Number 24 on my 26 before 27 list: Learn to make fresh cheese. I could probably wax you something poetic about wanting a deeper understanding of where my food comes from or the importance of learning a new craft to explain why I chose this one. But in truth I wanted to learn about cheese making because, honestly, good cheese is so stinking expensive. Or at least that was my thinking.
I jumped to sign up when I read about the Sweet Grass Dairy’s Fresh Cheese at Home Class from Tim Gaddis on twitter. Of course, I signed up without realizing there was a 5 hour drive between me and it. I also convinced Patty to sign up too.
We left Atlanta at 6 am, giving us lots of time to stop, eat and thrift. And yes, the bear-claw was delicious. Patty crocheted along the way and we listened to NPR and chatted about life. We arrived in Thomasville with plenty of time to do some antiquing, thinking we would get lunch too. Good thing we didn’t - there was lots of cheese to be tasted later!
“Sweet Grass Dairy is a 140-acre family owned and operated farm in southern Georgia”. They specialize in hand crafted-old world style cheeses. You can read more about their family and philosophy, here.
Most of Atlanta’s fine dining establishments have Sweet Grass on their menu or cheese plate, so maybe I was expecting a large-fancy-pants-farm. It was anything but that. A long dirt road lead us to the cheese making facility, which is located near the family’s home. There is even a family garden out front and a requisite old herding dog under the trees out front.
We were greeted by Matt, who organizes Sweet Grasses’ social media and photographed the class, and instructed to do a very thorough hand washing and grab a hair-net.
The class was taught by one of owners, Jeremy Little, in what is regularly their packing area. At this point my idea that this was any sort of fancy-pantsed-don’t-have-fun-operation went out the door. Jeremy was really honest, straight-forward and entertaining in his teaching approach.
We learned some basics of dairy farming, pasteurization, the differences between fresh and aged cheeses, the basics of cheese making and how to make fresh cheeses, including ricotta. It was a lot to cover in three hours! But we even had a break and got a quick tour of the facility. One of my favorite parts was tasting fresh cheese made with cows milk versus thoughs with goats milk. The color and favor differences are astounding!
But my really and truly most favorite part was tasting fresh cheese from around the country! We even got to taste a Sweet Grass cheese that wasn’t ready for sale yet.
[Left Patty looks good in a hair-net; right what Patty looks like full of cheese]
Of course, I’m not going to tell you how to make fresh cheese because I really want you to make the trek to Thomasville and take a class for yourself. I learned two really important things: it isn’t that hard to make your own fresh cheese but quality hand-made cheeses are worth every penny. Jeremy, Jessica, Matt and the rest of the small Sweet Grass team really care about their animals, the environment and their cheeses. And you can taste it.
[Don’t judge the toast - some how we were out of crackers, we didn’t eat them anyway]
We also stopped at Sweet grass retail location before leaving Thomasville to pick up some treats for our beloveds waiting at home. Brian loved the Thomasville Tomme, while I’m partial to the Green Hill. And guess what? You can order their cheese online too. Now go get some cheese or sign up for a class.