Speaker 1 (00:00:00): Coming up on Art Palace, Speaker 2 (00:00:03): My husband is at the farm right now picking up about 6,000 pounds of milk. Speaker 1 (00:00:07): Oh my gosh. Speaker 2 (00:00:08): Yes. Speaker 1 (00:00:21): Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host Russell iig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art in honor of National Cheese Lovers Day. Today's cool person is Andrea Sing Robbins, owner of Urban Stead Cheese Company. So how did you get into the cheese biz? Speaker 2 (00:00:51): Yes, it's a big question that we always get at the shop. Why cheese? And so Scott and I, my husband who is co proprietor and he's also our head cheese maker, he's been in the food and wine industry for about 30 years. And we've been married about, well this past year was 10 years and we knew that we would always own a business together and it was likely in the food space. But based on his background, we also knew we didn't want to be at a bar until 2:33 AM Speaker 2 (00:01:25): And he's a certified sommelier, so wine really makes sense and he has an extensive wine knowledge. We didn't want to run a traditional wine restaurant either, but we've always traveled a lot. And because of his wine background and the restaurant space that he's operated in, cheese has always been present. It's always been wine and cheese. It's there. If he's doing wine tastings, he's likely got cheese. And through some of our travels domestically and internationally, I think for us it really hit the most. We were in California on a wine trip and we were at Cowgirl Creamery in Tamales, California near tamales. It was really approachable. If we were in Wisconsin or Vermont or California, we'd all see a lot of cheese, right? And we'd all be very familiar with how cheese is made and we'd be really exposed to it, but not so much maybe in southern Ohio. And it was this, I had these visions of cheese being this complex place that you would visit, and it was just really, really approachable, simple. We were able to get a small cooler and we were able to get some cheese. So as we went to different wineries, we had this amazing cheese with us Speaker 2 (00:02:40): And there was windows into the production room and it gave us, it dawned on us, this may hit all of the priorities. It's contributing to the local food scene. It's making an incredible product. We are makers. And so it was always in our blood to make versus serve a product that somebody else makes. And it deserves to be noted. Both of our grandparents were dairy farmers. Oh Speaker 1 (00:03:05): Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:03:05): So it's neat to be able to contribute. I don't want to be a dairy farmer hat to off Speaker 1 (00:03:10): To Speaker 2 (00:03:11): All dairymen out there because it is a hard job and one that is not typically highly lucrative. And it's 365 days a year, twice a day. And so this is a way to participate and support the dairy community, but not milk cows and still contribute to the local food scene in a really meaningful way. And we saw a business opportunity that there wasn't a lot of cheese making in southern Ohio. Speaker 1 (00:03:41): Yeah. Was that part of the decision too, of just sort of seeing this gap essentially? Speaker 2 (00:03:46): Absolutely. Speaker 1 (00:03:47): Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:03:48): And also a gap in knowledge. So most of us purchase our cheese, say at a big box store or maybe at a lovely cheese shop. And there's such a long story about cheese before it ever gets to the table Speaker 1 (00:04:04): And Speaker 2 (00:04:04): Before it gets to those shops. And we wanted to provide transparency of the story behind cheese and from farm to city, it was important to us and to really flip the table and do this in an urban environment, it's why we are urban stead cheese instead of farm stead cheese. As we're doing cheese making in an urban environment, a lot of times cheese is made maybe close to the farm or on the farm in more rural areas. And that's an interesting hurdle because how do those individuals get their cheese to market? And so they're going to farmer's markets, they're obviously through distribution channels. But we saw an opportunity to do this in an urban environment, satisfy our goals of investing in the city of Cincinnati and being a part of the community, but also doing, making cheese, being able to serve. We have a full bar of beer, wine, and liquor. So we're able to serve some really beautiful wines, utilize Scott's beverage background and do all of that alongside making cheese. Speaker 1 (00:05:07): So we were talking about the story of cheese before it gets to the table. I don't know, pick a piece of cheese and sort of walk me through some of the basic steps that happened for that to happen. I feel like maybe I didn't pay enough attention on the Mr. Rogers episodes or whatever that probably covered this. So how do you make cheese? I really don't have a good sense of it. Speaker 2 (00:05:30): So cheese is such a simple food in terms of composition. It's milk, salt cultures and enzymes. There's not a whole lot of ingredients. And the week starts in terms of how does the cheese get to this plate that we're looking at. My husband is at the farm right now picking up about 6,000 pounds of milk. Speaker 1 (00:05:53): Oh my gosh. Speaker 2 (00:05:53): Yes. So a gallon of milk. Let's give that perspective. A gallon of milk weighs about 8.6 pounds. Around that a gallon of water is usually about 8.2 pounds. And so your delta there is your fats and solids and proteins. And so it's about around 700 plus gallons of milk is 6,000 pounds. And as we buy milk in pounds as fluid milk, that's the way you would buy it. So that's where the week starts. And then we go into cheese making at the shop on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday into Friday. And in the world of cheese, there's really two. You have pasteurized and raw milk cheeses. We choose to make pasteurized cheeses and it's because we make some younger, fresher cheeses. Raw milk cheeses in the United States have to be aged 60 days Speaker 3 (00:06:37): Before Speaker 2 (00:06:38): You can eat 'em. So that would preclude us from eating any of those beautiful spreads. Speaker 3 (00:06:42): The Speaker 2 (00:06:43): Misty River came and bear that little white round cheese, cheese curds of Clark, of course, and then also the quark. So we pasteurize, so we'll go into cheese making tomorrow morning, we will take our cheese vat holds about 3000 pounds of milk and we'll heat that up and pasteurize it. And so then what you've done is created essentially a clean palate. You've got your milk to start cheese making. At that point, we add our cheese cultures. So cheese cultures are, it's essentially bacteria, not bad bacteria, good bacteria. It's a known, we have a recipe. Each cheese has its own recipe and that recipe drives the cheese cultures, but also the make process. Speaker 3 (00:07:27): So Speaker 2 (00:07:27): The way each of those cheeses are made is each individually unique. Some of them are cooked curd cheeses, meaning you actually physically cook the cheese or the milk with the cultures with the enzymes. Whereas other cheeses are not a cooked curd. The Cayman bear and the quark are neither are cooked curd cheeses. And then there's cheddar. And cheddar is unique into itself. Why Speaker 3 (00:07:53): Different Speaker 2 (00:07:54): Cheddar? You actually make it and almost rip it apart and put it back together. Speaker 3 (00:07:59): Okay. Speaker 2 (00:08:00): It's really interesting. So we make cheddar on Wednesdays and part of the process in making cheddar is getting the cheese curds, which are also on the board over there. And so you've put your cheese cultures in, you've put your coagulant. Coagulant is what sets it and firms it up. It almost makes it the texture of say yogurt a little bit thicker than that sometimes. And the old nursery rhyme curds in way. So you take harps or cheese knives and they're little thin wires and you take 'em through that yogurt and at that moment you have your curds and weigh. Speaker 3 (00:08:34): Oh, okay. Speaker 2 (00:08:34): And so it's a really loose curd, not like these cheese curds. And that's the moment at which if it's a cooked curd cheese, now you turn the heat on in the cheese bat and it's going to cook 'em. And what it's going to do is tighten up those loose curds. You'll often almost always pull off your at that