The Cheese Chat with Sue Miller and Tenaya Darlington
WHYY
On this episode of The CHEF Radio Podcast, host Eli Kulp sits down with two cheese experts, Sue Miller and Tenaya Darlington. Sue Miller is the owner of the local farmstead, Birchrun Hill Farms, where they produce the famous and delicious Fat Cat cheese.
Tenaya Darlington is an author, educator and food blogger, also known as Madame Fromage. She is the cheese curator at TRIA in Philadelphia and you can read her work at madamefromageblog.com. Eli, Sue and Tenaya sit down to talk about all things cheese, from producing it and running a farmstead to throwing Cheese Balls and creating giant cheese boards.
Eli: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Eli here. Welcome back to the CHEF Radio Podcast. I hope everyone. He survived Valentine's day. Appreciate everybody coming out and supporting restaurants. I know that was really important to so many of us that, you know, customers came out so thanks so much.
There's some good stuff going around the city. Well really around the country, this case, that PPP money's coming through, which is great. It's a huge relief. We can get people back to work. Uh, we have so many employees that are barely hanging on. They're getting their unemployment, but still that's, you know, that's such a drop in the bucket when it comes to what you know, so many people need to make to survive.
And you know, really thrilled that we can hire on some more people. You know, even pay some of the people that we've had, you know, really what their worst cause I mean, gosh, like everybody's working like a dog and you know, everybody in our company has been doing such a fantastic job and I got a shout out to Ellen as well.
I mean, she's the one keeping it, keeping it together. So yeah, big, uh, big relief [00:01:00] coming or has come in the, in the form of the PPP money. So, uh, let's see how that works out. Uh, restaurants in Philadelphia, you know, Philadelphia, the city, they announced that it is a 50% occupancy now, but asterisk, asterisk, asterisk, guess what?
No, it's not just 50% occupancy. You must pass or be certified that your air is cycling through 15 times per hour through these filters that, that they are, are letting people know they need. Which to me is yeah, so unfortunate. I mean, nobody has the money right now, these small businesses to upgrade their air ventilation system.
And then also knowing how much, I think it's 15 or 20% of the air has to be coming from the outside as well. It's getting really technical and you know, our businesses is continuing to you know, feel the pain of, of, you know, some of these. Now I get it, it's a pandemic first time it's happened but [00:02:00] you know, it's really hard for restaurants to react quickly and even trust that, you know, the local governments are going to be able to give you succinct and thorough information ahead of time so you can prepare for it.
I think they only gave a couple days heads up before they announced this or put it into effect. So, you know, it's one of those things where it's frustrating being a business owner now, but it's even more frustrating when, when you feel like you're fighting more fights than you than you should have to.
So besides that what's been going on? Couple great things I read about Bridget Foy's, uh, that fantastic restaurant that sat at, uh, I think around second and South for so long. And they got that burned down. I think it was about three years ago, maybe more. It's the Phoenix. It should change the name to the Phoenix cause that thing is rising from the ashes.
Uh, so congrats to those guys. I know they've worked really hard at it. Uh, Bridget, Paul and the whole family. You know, there, this [00:03:00] thing has been going up every time we go to the Headhouse market and you kind of see a little bit more being built all the time. So, uh, really excited for that.
It's such a great family community neighborhood restaurant, and I know that whole area will be thrilled to have it back, uh, down North Pizza. If you don't know about it, chef Curt Evans, he's doing some great stuff with his new pizza shop. Besides making these fantastic, uh, square pies, which I haven't had one, but they look absolutely dynamite and I'm dying to have one.
Uh, they are a social impact minded business, and we need more of these. We need more restaurant tours to step up and start thinking about how they can make an impact, not just to their customers, the people that can pay, but the people in the communities and how we can be better about that. But anyways, Kurt, you know, he's hiring formerly incarcerated employees, uh, men and women teaching them.
There's even some housing involved I read about. So, you know, people [00:04:00] like Kurt, you know, you think like, Oh Marty, like these guys are. Going back to the community and saying, you know what, let's fix the issues we have. And you know, I just want to know that I want them to know that CHEF Radio's behind you guys.
So anytime you want, anytime you want to come talk about what you're doing and let me know, the microphone is yours. So anyways, today's podcast, if you're a cheese head, if you love anything to do with curd, if you're, if you're lactose insane, this is the one for you. Sue Miller from Birchrun Hills farms, as well as Tenaya Darlington, her good friend and sort of partner in crime, also known as Madame Fromage.
They are on the podcast together. And these two women, uh, you put them together and there's, there's bound to be some good laughs. So. Uh, it was such a pleasure having them on, you know, I've known both of them for quite a while now. Uh, but of course, every time I interview somebody, I learned more about them more in detail.
