California Artisan Cheese Festival Best Bite Competition

Believe it or not, my cheese Friday is not over yet after attending a blind tasting seminar, touring two cheesemakers, a cheese lunch, and a distillery as covered in my previous posts in part 1 and part 2 recap of my trip to enjoy the California Artisan Cheese Festival. After a couple hours break after this tour, my sister and I then went to an event called The Best Bite – A Tribute to First Responders. Then, on Sunday we went to the Artisan Cheese Tasting and Marketplace.
The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuyt Dairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder. The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuy Cairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder.
At the California Artisan Cheese Festival 2018 Best Bite Chefs category of the competition, Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuyt Dairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder.
For the Cheesemonger Bite category, shown here is Oliver’s Market, Cellar Door Platters and Displays Julie Cassotta and Mike Rafter who used Northern Gold from Pedrozo Dairy and Cheese Company to make a beer cheese

The Best Bite

This evening event brought together Cheesemakers, Chefs and Cheesemongers in a Best Bite Competition while paying tribute to first responders who risked their lives during California’s destructive fire storms in October last year. Several of the local heroes got to be judges, and there is also people’s choice award so attendees would get to vote for their winner in each category as well. I took photos of almost everything, both to share with you but also to remember what I ate and who made it for voting later! Photos are my notes!
The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending
Costeaux French Bakery offered a savory cheese twist with an all butter croissant rolled with three cheeses and lavender herbs, as well as another bread stuffed with blue cheese

So now on to my cheese adventures, continued!

The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending. Cypress Grove Cheeses was there The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending

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Travel Tuesday: Visiting The Barlow in Sebastopol

Continuing from my last post where I was on a tour with the Artisan Cheese Festival in California, after a cheese seminar with a blind tasting and visiting Bohemian Creamery, we headed over to The Barlow.  It is a walkable area in downtown Sebastopol that is composed of more then 30 tasting rooms, restaurants, and stores all by local makers in several industrial buildings that used to be the Barlow apple production facility, now re-purposed. We would have our last 3 stops out of the 5 on the tour here while visiting the Barlow in Sebastopol – a lunch showcasing cheese, visiting another cheesemaker, and tasting at a distillery.

lunch with zazu kitchen + farm. Bohemian Creamery's bodacious cheese with a red wine pear, paired with Bucher Pinot Noir RRV 2014, part of the Artisan Cheese Festival tour visiting the Barlow in Sebastopol Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers, part of the Artisan Cheese Festival tour visiting the Barlow in Sebastopol downtown in the North Bay area, California. We had an opportunity in our cheese tour to enter the cheesemaking room and the aging room
Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers, part of the Artisan Cheese Festival tour visiting the Barlow in Sebastopol downtown in the North Bay area, California
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Travel Tuesday: Artisan Cheese Festival Tour

As some of you may have seen in my Instagram and which I posted briefly about here on the blog, I went to visit one of my sisters who lives in the San Rafael/Bay Area recently. The specific event we had in mind to enjoy together was the California Artisan Cheese Festival, now in its 12th year, that celebrates California cheese with tours, seminars, tasting events, and a cheese market. Here’s a look at my review and recap of my experiences, divided among several posts. First I’ll start with my favorite activity during the festival, the Artisan Cheese Festival Tour.

I took off an extra day, Friday March 22, to enjoy the first full day of this 3 day, weekend cheese festival. The first day was devoted mostly to artisan tours to cheesemakers and local artisans via a bus with a group of 25-30 people. The tour I selected was called “Sensory Sebastopol”, which is basically the area 30 minutes away from Petaluma that our tour stops were concentrated on. The tour included a cheese seminar, a visit to 2 cheesemakers, a cheese lunch, and a visit with a distillery. I will cover the cheese seminar and the first cheesemaker, Bohemian Creamery, in this post.
Artisan Cheese Festival tour 2018, a visit with owner Lisa Gottreich of Bohemian Creamery showing us and telling us the story behind the scenes of an artisan cheesemaker. Here are some of the Bohemian Creamery cheeses. In the front, you see a bloomy rind cheese, the triangle soft cheese is a washed rind, and that in the back the harder aged cheeses of different aging periods are examples of natural rind cheeses. Artisan Cheese Festival tour 2018, a visit with owner Lisa Gottreich of Bohemian Creamery showing us and telling us the story behind the scenes of an artisan cheesemaker. We were able to also visit the 3 aging rooms as you see here.
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