sitting down with cheese with guests that allows you to sit and talk together because something about a cheese plate signals you to slow your pace down- taking a little bit of each cheese, adding a touch of honey or vinegar, a bite of fruit or nut, a cracker or piece of bread. Even on a regular weekday night, eating cheese and bread with a glass of wine while watching TV or streaming a movie makes you take it slower then a mindless bowl of chips or popcorn. That’s part of the spirit of the Portland Farmer’s Market too- not only local ingredients from the farmers, but taking the time to enjoy and dine instead of just eating.