You know, it's always so much of a learning experience for me, uh, being on [00:05:00] this side of the microphone. And, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, the rise of the artists and cheese in Pennsylvania, and specifically a lot of like Eastern Pennsylvania around here where, you know, 10, 20 years ago there wasn't a lot to choose from.
But as you know, the, the cheese world is catching up with, you know, the restaurants and the quality of food that's being produced. You know, there's so many fantastic cheese makers. We're going to talk about a few of them today and hopefully the listeners out there, you guys are going to be able to, you know, head down to the, the cheese market, to Bruno brothers, wherever you go, get your cheese a, the farmer's market and pick up some really amazing cheese.
And of course, if you don't know, Birchrun Hills farms is ah, it's crazy. Uh, they're always down here, Headhouse market on Sundays in Society Hill area, but Sue and her sons and, um, it's a, it's a farmstead cheese. They do everything from the farm. They grow the, they grow the grass the cows, the cows eat, they grow the [00:06:00] grains the cows, they tend to the cows, you know, their, their vet, their vets, their milkers, they do it with the whole thing.
So, uh, you can't get a, you can't get a finer cheese. So. I'm really excited for everybody to hear this one. Also, my mom, you know, this one's for you. She's the one, you know, she's kept saying, you know, get Tenaya on there, get Sue on there. She's a big cheese head herself. So mom, this one's for you, everybody enjoy the show.
Eli:This is the CHEF Radio podcast. Each week, groundbreaking chef talks. Chef talks, uh, chef. CHEF: cooking, hospitality, environment, food. Is that really what it stands for? I never really knew that. Delivered straight from the minds of the people who shaped the way we eat. It's hard to believe the possibility of food. And we're going to discuss sponge cakes. These talks, these ideas and more on the CHEF Radio Podcast.
[00:07:00] All right, everybody. Welcome to the chef radio podcast. This week, we have two of my favorite ladies in the, uh, cheese world for sure, but also just they're great. As they are. Um, I'm talking about Tenaya Darlington, who goes by Madam Formage, you might see her on the, in the cheese grams. And then we also have Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills farms. How are you ladies?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:07:29] Fabulous.
Sue Miller: [00:07:30] Doing great.
Eli: [00:07:32] Yeah, so I can see your Creamery in the background. And he said, uh, which son is it that has the short end of the stick today?
Sue Miller: [00:07:39] This is my coworker coworker drew.
Eli: [00:07:42] Okay. All right. Because I know you work with it's a family affair, so I wasn't sure if that was one of your kids.
Sue Miller: [00:07:47] Yeah, definitely. They're all out on the farm today. So it's damp and cold out there. So I didn't know if they had got the short end or not, but.
Eli: [00:07:55] So yeah, the weather lately has been very damp and kind of to the bone [00:08:00] chilly, for sure
Tenaya Darlington: [00:08:01] Sue has the best zoom background of anyone I've spoken to in 2020 and 2021, for sure.
Sue Miller: [00:08:08] We get to peer into the milk pipes.
Eli: [00:08:11] I liked your, I liked your, um, is that a throw over your chair?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:08:16] Eli, i, you know, I am cave age in my chair here, um, with a sheep skin and then I've got my cheese library behind me. I just rearranged from new years.
Eli: [00:08:27] Look like a whole Game of Thrones going on there. You look at the picture like Jon snow, Jon snow's like overcoat.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:08:37] We need some sort of game of Thrones cheese related something or other, I can't believe we haven't done that already, too.
Eli: [00:08:43] There you go. That's another thing. Add that to your list. All right. So for those of you who aren't familiar with either of these ladies, um, you know, you two have had a huge impact on me as far [00:09:00] as, especially when I first came to Philadelphia, learning about the cheeses of Pennsylvania and specifically kind of around the Philadelphia region.
Your cheese was Sue, uh, first mentioned to me when I first got here, I was doing a tour down in Kennett square, kindly just familiarizing myself with the region. And we were doing like a mushroom tour, mushroom town tour. And we went into Talula's table. And I can't remember who it was, but they're like, you gotta try the red cat, you gotta try it.
And it was just one of those moments where. Uh, we did, we tried it. I was like, wow, that's amazing. Like, you know, but it was, uh, I think it might've been the first like PA cheese that I, they had, you know, that I, that I, um, that I remember having at least, cause it was pretty recently after I had re I moved down.
So yeah, that was, that was kinda my memory of being introduced to you. So, let's just start with Sue. Why don't you [00:10:00] talk a little bit about yourself, your background? I think you can probably talk to it better than I could, so kind of fill in the listeners of how you came to where you are today.
