What kind of cheese did you eat when you were young? For Benita Kasbo, Syrian-American cheesemaker and owner of Kasbo's Market, the answer is jibneh, a savory, meltable brined cheese her family made at home when she was growing up in New Jersey. These days, Benita makes it for her own family, infusing each block of curd with fruity and floral mahlab, a fragrant spice made from ground cherry stones—and, since launching her business in 2020, she's been selling it through select outlets in New York City and North Jersey. In this interview, Benita shares her story and her mission to expand the definition of what cheese can be for the American palate with Stef and Sue.

Sue and Stef talk with cheesemaker Charuth van Beuzekom of Dutch Girl Creamery in Nebraska about her 20-year cheesemaking journey, the challenges of milking goats in corn and cow country, and a tragedy on the farm that turned into an opportunity to reimagine the business.

Sue, Stef, and Alex are back with more of the only podcast by cheesemakers, for cheesemakers! New episodes drop Monday, Oct. 20.

Summertime is when cheesemakers and dairy farmers are at their busiest — and that’s saying something. So we’re taking a little break to make hay (literally!) while the sun shines, with brand new episodes with more cheesemakers we admire coming at you this fall. In the meantime, catch up on our back catalog, be sure to subscribe, and please rate and review us — it means so much. Thanks to all of you for your support, and we’ll be back in your ears soon with more cheesy content!

Startup dairy, diversifying the industry, creative milk marketing, racism, income inequality, the urban-rural divide — we dig into all these important topics and more in today’s interview with our good friend Rebecca Seidel, farmer-cheesemaker at the forthcoming One Horn Farm!

The cheese dames chat with Mark Gillman, second-generation cheesemaker at Connecticut's Cato Corner Farm.

In this episode, we talk with cheesemaker David Major or Vermont Shepherd about what it was like to start a sheep dairy way back when (buying plastic bowls from the drugstore and drilling holes in them for molds, for example), cheese marketing, and how much the sheep cheese scene has changed.

When we first interviewed Kate Turcotte at the American Cheese Society Conference last summer, she and her husband were preparing to take over cheesemaking operations at Vermont’s iconic Orb Weaver Farm. Now, they’re up and running as Orb Weaver Creamery and experimenting with new cheeses, so we went back up to Vermont to get an update. Plus, you’ll get to hear from our amazing producer, Jordan Heil, on mic for the first time!

The cheesemakers are on a whirlwind tour of New England recording new episodes, so we hope you enjoy this interview from the archives with Sean Fitzgerald of Cherry Grove Farm!

Our cheesemaker crew stopped by Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville, NJ to interview their longtime head cheesemaker, Paul Lawler! (You can hear his colleague Sean Fitzgerald on one of our earliest episodes.) Even before he was a cheesemaker, Paul was a cheesemonger working to help makers in the region get their products to consumers in Philadelphia, and now, he makes some of the best cheeses in New Jersey. Get the scoop on their cheeses (and hear what cheesemakers listen to while they’re working) on today’s super-sized show!

On this episode, the cheese dames sit down with longtime southeast PA goat farmer and cheesemaker Pete Demchur of Shellbark Hollow Farm! He and Sue were two of the earliest artisan cheesemakers blazing a trail in the region’s artisan cheese movement more than a decade ago. Enjoy — and stay tuned for the Spring-Summer Collective Creamery cheese share to open very, very soon!

In this episode, the Cheese Dames look north to Maine, where a campaign for food sovereignty has made the state a haven for artisan cheesemakers. We sat down with Jessie Dowling of Fuzzy Udder Creamery discuss the opportunities and challenges Maine’s regulations around dairy and cheese — the most permissive in the country — have created for the state’s bustling cheesemaking community.

The cheese dames sit down with Rynn Caputo, head of the amazing Caputo Brothers Creamery! Their frozen cagliata curd and 95% whey ricotta — made with local milk from a neighboring Animal Welfare Approved dairy — have changed how we think about Italian-style cheeses and what “fresh mozzarella” really is. We want your feedback! If you listen, please take our brief survey about the podcast: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/V7LDT29

Did you miss us? The Collective Creamery crew is back with more cheesy episodes for your listening pleasure! In today’s super-sized ep, we sit down with Sam Kennedy and Stacey Gentile the PA cheese power couple behind Doe Run Farm, one of the winningest cheese outfits in the state! Their wheels have won multiple ACS awards and Best in Show ribbons from the PA Farm Show — the numbers don’t lie! We also dig into one of cheese’s most intriguing ingredients — rennet — in the first episode of our new season.