point. And then depending on the cheese, different things will happen. You cook 'em, drain your way, and then you get this mat and you put it in molds like cheese molds like the round molds, and it goes into those. And then you press it, either light press, heavy press, cheddar's, a really heavy press, but cheddar different. So you've cut those curds, you've pulled off your way. Now you've got this mat and you take and you cut it into these big slabs and you go through a process called cheddar. And cheddar is you take those slabs and you keep turning 'em. Speaker 3 (00:09:32): And Speaker 2 (00:09:32): What you're looking for is where you've got, you can see the curds in this mat that you can see the definition of what those small curds were. But as you flip 'em, they get smoothed out, I'm going to say. And so you keep flipping 'em in a rotation and you press 'em down. And what you're wanting is those proteins, cheese is all about your proteins, fats and proteins, but a lot about those proteins coming together. And it gets really strong to the point that you could hold this two plus foot long slab up by one end and it's strong enough to hold its own weight. Speaker 2 (00:10:06): And then you take that and you run it through our curd mill. And at that moment now you cut those into smaller pieces and that's the size cheese curd. You get off that. You would not do that with say, gutta or our tome or canon bear any other cheese on that plate. And then you go through the process of salt. So the fourth ingredient, milk, salt cultures and enzymes. Your fourth ingredient is salt. So all cheese gets salt somehow salt has been added to all of those cheeses. The Misty River Cayman Bear goes into a little brine and it floats in a brine for a really short amount of time because it's small. And so maybe it only brines for five minutes. Whereas the Gutta, which is a big 16 to 18 pound wheel brines for 48 hours, Speaker 2 (00:10:51): Cheddar gets salt directly applied. And then through the process of it draining its way, it's still losing some of that salt. Clark. We add salt directly too. And so each of the cheeses is really different quirks and interesting, we are talking about cook curd cheeses. Cork is not a cook curd cheese. And we make it in the traditional way that they would make it in Europe. And that's really what we're looking to do here is old world style cheeses. It hangs in these really tightly woven cheesecloth bags and they're about that long, so probably about three, four feet long. And you fill 'em up with the curds in the way that we talked about and they drain their way Speaker 3 (00:11:30): Through Speaker 2 (00:11:30): That cheesecloth. What you get left over is this product, and we add a little bit of salt to it. Each cheese is really different. Cheddar we call cheddar is a very sturdy cheese. And to give it perspective, guta presses in our cheese press at 20 P s I overnight cheddar presses at 50 P s I overnight. So what we do is, so we have the cheese curds. Now, those cheese curds, we take 25 pounds of cheese curds and put them in a cheese mold and press them together. And then that becomes a wheel of cheddar. So cheese curds are just a step in the process of making cheddar. Speaker 1 (00:12:12): Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:12:12): Yep. Speaker 1 (00:12:12): Yeah. So I'd heard that sort of yellow color that we see with cheddar is not ever real, right? That's Speaker 2 (00:12:19): Correct. It's Speaker 1 (00:12:20): Just totally artificial if you see. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:12:22): So that would be a nto. A N N A T O is the dye that used to dye cheese. It's really regional. So if we were in Wisconsin, there would be a lot of orange cheddar. If we were in Vermont, very little orange cheddar Europe, not a lot of orange cheddar. But one of the ways that that cheese became, came to be died, and this isn't the only reason, but it's a little bit of the story is that, so think like old world style cheeses, a farmer's taking their animals, sheep, cows, whatever it is, goats into the mountains, they're eating flowers. There's beta carotene that betacarotene causes their milk to have this beautiful yellowish orangeish tint. And it's the mark of a good cheese because you can taste it, we call it in the wine world, it's terroir in the cheese world, it's also terroir. So what they're eating is coming through into their milk. If they're in a patch of onions, your cheese might taste like onions, but in this case they're eating flowers. The beta carotene, it colored the milk and then the cheese got a beautiful golden tint. So that's part of the reason that we started coloring cheese orange Speaker 1 (00:13:37): Is Speaker 2 (00:13:37): That we're mimicking that. But then it became more of a regional thing, Speaker 1 (00:13:42): Just like an expectation of what you expect your cheese to be colored. Probably a way of distinguishing it too from other types of cheese too. When you see it, you just go, oh yeah, that's cheddar right there. Speaker 2 (00:13:52): And also traditions and cheddar is a really interesting cheese. So what we make are street ched is a cloth bound cheddar less than 1%, right around 1% of cheese in the world is made in a cloth bound format. A lot of cheddar is made day one, it's packaged into plastic and think like the traditional loaf, like almost like the rectangular style of cheddar. That's orange. It's in plastic, it's aging in a refrigerator. Speaker 2 (00:14:22): It doesn't get the ability to breathe. It's by nature, temperature or a refrigerator is going to suppress the cheese cultures from doing their work. We make our cheddar in a truckle format. It looks like a big cylinder. They're about 20 pounds each, and they're wrapped in cheesecloth. So take that 25 pounds of cheese curs, we pressed it, we've wrapped it in cheesecloth. We paint it in a rendered pork lard, which helps seal on that cheesecloth, but it also creates a moisture barrier. Still lets it breathe, but keeps it on there because this cheddar that you're going to try today, it's been aging for 18 months, but it's in our cheese aging room, which mimics a cave environment. It's about 54 degrees, about 90% relative humidity, really high humidity. So it's getting a chance to breathe. It's got moisture. The cultures are still active, but they're not crazy active because it's at 54 degrees versus say what refrigerator is usually 37 to 42 is the average. So that's going to keep the cultures from doing their work. And in this case with ours, the cultures are active, they're still continuing to work. And so cloth bound cheddars are going to look really different, look physically different, but also taste really different than some of the non cloth bound cheddars. Speaker 2 (00:15:44): And then you have more of what we probably in the US think of as cheddar, some of your more processed cheese. We would challenge that this is artisanal cheese. And so a lot of your artisanal cheese makers are going to be doing cheese in this format. Speaker 1 (00:15:59): Yeah. I just told you before we started, I was just in Brazil and have you ever heard of ES cheese? Oh yeah, yeah. MEUs cheese is my favorite. Brazilian cheese. And when you're staying in Brazilian hotels love breakfasts. They do great breakfast spreads, but they always have MEUs cheese. There's always a plate full of MEUs cheese and cold cuts and fruit. And that's my favorite thing is just to get the MEUs cheese. One of the popular things to eat with MEUs cheese is guava and guava paste. And so they call it a Romeo and Juliet. I like it. So it's like sweet and salty kind of idea. And so you kind of get some MEUs cheese and put a little guava paste on it Speaker 2 (00:16:44): Making me hungry. Speaker 1 (00:16:44): Well, I mean luckily there's a plate of cheese Speaker 2 (00:16:46): In front of Speaker 1 (00:16:47): Us. So true. It's not like we don't have any options here. This is true. And maybe it's a good time to start try sampling some things. So where should I start? Speaker 2 (00:16:56): What should I Speaker 1 (00:16:56): Begin with? So Speaker 2 (00:16:58): Anytime you approach a cheeseboard, you are going to start with the mildest cheese typically, because even think about doing a wine tasting, you're going to go lightest to darkest, Speaker 1 (00:17:11): Kind Speaker 2 (00:17:11): Of the same thing. The quark with the honey and the blueberries. Speaker 1 (00:17:15): Okay, right here. Speaker 2 (00:17:15): Yeah. So