Sue Miller: [00:10:10] Eli. I love that there's no better way, no better introduction to a cheese maker than a taste of their cheese. So, um, that's fantastic. And if I could wish of any cheese for you to have the first bite of it would be the red cat so that's a great personality. Very cool. I've been working with the folks at Talulas since they opened up and kind of our journey has like been parallel, you know, over the last 13, 14 years. So. Very cool.
Um, yeah, I'm the, cheesemaker here at Birchrun Hills farm, my family and I work together. It's my husband, Ken and our two grown sons, Randy and Jesse. And, um, where kind of unique in the dairy world in Pennsylvania, you know, Pennsylvania has a deep culture of [00:11:00] daring, you know, or for many years we were the fourth largest producer of milk in the United States.
We've been edged out, um, by big, big dairies out in the, out in the West. But that culture, uh, small dairies is still alive and trying to thrive right now. And for us as first-generation dairy farmers, we found that really challenging for us to just sell our milk on the commodity milk market, which is what we did for for years before we started making cheese.
And with that struggle. Came an opportunity, right? That we hear that all the time. I mean, times like today, you know, we're seeing lots of, uh, new opportunities pop up for people under these challenging times.
Eli: [00:11:42] You have to get creative, right? Challenging times people get creative. It's just like a natural thing that comes out at us. We've seen that.
Sue Miller: [00:11:50] It's so true. So I literally, during one of the downturns in milk pricing, um, where we weren't even breaking even [00:12:00] with the price of milk to the farm, I literally woke up and I thought I'm going to learn how to make cheese. So I researched cheese classes and all, so many of the big dairy universities offer coursework, but they had all passed and I was lucky enough to find a class in Western Pennsylvania, um, being hosted by a cheesemaker Peter Dickson from parish Hill Creamery.
And so I talked my way into this class. And, um, Peter Dickson for the people out there who don't know he is like the Johnny Appleseed of cheesemaking in the us. He has, um, just gone, traveled around the us, helping small farms or artists, artists, and producers get started, hone their craft, hone their cheeses, hone their repertoire very selfishly. I mean he just, and I think he really has a special place in his heart for the farmers. You know, of course he loves everybody, but he really loves [00:13:00] when the farmers have an opportunity to continue the family farm. So I took this class with him. And I came back and we happen to have a little quirky cheese-making facility that was on a neighboring farm.
That's a nonprofit, and it had been standing empty. If you can imagine for, for many years, they built this facility. Process their own milk they're at this nonprofit. And just the nature of it, you know, she's making is challenging. You have to have somebody dedicated to see it through day in and day out, you know, regardless of the hours.
And, you know, they found a different opportunity for their milk at that farm. And so that place was empty. And when they heard that we were interested in making cheese, they said, come over. We have an opportunity for you. And so Eli for 12 years, I worked out of that facility, hauling milk in the milk cans in the [00:14:00] back of a pickup truck, four miles down the road.
And that's where I really began to our business, began the vision of virtue on Hills farm. Um, the first cheeses we started making were the Birchrun blue and Equinox. And really, um, went to the school of hard knocks at, out of this little quirky facility. We were really fortunate that, you know, the fact that we were a small farm, we could control everything.
My husband does all the farm work. So he's really particular about growing the feed for the cows. Um, and as our two sons were growing up, You know, around the daily work of the farm, they really became invested in what the future would be. But honestly, Eli, we didn't think they'd come back to the farm. We figured they go somewhere else.
Um, and begin their careers, probably an agriculture, uh, different times when they were finishing up their, uh, [00:15:00] program in, uh, New York, studying animal science at Cornell. They came to us and Randy was the first and you said, I. Want to talk with you about coming back to the farm and I want to make a plan so that you can, I can become a partner and the same with Jesse.
So while Ken does most of the field work, our older son, Randy, he's the herdsman, he's taking care of the cows every day. You know, um, we have a conversation almost every morning about what's going on with the herd, what's happening with the milk, what kind of feed they're getting? You know, this is the intimate relationship we have to have to produce the cheeses that we make.
Our other son, Jesse. He works with me, um, here at the Creamery, um, shipping cheese, working with our retail partners, our restaurant partners. We started an e-commerce website this year. We'll talk more about that. Um, you can sign them in attractor. You can find them, you know, [00:16:00] Out there delivering a calf.
Eli: [00:16:03] So he's a Swiss army knife of the farm, does everything.