This week, Sue and Stef chat about the connection between the hospitality world and cheesemaking, then dig into an interview with our good friend Vito Forte, cheesemaker of Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax, Virginia! Vito made the transition from bar owner in north Jersey to fermentation nerd and home cheesemaker to full-fledged professional, and now he’s making award-winning cheeses at Meadow Creek. Sue and Stef caught up with him at the Cheesemakers’ Resource Conference in Lancaster County back in February over Pennsylvania Dutch treats like ham balls and potato cakes. Listen in and follow Vito on Instagram @vitofermente.

Today’s interview is with an amazing cheesemaker who represents a new era of artisan cheesemaking in Vermont. After several years as Shelburne Farms’ head cheesemaker, Kate Turcotte and her husband are taking over the iconic Orb Weaver Farm as founders and longtime cheesemakers Marjorie Susman and Marian Pollack retire from the dairy side of their farming careers. Our crew chatted with Kate at the American Cheese Society Conference in Pittsburgh over the summer about this exciting new phase for Orb Weaver and for her as a cheesemaker. Also, if you’re in the Philly area, don’t miss Madame Fromage’s biennial Cheese Ball in Philadelphia on November 10! Get the details and score your tickets here. This year, proceeds will be donated to support Collective Creamery! And there’s still time to sign up for the Collective Creamery fall-winter share, which starts Oct. 18! We’ll be selling prorated shares for the next few weeks, too. Cheese up your life with us this season!

Today’s interview is with Molly Kroiz, owner and cheesemaker at Georges Mill Farm Artisan Cheese in Virginia! Our crew met Molly through the PASA conference and the Pennsylvania Cheese Guild, and she’s one of our favorite badass cheesemaking women! After studying fisheries management, Molly met her husband Sam, and the two of them headed back to his family farm in Lovettsville to raise a sprightly herd of Alpine goats. Today, Molly makes beautiful goats’ milk cheeses, raises two little ones and and welcomes their community onto this 250-year-old farm property with activities like barn dances and baby goat feeding sessions in spring. We hope you enjoy this chat we had with her at the American Cheese Society Conference in Pittsburgh over the summer!

Just about every cheese lover dreams about becoming a professional cheesemaker — but it takes real dedication to make that dream a reality. Matt Spiegler started out as a blogger in Brooklyn, exploring the world of artisan cheese and writing about it as he went on his website Cheese Notes. Soon, he was making cheese at home — and eventually, Matt quit his day job to intern and then work at one of the country’s most esteemed cheese houses, Jasper Hill Farm. Today, he’s the head cheesemaker at Churchtown Dairy, a biodynamic farm in New York’s Hudson Valley, only a few miles from where Matt grew up. Plus, we taste some delicious Churchtown cheeses!

During the American Cheese Society Conference in Pittsburgh last month, we sat down with two of our good friend in cheese, the iconic duo of Peter Dixon and Rachel Fritz Schaal, owners and cheesemakers at Vermont's Parish Hill Creamery! They make the most enticing Alpine-style cheeses using grassfed milk from the neighboring Putney School's herd of cows, and they even create all their own cultures using milk from specific herd members. They've even gotten together with a crew of awesome cheesemakers in the Northeast (our very own Sue Miller is one of them) to create Cornerstone, a recipe for a true American original cheese that makers can use to express their own unique terroir from the milk down to the microbes. Listen in to find out how they make it all happen! 

We took a field trip to meet up with Brent Zimmerman of Lime Kiln Farm in West Coxsackie in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley! Brent has one of the most fascinating stories of any cheesemaker we've come across: decades ago, he followed his heart to Tuscany, found a job as a herdsman, and then spent 25 years making amazing cheeses the Italian way. Several years ago, he and his partner bought the ~450-acre Lime Kiln Farm, where they're making the same fantastic aged and fresh cheeses and raising goat, cows, and sheep. Brent welcomed us into his farm store for a chat and a tasting of his truly fabulous cheeses, which have an Italian soul adapted to American regulations.  Find Lime Kiln's cheeses (plus pasture-raised meats, eggs, and other goodies) at their farm store, and follow them on Instagram to see when they're at farmers' markets in the region.