quark is a really interesting cheese. It's a like a fresh farmer's cheese. It's very German, eastern European. And today we've got some honey and some blueberries over it, but it's a super versatile cheese and it's a cheese that my husband Scott and I wanted to bring back to this extremely German city. Should I Speaker 1 (00:17:36): Put a blueberry on there? Speaker 2 (00:17:38): I think so. Since Speaker 1 (00:17:39): There's so many, they look very Speaker 2 (00:17:40): Temp. And you mentioned the Manus cheese with the guava. And so think about that saltiness with the balance. It's almost the same. It is the same theory as like a chef putting fat, acid salt that you want that balanced flavor. And so the honey provides a little sweet, the quark is creamy, just a touch of salt. And then you've got a little bit of fruit with the blueberry there. Speaker 1 (00:18:04): What do you think? I love that. Speaker 2 (00:18:06): Awesome. Speaker 1 (00:18:06): Yeah, it is very mild. Yeah. It's not a super strong flavor. But yeah, with the blueberry, I'm very glad I put that blueberry on there. It really, Speaker 2 (00:18:13): I also love it with raspberries and the strawberry. Speaker 1 (00:18:17): I'll try that. Speaker 2 (00:18:18): I always say that quark is like, it's kind of goat cheese and texture, Speaker 1 (00:18:24): But Speaker 2 (00:18:24): It's goat without the barn. Speaker 1 (00:18:26): Yeah, it is like, you're right. The texture is really similar. Speaker 2 (00:18:31): And I've thin this a little bit. Usually it's a little thicker. And so at urban stead, not only do we have the full tasting room and you can come in and enjoy cheese, you can buy cheese to go. But we wholesale to a lot of restaurants and cheese shops throughout Cincinnati, Dayton, Lexington, Louisville, Cleveland, and some other cities as well. And the quark is one that the chefs have really jumped on. We've got, instead of a goat cheese toast, there's a quark toast down at Crown Republic. Different people are using it to bake. It makes an amazing cheesecake. I could Speaker 1 (00:19:10): Imagine. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:19:11): So it's a perfect substitute for cream cheese. Say you're making that Cincinnati skyline dip can be used with cork or the buffalo chicken dip. Speaker 1 (00:19:21): You Speaker 2 (00:19:22): Can use cork. Or let's say you were making maybe a strel, you could use cork in there. Amazing. For baking. It can also be substituted for ricotta. Speaker 1 (00:19:32): Yeah, yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 (00:19:33): I can totally see that. And so stuffed shells, I really enjoy it also with some fresh dill, a little bit of buttermilk for a vegetable dip. The possibilities with cork are really endless. Germans would eat 15 pounds of cork a year on average, but it's their yogurt. Speaker 1 (00:19:52): Oh, okay. Speaker 2 (00:19:53): And so you're eating it with the honey and the blueberries. Put a little gran in there, a little different fruits. There's your breakfast. Speaker 1 (00:19:58): Yeah, I mean, when you were talking about all these different things, it could easily become a sweet, it could go between sweet or savory because it's so mild. Speaker 2 (00:20:10): One of our team members does figs or dates with some balsamic and makes a really lovely dip with it. Quark is just an endlessly versatile product. And it's been an exciting thing to see the people of Cincinnati, some people who've never seen Quark and other people who maybe grew up in Germany or had a German ancestor and they're like, oh my gosh, I haven't seen cork since I was a kid. Speaker 1 (00:20:37): I think this is my first time eating it as far as I know. I mean, maybe I've had it and didn't know what it was Speaker 2 (00:20:41): Called, Speaker 1 (00:20:42): But, Speaker 2 (00:20:42): But it's been really fun to introduce it. The three spreads that you have there, you have our Ohio Valley pimento and our beer cheese and our tomato basil quark. Speaker 1 (00:20:53): And Speaker 2 (00:20:53): So all three of those are quark derivatives. Speaker 1 (00:20:56): Okay. So should I try those next Speaker 2 (00:20:57): Or, yeah, or maybe because they have a bit more flavor. I want to take you to the cumin bear is Speaker 1 (00:21:01): Right here. Speaker 2 (00:21:02): That came bear definitely. My favorite bite on there is take a piece of the canon bear and a little bit of fig jam and a bite of the strawberry and almond. And it is, again, we're going back to fat acid, salt, a little bit of sweetness. It's like the perfectly balanced bite. Speaker 1 (00:21:24): Okay, so just a little strawberry you're saying? Speaker 2 (00:21:26): Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:21:27): Okay. I'm going to And you said an almond too? Yeah. Okay. This is a big bite. Speaker 2 (00:21:31): It is a big bite, but it's so worth it. Speaker 1 (00:21:34): Okay. All right. Here we go. Yeah, Speaker 2 (00:21:35): Go for it. So Kim and Bear is like Brie, similar to Brie. It's going to be different in shape. This is an untraditional format in the three ounce. And Cain bear to Normandy is made in Normandy, France. It's made from cows, the Normandy cows. It's a protected name, kind of like champagne has to be made in that region. Cain bear to Normandy would have to be, so this is a Cayman Bear style similar to a brie. Brie is going to be a big wheel and thinner, and they'll cut it into big pie pieces. Whereas Cain Barrel usually be a little bit smaller format. Again, this is a pasteurized, not a raw milk. So sometimes people are like, oh, I don't like that funky, overly funky canon bear. But what they're thinking about is a raw milk canon bear. And that can be really, really funky. Speaker 1 (00:22:25): Yeah, this is not, Speaker 2 (00:22:27): Not No, it's very mild. Speaker 1 (00:22:28): Yeah. I'm kind of like, some breeze are a little strong and I get like, Ooh. I mean, I always love when there's honey or jam or something with it because it helps kind of temper that. And I love that play of flavors between that kind of bitterness. But this is way milder than most kind of breeze I've had. Speaker 2 (00:22:50): This one's a little young. I think we made these, what did I see on the 17th of December? So really we think our sweet spot is right around 25 to 35 days. So this is a touch young, and so it'll get a little funkier, but not funky like a raw milk cheese will get. And don't get me wrong, we love raw milk cheeses. I'm an equal cheese opportunist. I believe that even the craft slices in the plastic, they make an amazing grilled cheese. Speaker 1 (00:23:21): Yeah, Speaker 2 (00:23:22): They're a good melter. There's not very many cheeses that I don't think have a place at some point. So this came and bear is a fun cheese because if you came in the tasting room and you chose to get that, you would get the entire three ounce little round. And it's great for sharing. Speaker 1 (00:23:38): Yeah. I'll be honest, I'm having trouble not eating more. Speaker 2 (00:23:41): I would not have, Speaker 1 (00:23:43): I'm saving myself for the rest of this plate. You can't see it, but it's very, very large. I should have taken a beautiful photo of it before I started digging into it. So we'll have to, I don't know if we'll just show the aftermath. Speaker 2 (00:23:55): That would be a good, this is after, I would say I kind of want to come back to the spreads last. Speaker 1 (00:24:03): Maybe the cheese curd next. Speaker 2 (00:24:04): Yeah, I think a cheese curd would be a great place to land. So cheese curds are day one, cheddar, Speaker 1 (00:24:09): I'm assuming I'm grabbing the right thing. Speaker 2 (00:24:11): You are grabbing the right thing. And we make cheese curds every Wednesday. Most Wednesdays, we didn't make 'em last week. We took a little cheese hiatus at the new year. But fresh squeaky cheese CURTs, and they're squeakiest closest to being made. And so usually about five 30 on Wednesdays, Speaker 1 (00:24:31): We Speaker 2 (00:24:32): Have a group of individuals in the tasting room waiting for those cheese CURTs to come out of the back. Speaker 1 (00:24:38): Really? Speaker 2 (00:24:38): You're still warm and squeaky straight out of the bat. And what it is, is there's air. And so these aren't going to squeak because these were made. They do Speaker 1 (00:24:44): Very, very slightly, but not a lot. Speaker 2 (00:24:47): You can wake your squeak up by 10 seconds in the microwave. Speaker 