Sue Miller: [00:16:06] He does. I mean, that's how it is on a small farm. You know, over the years we've just kind of worked at this and, you know, really invested our life in the future, like how to stay on the land and. You know, we started out as farmers and the cheese was necessary so that we could continue to milk.
And I feel so fortunate that, you know, it's all worked really well together. And the end of the day, I had to make Peter Dixon, one of my best friends, because first started making cheese. There was so little technical, technical support. We were spread out. Um, you know, we didn't have the volume of literature.
Accessible. We didn't have the coursework. We didn't, you know, I didn't know about these conferences, so I wanted to go and make friends with as many cheesemakers as I could so that we could network and share, [00:17:00] share knowledge.
Eli: [00:17:01] That's great. Uh, so a beautiful story as well. And it's you, you are just a artisan cheese maker. You're a farmstead cheese maker, right? So that explained farmstead, uh, cheese to everybody. Yeah.
Sue Miller: [00:17:17] So if we think about a pyramid of cheese, you would have commercially produced cheese at the bottom, and then you would work your way up to, well, probably industrial commercial, um, artisan, you know, it's at the very top of the pyramid is the farmstead cheese maker.
I mean, honestly, it's such a challenging, um, Business to manage because you're not only making the cheese and selling it and honestly the oftener, but you have to grow all the feed. You know, you have to have a land base, you have to continue to care for the soil and then, you know, care for the cows and keep the herd going and make sure that you have the correct integrity of the milk, [00:18:00] whether it's the cleanliness, the components, um, You have to understand how that milk is changing through the seasons, through the lactation curve.
Um, and that changes every year based on what's the feed, like what's the weather like? You know, when are your cows calving in? Um, when are they going? Dry? There are so many influences that go into the cheese so that these farmstead cheese makers, I once had the honor and pleasure of getting to know this woman, Daphne Zappos, who is an icon in the cheese world, and to listen to her, speak about the farm to farmstead cheese makers really made me understand the challenges that we're working with.
When you're in it, you don't know you're just doing it. It's somebody opens your eyes to it. You're like this is really special. So a small percentage of the cheese in the U S is farmstead. You're going to probably have to pay more for it because there's so many, um, [00:19:00] uh, sides to it that, that go into this little wedge of cheese that comes into your hands you know, that gets handled a lot by the farmers and by the cheesemakers.
Eli: [00:19:10] The it's it's, it's sort of a closed loop system. So you're how many, how large is your farm paint the picture for everybody out there? Like how many acres and how much are you growing? How much do you grow on him? Like how much do you have the cattle?
Sue Miller: [00:19:25] Right. So our farm, our actual farmstead is very small. We, um, we live in an area where we have, um, we're an hour Northwest of Philadelphia in Chester County. And if you can just imagine leaving the city and finally reaching the open spaces. It's burning hillsides, you know, rolling Hills, it's beautiful farmland.
But with this, we've had a lot of development pressure and we've continued to stay on this little farm, but our farm set is only 54 acres, um, which is really small for a dairy [00:20:00] farm. We're very dependent in our community on renting land that has been preserved or conserved by other land owners so we become the steward of the land for them.
So we farm an additional 500 acres to grow enough feed for our cows. We milk about 80 cows. That is, um, we're using about 30% of our milk right now, uh, for cheesemaking and the rest still goes out on the milk truck. So some still goes to the co-op, uh, just before co COVID. Well, two years ago, we built this facility that I'm in now.
It's beautiful with the idea and the vision to put everything in place, to really expand our production, you know, with both of our sons back on the farm. But you know, it took us a while to get up and running here just as we were ready to like really gear up and start selling across the country COVID happened.
And so we had shift, so we're milking 80 cows. Um, [00:21:00] Each one of them has a name. They were born here or we know where they came from or their daughters are here. Their grandmothers are here. So it's really a family heard. Um, great connection.
Eli: [00:21:14] Tenaya has been sitting there patiently all day. So Tenaya you're, you're not a farmer and you're not a cheese maker, but you are the you're the drum beat of, uh, of Philadelphia cheesemaking and the region, when I first met you, you were coming into High Street. And you knew John and Sam Megler from Madison, I believe.
Yeah. I think Sam, uh, or John, one of them tapped me on the shoulder and said, would you mind coming and talking to this lady and [00:22:00] you know, I think we struck up a pretty quick conversation around cheese and, um, So that would have been what, 2013 High Street you had just opened.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:22:09] That's about right. Yeah. Eli, you were the first chef actually, who had ever reached out about wanting to talk about a local cheese and I was elated. So, uh, and I feel like, and then just began this really fun back and forth. And, um, I still remember the red cat lasagna you created for Sue's cheese.
And what's funny is when I first came to talk to you, I remember you saying, I want to cook with local cheese and my first thought, which was like this, you know, very much like cheese and her reaction was, Oh, Eli, please don't cook with the cheese that she had workers that worked so hard to make the cheese perfect as is like. You know, they always would just recommend you eat it as is, you know, don't, don't cook with that. This is too good for cooking. And then you made this beautiful red cat lasagna, and I felt like you just completely understood Sue's cheese.
And I remember you buried it, [00:23:00] you put it on the bottom of the plate and then you had this beautiful blanket, almost like a blanket of snow over a red cat. And there were, I want to say like a little sprouts and things coming through. So it was like kind of digging into this sheet of lasagna to get to her earthy cheese at the bottom. And it was just conceptually magical. I'll never forget it.
Eli: [00:23:20] Yeah. And I want to make sure I give credit due where it is due is John was really the, the mind behind that dish. Uh, me being the chef, I got the credit, which often happens in the business, but John doll, there was really the one who, um, put that together.
And I think it was, I think it, I think he might've like, I think what it was is that he made it for high street. Yeah. I didn't think it quite fit for high street. The menu is a little too upscale. Um, and we were trying to do a little bit more downscale. And, um, yeah, so it would unfortunate you.
Sue Miller: [00:23:58] Yeah, it was on for [00:24:00] a long time. That dish, I kept thinking whenever I would get short on inventory of red cat, I kept thinking, how long is it going to be on the menu? I just started to worry, like, am I going to have enough cheese? I think it was on for over a year.
Eli: [00:24:18] Oh yeah. I think it was on for awhile. Yeah. For at least a year and a half. I think it went through different.
Yeah, as the seasons changed the, uh, the plate change a little bit too. So, um, yeah. And you know, one of my, um, of course, one of our, all of our favorite memories together was, you know, when we started doing the cheesemakers series at high street, which I still look back very fondly at, and when we were able to, you know, Alice Wa, Sam, John and myself. And we would, you know, do these monthly, I think we did four or five different cheesemakers and, you know, we're highlighting these, [00:25:00] these artists and cheese makers. And, you know, we always really wanted to make sure that the food represented the cheese first and foremost, that we weren't manipulating or putting the cheese sort of as a sort of afterthought.
And, you know, it was just like a really sort of home of, of creativity and passion and love that was going on then. So, yeah, that was awesome. We had such a great time and, you know, I, uh, I remember, uh, I remember it very, um, being very, uh, enjoyable and heartwarming. Yeah.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:25:29] Me too. We did them on Tuesday nights at 9:00 PM. And I remember it, people had to book and you moved all those tables together. And so people sat at these long tables in high street and it was really warm and a glow. And then each cheesemaker was invited to come and talk. And, and you and the staff made. Beautiful. I think three or four course meals and Eli, I haven't told you, I mean, not only was that just a huge moment for the cheese community, because they felt so appreciated and it isn't a small, or is it certainly was a small [00:26:00] community at that time.
But also there were people that came in and sat at those tables and I didn't even know them then, but they've now becomes such a rich part of the cheese world, like Johnny Medlinski of Martha showed up at one of those dinners before he had opened Martha. And then we went on to do a bunch of collaborations, and he's now a huge supporter of local cheese and has all local cheese boards on his menu. And I wouldn't say in part, because you know, you and others in high street brought those to light.
And then Matt Buddha, who's now a part owner of Liberty Kitchen up here in Fishtown. And he has a lot of great cheeses on and in his case, but he attended one of those dinners and he washed himself between the suits, you and me, and he got to know us, and now he has become this huge part of supporting a local cheese community.
So, I mean, one thing I felt like I knew, and I never really caught up on was that those dinners were a catalyst for one that just like collaboration and enjoyment among the three of us here [00:27:00] on this. Podcasts, but it really was a moment that invited other people who were choose curious to come to the table and make connections. And that has been the beauty for me of the cheese scene in Philly, Philadelphia, which I think is one of the most beautiful communities in the city. And really in the country.
Eli: [00:27:19] Yeah. A hundred percent. So. The, your background comes a little, uh, by way of a little different journey into cheese. Can you talk about how you got into it and where you came from and how your background played into where you are today?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:27:35] Now I'm living a life. I never imagined for myself, Eli, which is better than I ever could have hoped because I started in this world as a writer. And I always thought probably I would spend most of my life working in restaurants as a server. This is what people always told me when I was a child and I said I wanted to be a writer.