1 (00:24:50): Okay. Speaker 2 (00:24:51): And what it does is reactivates those proteins and that's what's squeaking against your teeth. But on Wednesday nights they squeak because there's still air between the casing, between the proteins and that air is squeaking against your teeth. Speaker 1 (00:25:04): Once Speaker 2 (00:25:04): They go in the refrigerator, it's going to start to stop the squeak. So they still squeak on Thursdays a little less so on Fridays. But I put my cheese curds and chili Speaker 1 (00:25:15): And Speaker 2 (00:25:16): I'll do a layer of chili down and then some cheese curds and then another layer of chili, and I pop it in the microwave. And boy do they squeak Speaker 1 (00:25:23): On. Speaker 2 (00:25:24): I just had chili for lunch. If I, oh, we could had cheese Speaker 1 (00:25:27): Curds. I could have put cheese curds in my chili. There Speaker 2 (00:25:29): You go. Speaker 1 (00:25:30): My gosh. Okay. Speaker 2 (00:25:31): So those are cheese curds. And I get a lot of questions. How do I eat the cheese curds? Well, they're awesome. High protein, really filling, just pop a couple of cheese curds that you're looking for. Something relatively, I think it's healthy. I mean, if you're not trying, it's not as healthy as vegetables, but it's also more satiating because it's high protein. And so my mom, she just will pop a couple cheese curds in the middle of the afternoon. It's like a snack, and that's enough to get her through. But then you've got some restaurants around town that are frying them and they are delicious fried. We've got another restaurant kin over in Fairfax, puts 'em in a skillet Speaker 1 (00:26:19): And Speaker 2 (00:26:20): Throws 'em in the coals in their fire. And with a chorizo jam on top with a warm, crusty bread. Oh gosh. It's so good. Speaker 1 (00:26:28): And don't you use a cheese curds traditionally in poutine? Speaker 2 (00:26:31): That's right. And so there's a couple of poutines made around town with our cheese Speaker 1 (00:26:35): Curs, Speaker 2 (00:26:36): And so you put that warm gravy over the top and there's your squeak again. Speaker 1 (00:26:39): Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering, I feel like, I mean, I'm sure people, it's like cheese curds are not as popular around here probably as they are in Wisconsin or something. But Speaker 2 (00:26:50): You think that's possibly also because we go back to that, we don't have a cheesemaker here. I mean, there's a couple of fellow cheese makers here in southern Ohio, but nobody making cheese curds. And you really don't get the opportunity to have fresh squeaky cheese curds unless you're near a cheese maker. And so it's really, again, another fun thing that people are like, oh, I've been looking for cheese curds for the longest time, and now they know that they can come to urban stud cheese and get cheese curds. Speaker 1 (00:27:18): I think it was one of the first things I had to do when I got to Wisconsin time visiting Speaker 2 (00:27:23): And they're like at a gas station. You get everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Speaker 1 (00:27:26): Yeah. Yeah. It's really easy to get. So where should I go next? Speaker 2 (00:27:29): I think you should go to the tome. And so the tome to Evanston, it's the one in the middle. That's the triangle. There you go. Right Speaker 1 (00:27:35): Here. And Speaker 2 (00:27:36): So it's going to be the most mild and elegant of our hard cheeses, which is why I'm going to take you there. Again, we're going lightest to darkest in tasting. Speaker 1 (00:27:44): And Speaker 2 (00:27:46): So tome is a generic term for a small farmhouse wheel, and tome is typically named for the place that it's made. So think tome devo is made in the savo region of France. Speaker 1 (00:28:00): So Speaker 2 (00:28:00): We've given a nod to Evanston, the neighborhood where our building is by naming Tom to Evanston. And it's a younger age, so think like eight to 13 months. And it's going to have really subtle made in the style. So it's an alpine style cheese, and by that think like an azel or a comte, really, really subtle. I pick up almost mustardy straw, but it's also depends on what the cows ate. And so our fault tome I find taste quite different than other tome throughout the year, and I really love the fault tome a lot, but this is a great melter French onion soup. Speaker 1 (00:28:48): That Speaker 2 (00:28:49): Would be good. Or even mac and cheese imparts that deep rich flavor into it. Speaker 1 (00:28:55): Yeah. Yeah. I like it is really subtle, like you mentioned. But yeah, it took me a while. It kind of had a real flavor journey. It starts kind of one place and you go, oh, okay. It took me different places and it was more interesting at the end than I expected it to be at the beginning. Yeah, Speaker 2 (00:29:14): I agree with you. And it's really what your cheese doesn't want to be eaten super cold. So you want to let your cheeseboard, say you're serving a cheeseboard, you want to pull it out about 45 minutes to an hour in advance of serving it. Now if you had all these soft cheeses, that wouldn't necessarily be as much soft cheeses. You want to maybe 15, 20 minutes. But the hard cheeses and that tome, all those subtleties you picked up, I don't think you would've picked them up if it had been super cold. I would say it would taste tight that you wouldn't pick up those subtleties. So I agree that to there's a lot of flavors on the backend that you don't get on the front. Speaker 1 (00:29:53): Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:29:55): Good. I would probably go to the Guta next, which is closest to you, the long pointed. Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:30:00): Okay. Speaker 2 (00:30:01): And so Guta is an interesting cheese because so much of the guta we see in the US is really young, and this is 15, 16 months aged. And so some of the biggest questions we get is, do you smoke your guta? And while we do have, we will have in the future the ability to smoke cheese. We have a smoke room that we haven't, there's lots of projects and cheese making takes a lot of time, but a lot of times people smoke cheese to give it character and flavor that it wouldn't have an opportunity to get with aging. But with a 15, 16 month age, I hope what you find is that this is a big flavor bomb. Speaker 1 (00:30:45): It did not taste at all what I was expecting from a goda. I think you're right. I've mostly probably eaten really young that are Speaker 2 (00:30:51): Very Speaker 1 (00:30:51): Soft and this is harder. And so yeah, it has that kind of more hard cheese flavor than what I was expecting. And so there's a lot more flavor than usually it was Tangier than Speaker 2 (00:31:03): Tangy, some butterscotch, some caramel there. And then you're probably hopefully picking up also on some cheese crystals. Speaker 1 (00:31:10): Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:31:11): So when cheeses start to age and the amino acids breakdown, you get tyrosine crystals, and that's the magical little crystals that people are looking for in aged cheese. And you're absolutely going to pick up on that in the cheddar, which takes us to our last hard cheese is the big, big guy. And I gave you guys a nice, that's my favorite cheese, Speaker 1 (00:31:33): A lot of cheddar here. Speaker 2 (00:31:35): And so that's our street Ched. And so being an urban C Creamery, we're trying to be fun and playful with our cheese names. It's hard to name cheeses as evidenced by the fact that the guta doesn't have a name. Speaker 1 (00:31:46): I mean, we have to name, I have to name programs and it's hard. It's not easy. You don't want to mislead people. You want to be fun and enticing, Speaker 2 (00:31:56): And then also you put a name on it and you're kind of stuck with it, Speaker 1 (00:31:59): So Speaker 2 (00:31:59): You better like it. So that's our 18 month age cloth bound cheddar and really, really proud of that cheese. And so we go to annually, we go to the American Cheese Society Conference last year and it moves cities. So we were in Richmond, Virginia last year. We'll be in Portland, Oregon this year, and it's the biggest North American artisanal cheese contest in the us. I don't know about the biggest world cheese championships. There's all kinds of cheese contests, but I would say it's the largest for the artisanal cheese makers. And we entered all of our cheeses and they all did very well. Our cheddar got 96 points. I