Um, and I sort of found my way after an MFA program in fiction, back in the Midwest, working as a [00:28:00] journalist for a weekly paper in Madison, Wisconsin, which is. Wisconsin is a huge cheese state, big dairy producer. And so I got to know mostly the cheeses, not necessarily the cheese makers, but I was writing about food at a time there when the artisan cheese making movement was just starting to happen.
And I can remember a chef pulling me into her kitchen and saying Tenaya, pay attention to cheese. It is about to get interesting and sure enough, she told me to go around the local farmer's market there. And she said, you're going to see some like small, best cheese makers. And this is really the first time in our state when this is happening.
There's like, Oh, Renaissance of foot. I don't know if she used those terms, but she really gave me this heads up. Her name was Odessa Pike. Um, and I really appreciated that it was like 28, 29 years old. And I loved writing about food. I had a column about dive bars. So that gives you a sense of like what my budget was looking like in those days.
And, um, after five years of working at a newspaper, I published a novel, which had been my like lifetime dream, moved to [00:29:00] Philadelphia to teach writing at St. Joseph's university. And I didn't know a single person and I just, I really missed being part of a food community. I kind of trolled around in various writing groups, but of couldn't find my niche.
And then I started, um, you know, trolling around Di Bruno brothers for the kind of stalking the cheesemongers at odd hours. Um, eating my way through the di Bruno brothers case and the Italian market, which became just like a private project for fun. Um, and I started this blog called Madame Fromage now 11 years ago.
And would you believe one of my very first posts was about similars cheese, Bertram blue. I had learned about her in the writing market, a fair food farm stand. When I approached the cheesemonger there and just said, local cheese, you know, Talk to me and the guy named Albert E beloved, former chief said, you've got to meet this woman Simar.
She's kind of the godmother of PA [00:30:00] cheese and she makes the best blue cheese in the state. I love blue cheese so I bought her cheese, Im home. I took a terrible picture of it with a martini and gin martini, but it took me about two years to actually go meet Simar cause I felt really intimidated. I work with the world of words and the thought of like meeting this godmother of Pennsylvania cheese, I felt like, who am I?
What do I have to offer her? Some took me a while to look up the garage. Yeah. Um, but anyway, I feel like through blogging through. Falling in love with the language of cheese and the flavors of cheese in the artisan Murray that goes into cheese, which I feel like is a lot like writing. Um, You know, I started a blog that led to a book with the Brenner brothers, into my brother's house of cheese.
And literally cheese has just taken over my life in the most beautiful smothering way. And it has led me to be able to [00:31:00] connect to people like you, Eli and do these, you know, late night dinner series and to travel around the world, taking people into cheese caves all over and to doing a lot of sponsors, stuff on social media, or I try to educate people a little bit about,
Eli: [00:31:17] um, On social media, as far as the, uh, you know, people can get educated on cheese and, you know, it's, I love the persona you take on as Madam Fromage and, you know, it's this few minutes every week or every couple of days, or however, often you post where you can kind of, uh, learn about something really great. The, and you've, you've done. Um, how many of the cheese balls have you done? Uh, did you do one this year?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:31:51] She couldn't because of COVID. Uh, I think for about four years, every other year, I did this biennial cheeseball, which was, I wanted to [00:32:00] build the city's largest cheeseboard, really the country. I just used more.
So I did a series of cheese balls, always to benefit someone in the local cheese community. And, um, I just invited people to come and enjoy cheese. I mean, one of the things that I really feel about the world of cheese is that a lot of people see it as an approachable kind of overwhelming. And yet when you meet people who liked cheese, they often just turn out to be wonderful people.
And I've had my best conversations in life. Usually over cheese board. So I just tried to facilitate as many sort of cheese happenings from the cheese ball, but I've also done like cheese flash mobs, a, uh, a blue cheese and black Sabbath, NY like mixing cheese and music. Um, You know, and Philadelphia has been a surprisingly, amazingly cheese curious place.
And I think it's because we have great makers, who've got great cheese shops here, access to great cheese. Um, but people often feel like they're just not really sure where to [00:33:00] start or plug in. And so, you know, I told you social media and events to bring people together and just help people connect and learn more about cheese and the great makers like similar.
Eli: [00:33:12] Do you remember how many different cheeses you had at the cheeseball last time?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:33:16] Gosh, well, probably several hundred because for the cheeseball entry was $20 and you had to bring a wedge of cheese to share, and we built a giant cheeseboard on a pool table and then people could just come and. Snack away. And the fun thing about the cheese ball is that you'd have everything from cheese whiz and cheese singles, you know, and I don't judge.