know I was really excited, but it's evidence of how many really good cheeses there are in the US that we did not place Speaker 1 (00:32:52): And Speaker 2 (00:32:52): Got 96 points, Speaker 1 (00:32:54): 95 Speaker 2 (00:32:54): Points, I think 95 points made us eligible to metal Speaker 1 (00:32:59): And Speaker 2 (00:32:59): Did not place. Speaker 1 (00:33:00): Oh, wow. Speaker 2 (00:33:01): But we haven't even been making cheese Two years. February 13th, 2018 was our first batch of cheese in our facility. We had made cheese at home, but it's like apples and oranges. So we're really, really proud of the cheddar. Speaker 1 (00:33:18): Yeah, it's great. And it's not at all what you're probably expecting, but it does. Again, it's probably harder than I would've expected from similar to the gutta, but then at that end of the flavor, you do get that sort of familiarity of a cheddar that you're probably a little more used to Speaker 2 (00:33:35): That meaty. Tangy. Yeah. I love everything about our cheddar and it's so beautiful when you're in the shop and we're opening a wheel of cheddar and you're pulling that beautiful cheesecloth off and it's got the molds on it, and then you pull it off and you expose this beautiful golden rind underneath what you're seeing there Speaker 1 (00:33:56): On the edge here. I can see, Speaker 2 (00:33:57): Yeah, I'd say that the Clark and our cheddar are what we would like to be our calling cards. Speaker 1 (00:34:05): I Speaker 2 (00:34:06): Love our guda. I love our tone, but those are two things we're really proud of all of 'em obviously. But those are two that we really set out to say we want to make an incredible cloth bound cheddar and we want to make quark and a really good, not a lot of guta in this region. Guta is finicky to make why it can be prone to going askew during the make process. And so maybe you set out with 14 wheels of guta 15 months down the road, those 14 wheels of guta may not be 14, it may be really eight of 'em were Speaker 1 (00:34:43): Good. Do you know that before you cut into it? Or Speaker 2 (00:34:46): Sometimes it'll tell you it might have a ripple in an edge on the Rhine that you can feel like something's gone. Sometimes you'll see eyes kind of like Swiss cheese. Speaker 1 (00:34:58): Okay. Speaker 2 (00:34:59): Those are eyes. And so you can get some eyes in your gutta, which you want some eyes in your gutta, but not a ton of eyes in your gutta. And a lot of guta we're used to maybe wax dry goas. And so that's something traditional too that think when they were shipping guta over on the ship and it took, I don't know how long it would take to go from the Netherlands Speaker 1 (00:35:21): To months, Speaker 2 (00:35:23): And so you needed to preserve your cheese, and then one of the ways they did that was wax on the rind. Speaker 1 (00:35:27): That makes sense. Speaker 2 (00:35:28): Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:35:28): Should I go onto the spray tier? I Speaker 2 (00:35:29): Think so. And so let's see. I think closest to you have, and there are a couple spoons over there Speaker 1 (00:35:37): As Speaker 2 (00:35:38): Well that I hopefully will help with that. Speaker 1 (00:35:40): That would be, Speaker 2 (00:35:41): I think the pimento, our Ohio Valley pimento Speaker 1 (00:35:44): Is this is the pimento right here, or which Speaker 2 (00:35:45): One? So that one closest to you is the pimento. Speaker 1 (00:35:47): Oh, this one right here. Okay. Speaker 2 (00:35:49): Then the next one up is the tomato basil, and the one to your left is the beer cheese. Speaker 1 (00:35:54): Oh, okay. Speaker 2 (00:35:55): The pimento. We selfishly make the cheeses that we want to eat. Speaker 1 (00:36:01): I mean, that's good. I think that makes sense though. It's like there's at least somebody who wants it. Speaker 2 (00:36:08): Yeah, that's right. Speaker 1 (00:36:09): Hopefully somebody else does too. Speaker 2 (00:36:10): And so that is made with Clark, and then the texture you're going to feel in there is our chopped up cheese curds, and it's going to be brighter and lighter and taner. My husband used to live in North Carolina and Charlotte and pimento is, it's fun. If you and I grew up in the south and I was like after school going over to play at your house, your mom might have her own pimento recipe and conversely, you're going to come to my house and she's going to make us pimento sandwiches for a snack after school. So many families had their own pimento recipe and they vary just slightly. Speaker 1 (00:36:48): Yeah, it's delicious. Thank Speaker 2 (00:36:50): You. Speaker 1 (00:36:50): I love it. Yeah, it's got that little spiciness to it. It's a great compliment to the cheese, Speaker 2 (00:36:56): But it's not like the orange again. It's not orange. Speaker 1 (00:36:59): Right. Which is why I probably reached for one of the other, because the other two are much more orangey. And so I assume that those were the pimento ones. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:37:06): So the next one up would be your tomato basil quark. So it's sun dried tomatoes and basil. And so these are standard Clark flavors that we have at the shop, but then occasionally we'll also do some more seasonals. One of my favorites is a fresh squeezed orange with candied ginger OA Russell. It's Speaker 1 (00:37:24): So good. Speaker 2 (00:37:29): It hits every proper note for me. I love the sun dried tomato basil with chips. I like it on a cracker. You're eating it, but I also really like it on a Turkey sandwich. So think of it as your spread instead of, and then you don't need cheese, you don't need mayo. It's really great that way. Speaker 1 (00:37:46): Yeah, it's really good. But also, I love how the tomato basil is also, it's not overpowering. It's a really nice balance. I feel like sometimes you get things that are tomato basil flavored and that's all you taste and the actual, you don't taste the cheese or in this case, it's like a really perfect balance, I feel like. Speaker 2 (00:38:05): Yeah. Good. I'm glad. I appreciate that and I'm confident our cheesemaker would appreciate that. Speaker 1 (00:38:11): Well, I said it with a certain level of authority as if I know what I'm talking about, but I really don't. Speaker 2 (00:38:16): Well, I think you're doing pretty good. Speaker 1 (00:38:17): Thanks. Thank you. Speaker 2 (00:38:18): And then our beer cheese is the third one. We serve that with some soft pretzels in the shop from Tuba Baking Company. If you have not been there, you need to go. Speaker 1 (00:38:27): I have not. Speaker 2 (00:38:27): They're in Covington. Or you can just come to our shop over in East Walnut Hills. Speaker 1 (00:38:31): You'll have 'em for us there too. Oh yeah. Speaker 2 (00:38:33): And so we serve 'em with warm pretzels. City Bee gave us a best unconventional beer cheese award, and I think it's because it's cold and also because it's made from Clark Speaker 2 (00:38:45): Beer cheese originates in Kentucky. There's a beer cheese trail in the Winchester Kentucky area. And I worked at a restaurant in college that we halls in the river and they had their own beer cheese. I can remember if you were the opening shift, you'd carry the beer back to the kitchen and they'd make their own beer cheese. So we've done kind of a take on that. I like a soft spreadable beer cheese. We serve it in the shop with pretzels, but we also serve it with the side of apples. And so again, it goes back to the first comment you made of that balance, and so it provides that acidity and brightness. What do you think? Speaker 1 (00:39:22): I love it. Good. Yeah. Again, it is very subtle, which it's a nice flavor. Speaker 2 (00:39:28): So we use Braxton's Storm in our beer cheese as a nod to Kentucky's beer cheese roots. Speaker 1 (00:39:33): So that's so fascinating. I know beer cheese is from Kentucky, Speaker 2 (00:39:37): So I'm sure that there's his roots of beer cheese somewhere elsewhere, but a lot of beer cheese, there's a big beer cheese prevalence in Kentucky. If we were to go to one of the groceries in that central Kentucky area, there would be quite the variety of beer cheeses to choose from relative to what we could choose from in our grocery stores. Speaker 1 (00:40:01): Interesting. Speaker 2 (00:40:02): Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:40:02): All right. I think we've done it all. We, Speaker 2 (00:40:06): I think we have. Speaker 1 (00:40:06): Okay. Well, if you still, Speaker 