Eli: [00:33:37] Who brought the Kraft singles? Dont lie.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:33:41] Cheese for every occasion, but then there were also really unusual cheeses, homemade cheeses by urban cheesemakers, unusual thistle remedey cheeses from Portugal, somebody would come out late at night, kind of as the crowd cleared. And it was like the diehards stand around the board and people would be like, [00:34:00] wait, what's that?
What's that over there? And then I had to come out, the spoons would come out and it just became this really fun sort of cheese log of people talking and tasting and laughing and comparing notes. I mean, it was just great. Great fun.
Eli: [00:34:14] Yeah, there's, there is a, um, as you were talking earlier, you know, there was a poetry to making cheese a little bit, you know, and the process of it still being very similar to what it was a thousand years ago um, in the sense of. You know what you do today. And, you know, so I know some, some cheesemakers have been, you know, especially in Europe, some of the older ones been doing it for generations, you know, the same way, uh, over the over time and, and honing that craft and. You know, there's, it's, I guess it's much like wine or, you know, something that is, you know, it's aged, it's natural.
It's, it's something that really [00:35:00] the human touch is really only there to facilitate. Um, you know, what it, what it does and. You know, in the end it's, you know, I know, see, you can probably speak to this. Um, at the end you can control as much as you can, but the final product will dictate um, what, uh, what it tastes like or feels like. What are some of the challenges that a cheese maker or somebody getting into cheese, um, would face right away, some inconsistencies and all that? Um, what are the, some of the, the more challenging moments that you had as a cheese early on as a cheesemaker?
Sue Miller: [00:35:43] I think that's a really great question, Eli, because you know, so much of what we do is rooted in science, but then there's also the, or the art side of it, you know, that goes into this little magical thing that happens in the cheese vat.
I mean, [00:36:00] the cheese is made in the vat, but so much of the character of the cheese is also dictated down in the aging rooms during the orphanage or the care of the cheese over time. Um, until we bring it out for sale. So some of the challenges is just a getting to understand your milk is a challenge, because like I said, we're not standardizing the milk.
So it's shifting as the season shift or the feed shifts. Um, and also developing your recipe. You know, you can make cheese once or twice or a half a dozen times and have it be really great, but it's, once you start to really develop this recipe, you start out with a basic recipe from a book it's a great way to start, but you know, that's just the bare bones of it.
Then you have to have this kind of develop a vision for the cheese and what do you want the outcome? And then think about like how to engineer that backwards, reverse engineer it. [00:37:00] So it really takes a lot of time to develop these recipes and, you know, find the nuances in the VAT, um, and in the aging room to really come out with this end, beautiful little cheese full of character.
Um, sometimes they have a little too much character. Sometimes they don't have enough character. So I mean, and these things happen, you know, it's just part of it. That's why we have some pigs on the farm. I mean, I have, uh, some believe it or not.
Eli: [00:37:29] Are you milking your pigs? Like the cats. Is that the secret?
Sue Miller: [00:37:34] Just a little bit of pig milk. We're joking because of the fat cat and red cat cheese. We are Eli and I have had a number of times where people wanted to know about milking the cats. So hard. They're so tinny.
Eli: [00:37:50] It's funny. I actually asked, I think it was Paul over at country Valley. Um, uh, he does all the, uh, the pork. And sells to many of the [00:38:00] restaurants. You can buy it at mom's organic, still are now. Um, great stuff. And I asked him one time, it's like, Paul, I mean, if you ever seen pink cheese, like, does Jimmy ever make pink cheese? I mean, you know, they, they make milk. Right. And he looked at me, he goes, you ever tried to milk a pig?
Okay. All right. I got it. Yeah. Okay. So pigs, aren't going to just hang out and, uh, you know, Stand there and you milk them. They're probably going to give you a, you're going to be in for a run. Yeah,
Tenaya Darlington: [00:38:34] probably. Yeah. So
Sue Miller: [00:38:36] I think, you know, some of these mistakes, some of these, I mean that this is how you learn to hone your craft.
You have to make mistakes. If I run into a cheese maker that said they've never had any bad cheese come out of their facility, they're full of malarkey because you know, this is not industrial production. We're not just like. You know, there's a lot of work and a lot of science and a [00:39:00] lot of crap that goes into it.
So all of those nuances really are influenced in making just one
Tenaya Darlington: [00:39:08] wheel
Eli: [00:39:08] cheese. Yeah. You mentioned how the seasons change. Um, when do you think the best cheese, the best milk for cheese making is, uh, in, in sort of the, the, the natural progression of the year.
Sue Miller: [00:39:23] Oh Eli. My favorite time of year. As soon as we hit September, the cows are now on much drier feed.