2 (00:40:07): Do you have a favorite? Speaker 1 (00:40:09): You know what, I think my favorite is going to be the, I'm going to mess up the name. What was it? Speaker 2 (00:40:17): Oh, the Camon Bear. Yeah, Speaker 1 (00:40:18): The Speaker 2 (00:40:18): Bear. That's exciting. Speaker 1 (00:40:19): Yeah. The Camon Bear with, as you told me to prepare it, I ended up, I think that was the one where I was like, I want more. Speaker 2 (00:40:26): Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:40:26): I mean, I want more of all of them, but that one was probably hit all my spots. Speaker 2 (00:40:32): It's a really perfectly balanced bite. Speaker 1 (00:40:34): And then probably the Cheddar was the other, I mean, both of them are really, they're both really, really good. And I definitely was like, Ooh, that cheddar, I could eat more of it. And it's definitely way stronger than that cheese. So they're very different. So it's a little bit like comparing apples and oranges, but Speaker 2 (00:40:51): Well, that makes me happy because you have to choose what cheeses you're making before you really, I mean, not all of 'em evolving, and we're working on some new cheese, but you start building a facility and that facility is built based on the cheeses that you choose to make. And we really wanted to make some distinctly different cheeses. So you saying that, that they're really different cheeses, but I like 'em Speaker 1 (00:41:17): Is Speaker 2 (00:41:17): Exactly where we want to be. Speaker 1 (00:41:19): And I think they're overall, I feel like I've overused the word subtlety today. I've probably overused it, but it's maybe another way would be nuanced would be a better phrase, because all of them, even something like the Cheddar, I wouldn't necessarily say subtle. It's a really strong flavor, but it's very nuanced. Everything has lots of layers to it. And yeah, I can definitely tell, oh yeah, this is a much higher quality cheese than just the stuff I grab at the grocery store. A lot of times there's just much more complexity to it. Speaker 2 (00:41:56): Good. That makes us happy. Speaker 1 (00:41:57): Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, what I hope we could do is I have a little experiment for us to do in the galleries if you still have some time, of course, which is to maybe come up with cheese pairings with some paintings. So this could be a little weird and a little abstract, but we're going to start in a gallery where we have actually our only painting to feature cheese. And then I thought we could look around the room and just see if anything brings anything up for us. Speaker 2 (00:42:26): I'm game. Speaker 1 (00:42:27): Awesome. Thanks. Speaker 2 (00:42:27): Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:42:39): So we are in Gallery 2 29. I thought this would be a good place to start. And we're looking at what I believe to be the only piece that at least has cheese in the title Speaker 2 (00:42:49): That Speaker 1 (00:42:49): I know of that we could find really easily, which is Compote Bread and Cheese by George Brock. And this is sort of a cubist work, maybe like a later cubist painting. And it's, like I said, it's the only one I know that features cheese quite so prominently. There's probably something somewhere that has a little slice or something somewhere Speaker 2 (00:43:13): Popped in there. Speaker 1 (00:43:13): But yeah, nothing I can think of on view and nothing quite so easily found. Speaker 2 (00:43:19): I like it. Speaker 1 (00:43:21): Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice little setup of you've got this bread on the one side, you've got some fruits, so it's like a spread, ready to go. It is. Yeah. So it's not very, it's painted in this very modern style, very flat shapes, lots of outlines and things, so it's not a super traditional still life. And you can kind see these sort of weird ways that the bread looks like almost like it's splitting apart in Speaker 2 (00:43:57): Weird Speaker 1 (00:43:57): Way. When I said late cubism, if you look at a piece like this one over here, this would be kind of early cubist work. This is by Picasso, the still life with glass and lemon. And it's a lot more So here. He's literally like, I'm going to walk around the table as I paint this. I'm going to paint this part. I'm going to paint this part. I'm going to paint this part, and we're just going to see what happens. Speaker 2 (00:44:24): And it's really angular. Speaker 1 (00:44:26): And so later things as we move to this piece next door to it or things, they're almost like they're not really necessarily doing that system of walking around the table and painting everything, but being inspired by what happened by these experiments and sort of taking that style and applying it to, so sometimes they're a little more imaginative and less rigid in their system of how they made the paintings. But so what I thought we could do is maybe pick some paintings and see what if they remind you of any cheese flavors. Speaker 2 (00:45:04): Yep. I've got some. Yeah, I'm looking Speaker 1 (00:45:06): And some of these, and I thought this gallery might actually be a good, not only because it has our only cheese painting in it, but there's a lot of Speaker 2 (00:45:13): Strong colors Speaker 1 (00:45:14): In this gallery, and there's a lot of things that are very abstract that maybe I think could help get you away from thinking about something quite so literally. But for me, it's easier to translate something into another sensation almost, or another sense when it's not like, it might be hard for me to look at the Red Rooster over there and think of anything other than chicken. But when you see something like the Gorky over here, it's a little bit easier to sort of imagine. What would that taste like? You said you saw something right away. What popped out at you right away? Speaker 2 (00:45:50): So that orange, the orange shirt straight across Speaker 1 (00:45:53): From us. Okay. We'll go closer. Speaker 2 (00:45:54): And it is pretty literal what I'm going to say. Well, Speaker 1 (00:45:56): That's fine. Speaker 2 (00:45:57): So Speaker 1 (00:45:57): This is by Fernan Leger. It's called Trees in the Setting Sun from 1952. So what were you going to say? Speaker 2 (00:46:04): This really connotates miette for me. Millet's a really hard French cheese. And it's an interesting cheese because you've got a couple things going on here with this painting and also with mullets in the cheese world, we talk about cheese mites. Cheese mites are real, and they're pretty much present all the time, but miette and meme millet's in a round shape and the color of the paste. So we talk about the rind and the paste. The color of the paste is so orange, it looks, this is a bit more orange than meme mullet is, but it's almost like the color of dark cantaloupe, but even darker than that, brighter. So between cantaloupe and this. And they actually let the cheese mites do their work, and they make little tiny craters and the cheese. And so I'm seeing the paste and I'm seeing the knots, I guess, that I'm seeing in the tree. And so it kind of connotates that for me. It was pretty obvious, but I saw that and I'm like, that looks like meme mullet. Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:47:17): I love that Right away. Well, that's obviously Speaker 2 (00:47:19): The millette. Speaker 1 (00:47:20): I would see that like, oh, okay. I'll take your word for it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:47:24): I'm not a huge me millette fan, by the way. Speaker 1 (00:47:26): Oh, okay. Why not? Speaker 2 (00:47:28): Texture? It's hard, a little waxy, but I respect it for what it is. It's a lot of people's favorites, really. You're going to see it a lot. If you ever see a cheese carved as a jacko lantern, I never Speaker 1 (00:47:45): You've ever seen Speaker 2 (00:47:46): That. So your cheese displays at the holidays in a cheese shop, a lot of times is picked to do that because of its bright orange color. Speaker 1 (00:47:54): Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah. And you're saying it's very hard too. Speaker 2 (00:47:57): Yeah, it's pretty hard. Speaker 1 (00:47:58): So it would hold its form pretty well. Yeah, it to be easier to carve. That makes sense. So this one's kind of maybe as a challenge, but I like it as one that is so hard to identify anything in it. So this is Virginia landscape by Gorky, and I'm just kind of curious from a standpoint of just, I don't know, colors and lines. Does it make you imagine a flavor of any type? Speaker 2 (00:48:25): You know what I'm picking up on in there is some mushroom. Speaker 1 (00:48:30): Interesting. Is it just some of the shapes? Maybe Speaker 2 (00:48:32): It is. And some of the dark colors and some citrus. And so from a mushroomy, I think breeze, I think cam and bears. And so that's kind of the mushroom, because a lot of times, we'll say that those cain bears and breeze have a mushroomy flavor. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And so that's what I'm picking up on there. Speaker 1 (00:48:58): Plus with you, if you kind of ate it like we just did with the citrus. Yeah, Speaker 2 (00:49:01): Citrus. Speaker 1 (00:49:02): Yeah, I could totally see that. That makes a lot of sense. Speaker 2 (00:49:05): I see a duck, but I don't know that that has any cheese. Well, Speaker 1 (00:49:12): I'm curious now, where is this duck? Speaker 2 (00:49:14): Here's the duck. Oh, Speaker 1 (00:49:15): Okay. Interesting. Speaker 2 (00:49:16): But that's again, really literal. I'm probably, yeah. But I just pick up on a lot of mushroom like earthiness. And for me, earthiness is the bloom, merind cheese, Blum, merind being your cain bear in your, Speaker 1 (00:49:30): I feel like definitely be a very bold cheese though, too, in my Speaker 2 (00:49:34): Mind. I agree with that because of the color. Speaker 1 (00:49:35): Yeah. This is not, it's pretty in your face. I feel like this cheese, Speaker 2 (00:49:42): It's also kind of a little bit of a melting pot here with colors and shapes. Speaker 1 (00:49:47): That's true. Well, and the grippiness of it too makes it feel melty too, maybe. Speaker 2 (00:49:51): I agree with that. And so in that way, I could almost feel fondue. Oh Speaker 1 (00:49:57): Yeah. Speaker 2 (00:49:57): I mean, you think about, again, earthiness, we're going to take say maybe a Comte or a Grier would be a great fondu cheese alongside maybe some Swiss and some milder cheese. And from that perspective, you've got a lot of different things going in. You've got some boldness. And Speaker 1 (00:50:20): Even though the sort of citruses of the wine in the fondue, that makes a lot of sense. Speaker 2 (00:50:26): I can totally Speaker 1 (00:50:26): See this painting pairing nicely with fondue. Speaker 2 (00:50:29): Yeah. And that's kind of what I either fondue or a very earthy cheese. Speaker 1 (00:50:36): Okay. All right. Are Speaker 2 (00:50:37): We going next? I Speaker 1 (00:50:38): Don't know. I mean, there's so many. If you see something that screams out to you, I was thinking either of these two made me think of something. Speaker 2 (00:50:44): Yeah, me too. Speaker 1 (00:50:45): So we're kind of moving towards this painting by sine view of re, I don't know if I'm saying that right, but I'm going to, Speaker 2 (00:50:55): It feels right. Speaker 1 (00:50:56): Sure. Speaker 2 (00:50:56): Yeah. That ox accent grove, I think we've got it right Speaker 1 (00:51:00): Now. That's an ox accent. Speaker 2 (00:51:01): Oh, that isn't an accent Tegu. Good point. It has to be the other way for ground. It goes Speaker 1 (00:51:05): The other way. Yeah. Yeah. So Speaker 2 (00:51:08): Madam Reich, my high school French teacher would not be pleased Speaker 1 (00:51:11): For that. Well, I'm getting points from Madame Pearson. Fair enough. I like that. We both had French teachers without very French sounding last names. Speaker 2 (00:51:21): So this one, although it's France, my brain wants to kind of go Spain with those colors. But definitely Europe. And from that perspective, I'm going to think an artisanal country cheese. And so I'm thinking like a tome, again, our tome, but we talked about tome, TOIs, but a very country rustic cheese, maybe one made out. You've got the cows and then you've got a true farmhouse wheel, a mild cheese. Speaker 1 (00:52:00): I wouldn't have probably been able to tell you what a tome tasted like before today, but yeah, now I could make that connection. Because there's also something about the way those flavors were all sort of working together in the way that this landscape, all, it becomes one thing. There's buildings, there's trees, there's sky, but they all sort of become one thing they do. It's this weird slanted view of everything that maybe it just turns it into a bit of a blur. It Speaker 2 (00:52:32): Does. Speaker 1 (00:52:33): And so it's interesting, the way I experienced that cheese was to sort of start at one side, and then it kind of slowly turned into something else. And that's what's going on here. In a way, if you start up in the sky maybe, or you start down at the bottom, perhaps, it's like, I think I described it as it took me on a little journey, and this kind of, I feel like does too. But if you weren't looking, stepping back and you really zoom in, it's like, can you really tell from when you go from Speaker 2 (00:53:02): Road Speaker 1 (00:53:03): To tree to building to sky? It all sort of Speaker 2 (00:53:05): Feels, it's really transitional. And the other interesting thing is you tasted our tome today. If you taste another tome, they're all different. So cheddar kind of has a signature, right? Tome not so much. Every tome you ever taste is going to be different from another. And so from that perspective, it's also why I, and I'm just thinking more like a farmhouse cheese is what this reminds me of. It's the country, the buildings makes sense, but it's also the diversity that farmhouse cheeses present. And that feels, I can, like you said, there's some buildings here, there's some road, there's Speaker 1 (00:53:45): Some Speaker 2 (00:53:45): Sky, but it's not real clear where one ends and the other begins. Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:53:52): Yeah. And I mean, that makes sense. It feels like a little village or something too. So it makes sense that it's feels farm to you. Speaker 2 (00:54:00): Yeah, I like it. Speaker 1 (00:54:02): Was your eye drawn to anywhere else that made you think of something? Speaker 2 (00:54:06): I really like this one over here, but I'm Speaker 1 (00:54:09): Which one? Speaker 2 (00:54:10): Straight ahead. Speaker 1 (00:54:11): The big, Speaker 2 (00:54:12): The Speaker 1 (00:54:13): Orange and the blue. This was actually going to be one of mine that I was going to suggest, but I wasn't sure under a durans, the bridge at Pec, another French. There's a lot of French stuff in this room, so you're picking up with that. Speaker 2 (00:54:27): There's a lot of cheese eaten in France. That's true. No, it's Speaker 1 (00:54:30): Appropriate. Speaker 2 (00:54:31): I'm struggling with this one, and I am drawn to it, but I'm also, I think this is water. Yeah, Speaker 1 (00:54:37): Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 (00:54:38): Maybe I just could see sitting here and eating a light cheese plate. And so it just makes me think about a cheese plate in general. It just feels like a very pedestrian. There's a lot of people. And I could see you and I sitting down along the waterway with a glass of wine, a nice white bordeaux maybe, and something nice light and bright, maybe some grier and some brie and some baguette. It just really connotates for me, the cheese plate itself. Speaker 1 (00:55:13): Interesting. I think my brain goes to somewhere maybe a little different, which is that I can't sort of get away from this. The two colors that are really strong in this painting are blue and orange, and those are sort of very contrasty Speaker 2 (00:55:28): Colors. Speaker 1 (00:55:28): So that makes me think of a very strong flavor when I think of Speaker 2 (00:55:32): It. Oh, I like that idea. So Speaker 1 (00:55:33): When I look at this, I think of something incredibly tangy, maybe is Speaker 2 (00:55:39): Where Speaker 1 (00:55:39): I go with just Speaker 2 (00:55:40): My reading. Something really, really bold and in your face. Speaker 1 (00:55:43): Yeah. That's sort of how I feel like this painting is very bolded in your face too. Speaker 2 (00:55:48): Yeah. I can see that. It just makes me want to be in France and sitting down with a plate of cheese. Speaker 1 (00:55:54): Yeah. It's hard to separate it. That's why it's like, yeah, you can sort of be in the place, which has a very different connotation, Speaker 2 (00:56:00): Which is Speaker 1 (00:56:01): What you would probably want to do if you're by a river. Or Speaker 2 (00:56:05): If this wasn't France, let's say that we transposed this and that, that canal was maybe say Amsterdam. That would then make me think more of a goa, but it's not. So you're Speaker 1 (00:56:20): Being very literal though. I am Speaker 2 (00:56:22): Very literal today. Yeah. Speaker 1 (00:56:23): You can't Speaker 2 (00:56:24): Break out that literal Speaker 1 (00:56:25): From where it literally is. I kind of wonder something. We can make this our last one here. This one is by Ang, which is a very different locale, even though he's French. It's Speaker 2 (00:56:37): Phil Tropical. Speaker 1 (00:56:38): Yeah. Yeah. And I was wondering, I mean, I don't know if we necessarily think of cheese in the tropics. Speaker 2 (00:56:45): I know that's what, yeah, it's not Speaker 1 (00:56:47): Exactly an easy pairing maybe, but Speaker 2 (00:56:50): No, but think about, I mean, we Speaker 1 (00:56:53): Just talked about Mina cheese though. That's exactly where Speaker 2 (00:56:55): I was going to say is Mina cheese, or I can remember I honeymoon in Costa Rica, and like you said, Speaker 1 (00:57:05): The Speaker 2 (00:57:05): Cheese for breakfast, Speaker 1 (00:57:06): That Speaker 2 (00:57:07): Was always a pretty big, just a really mild cheese because I think you're eating some beautiful citrus and some Speaker 1 (00:57:15): Fruits. Yeah. It Speaker 2 (00:57:16): Compliments it. And it compliments it. The other thing that this could, I could really see thinking almost like a coffee growing region. So think about a coffee, and sometimes you'll see cheese with coffee, and I'm completely drawing a blank, but there is a cheese that they actually dip in coffee as breakfast cheese. And again, I can't think of it right now, but that's kind of what that makes me think. Or sometimes they'll even take coffee and rub the rinds of cheese. Speaker 1 (00:57:49): Yeah, I've had several coffee Rhine cheese. They're pretty good. Speaker 2 (00:57:53): They're very good. And so this kind of makes me think of a coffee growing region or just even it makes me think about a mild cheese with some beautiful citrus. Speaker 1 (00:58:07): Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think this painting, not only is it literally a tropical location, but the colors in the trees, I always love that. I always feel like this painting smells tropical to me. Speaker 2 (00:58:20): I agree with you. And I almost can feel like the breeze. Yeah, I think it's a really different painting in here too. Speaker 1 (00:58:26): Oh yeah. Compared to a lot of the other styles, I mean it's a little bit earlier than some of the other paintings. So if you look, this one's from 1892 and a lot of the things we've been looking at are a few years after that in the early 20th century. So it's close, but it is a little bit later. He's more of a contemporary of Van Gogh. Speaker 2 (00:58:46): Okay, that makes sense. Speaker 1 (00:58:47): Yeah, you can kind of see this is kind of just a little bit before some of this other stuff, so it's a good sort of prelude to what's going to happen later. But it's maybe has more in common with our Van Gogh piece than it might. Speaker 2 (00:59:02): I love it Speaker 1 (00:59:02): With the cubism right there. Although you can see, I think can see a lot of connections here between the durang. Speaker 2 (00:59:10): I agree with that. Speaker 1 (00:59:11): So the sort of expressionistic kind of use of color in both of those are I think pretty similar. So I can make there too. But yeah, Speaker 2 (00:59:23): I don't know. Did I go abstract enough for you in my connotations? No, you're fine. Speaker 1 (00:59:29): No, no. You do what you do. You, Speaker 2 (00:59:31): You I like it. Yeah, Speaker 1 (00:59:34): No, I know. I want you I to be you and do bring what you got. So you definitely, you're going to bring more cheese knowledge than I could ever bring. Speaker 2 (00:59:43): But I think that's the biggest thing about cheese is that, and it's one of the reasons we are doing what we do, is we want cheese to be approachable. We want to have an approachable cheese conversation. Russell, you're going to come into the shop and you're going to go, I don't know what cheese I need for this weekend. I'm having some people over. And a good cheese monger should help you make those selections. And it's our hope that with the cheese community, we have a lot of great cheese shops. We have a great cheese community, some really good cheese options in Cincinnati. And that we want to peel back the uncomfortableness about again. It's just what you said you do. If you like that cheese, go with it. Yeah. Well Speaker 1 (01:00:25): I'm glad you even, I like that you said you feel there's even a place for the craft single heck. Speaker 2 (01:00:30): Yeah. Speaker 1 (01:00:31): So it's like, I kind of like that I actually think have a very similar outlook on art. I don't think I dislike the sort of delineations of high art and low art. To me it's like, hey, it's people making stuff and you make this for one setting and you make this for another setting. And these things have different places that they were intended for and different audiences in some case. But it doesn't mean this thing is inherently superior Speaker 2 (01:00:58): Always. Speaker 1 (01:01:00): They're each doing their job in different ways and you just kind of go like, yeah, that's fine. It's fine to enjoy this thing. It's great. Speaker 2 (01:01:06): Well, and you can come to the art museum or you can come to a cheese shop. You don't have to have supreme cheese or art knowledge to enjoy either. Exactly. Speaker 1 (01:01:15): I agree. Speaker 2 (01:01:16): What you get out of it versus what I get out of it is going to be different, but neither is less. Speaker 1 (01:01:21): Well, I think there's an interesting conversation there too about the, I mean, I've actually thought about this a lot, that the idea of taste and the idea of we all have personal tastes and this sort of idea of there's no accounting for taste, but also the way that I think our tastes grow and change and your tastes grow and change based on what you've experienced before. So when you're a kid and you've only eaten a very small selection of foods in the world, your tastes are not, it's pretty Speaker 2 (01:01:52): Narrow. You have Speaker 1 (01:01:53): Pretty narrow tastes. And then as you experience more things, your tastes get a little more sophisticated. The things you loved as a kid. Sometimes you'll go back and eat and go, why did I love this? Tastes like this is nothing. And I think that's how my experience with art has been as well, is that my tastes when I was a little kid are different from my taste as a teenager, different from my taste as a college to today. My tastes are always changing based on what I'm putting in my eyeballs. And it's similar to what you'd put in your mouth. You experience those different flavors and suddenly you realize like, oh, there are different flavors out there Speaker 2 (01:02:34): And they're all, I have an appreciation for all of them in different ways. Speaker 1 (01:02:38): Or Speaker 2 (01:02:38): Maybe you've traveled someplace and this art connotates that travel for you. Yeah, Speaker 1 (01:02:42): Sure, sure. Speaker 2 (01:02:44): And maybe prior to traveling there, you didn't have an appreciation for it. Speaker 1 (01:02:49): Absolutely. Yeah. Speaker 2 (01:02:50): Or you spent time in a gallery in another country and that opened your eyes. So I think you're absolutely right. Speaker 1 (01:02:56): Well, I'm glad we could find a connection between Speaker 2 (01:02:59): Art and Speaker 1 (01:03:00): Cheese. Speaker 2 (01:03:00): We did it. We did it. I was a little worried like, oh, am I up to this task? But it works. Speaker 1 (01:03:08): You're fine. You are absolutely fine. Alright, well thank you so much for my guest today and thanks for bringing us some lovely cheeses to try, Speaker 2 (01:03:16): Russell. I really enjoyed our time together. Thank you. Speaker 1 (01:03:18): Thank you. Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. General admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking. Special exhibitions include the Levy, a photographer in the American South, and women Breaking Boundaries. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and also join our Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is Efron Music by Balal. And as always, please rate and review us to help others find the show. I'm Russell Ri, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.