You know, um, everybody talks about the spring flush. You know, when the cows go out on grass, you know, that's an exciting time because you know, it's a time of hope of promise. The pastures are lush. The cows really enjoy. Being out there on many farms. That's the time when the cows first go out on pasture, our farm is different.
Our cows can come and go out on pasture 24 hours a day. So, um, we don't [00:40:00] necessarily like make a big deal out of the spring flush. But if you think about that grass in the spring, and if you've ever mowed your lawn the first time in the spring, you'll understand this, the grass is so full of moisture, right?
It's like really wet. Stamp. And because of that, it doesn't have the density of nutrients that it has later in the season, or when we're feeding dry hay. So the cows need to eat a lot of grass to get the same nutrients, which they love. They just charge right into it. Just so satisfying and tastes so great.
It's like when you have your first salad greens in the spring for them as well, but the milk in the spring, the components start to drop because they're not getting the, um, the density of those nutrients. And so as we travel, like through the spring, into the early summer, By July. I really don't love the milk for cheesemaking.
I'm really having to adapt a lot in the VAT because the components of the milk have [00:41:00] shifted the proteins down. Um, the butterfat is down. The milk is a lot leaner if you will. So you can see that if you are ever had our fat cat cheese, when you get it come early September and it was made in July. It's like a totally different cheese than what it is if you get it in February.
So when the cows start to have that dryer feed, the components start to naturally start to come up through the fall and really kind of, um, increase all into the winter with this dry feed and. It is the dreamiest time to be a cheese maker. The milk is just so lovely in the bat. You have that, you know, the cream line coming on.
I hope you're all. I had a nice little cream line to
Eli: [00:41:44] it when you
Sue Miller: [00:41:47] it's probably nice and ripe. The blue cheese is also dependent on a lot of butterfat in there. And so we that's the time for the cheese to really sing. Um, to me, for me, [00:42:00] that's my favorite time to make cheeses in the winter months. My happiest.
Eli: [00:42:04] Yeah. I think the, um, often, you know, when you get milk and the spraying, um, at least from my recollection, refresh cream, you know, it has a little more color to it. Maybe just from the, from the grass and same with like, you know, chicken eggs or something, you know, when they're out there, they think get that deep rich Q and a, but that might not translate necessarily to.
Um, the most flavorful or deep or rich or nuanced cheese, I guess
Sue Miller: [00:42:33] I, and I'm making, you know, a higher moisture cheeses that Birchrun blue, that fat cat, the red cat are dependent on it. If my whole repertoire was Alpine style cheeses. Now think about this, you know, the cheeses made in the Swiss Alps, the French Alps, like the , the Greer.
They're really made in the summer months when the cows are up there on that high mountain pastures, the, um, those styles of cheeses don't utilize the [00:43:00] butterfat the way these other cheeses do. And back in some cases, they spin some of that off. So that's the season to me making those cheeses and think about them.
They're harder, cheeses. They're longer age. They're very durable. So, um, each cheese kind of has its place. But my favorite time for cheesemaking is in the winter
Eli: [00:43:20] months. I love that. That's great. Thank you for that detailed explanation.
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Now, before we shift to the, uh, 11 question session, what would be some good books, uh, that you know, that people could learn about, um, local cheese makers? Uh, the, you know, the artists artisan cheeses around the world, what kind of, what would you, where would you point somebody?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:45:48] Sure. This has been really our last year was a banner year for cheese books. Um, one of the ones that I'm most excited about is by our own, uh, Alex Jones, it's called Stuff Every Cheese Lover Should Know. She lives in [00:46:00] Philadelphia and is a long time cheesemonger of many years. She also works with similar and collective primary, but she's in this beautiful pocket-sized book, which is really just the stuff you should know about cheese. And she really offers great tips.
Um, and Saxelby's in New York city who has the first, and maybe it's still the only all artisan American cheese case in the us also has a new book out called the New Rules of Cheese, which is really great. These are nerdy books, but they're very condensed. And so they're just, you know, an easy book to pick up and get ideas from.
Um, there's also a book that came out last year in fall called American Cheese. It's a cheese memoir by a guy who works for, I think, wired magazine. He just spent a year embedding himself in the artisan cheese community and wrote about it. So there's just some really cool new books out right now that I think are great guides. There's a lot of books on how to do cheese plates. You know, they're beautifully styled as well. So there's so many ways to get [00:47:00] inspiration.
Eli: [00:47:00] That's great. Well, this was, um, as I anticipated a very fun and uplifting, uh, little chat we got today. And I appreciate both of you being willing to jump on here with me.
I think the listeners of CHEF Radio, you know, we, we do have a lot of chefs obviously, um, talk about the industry and what's going on in it, but, you know, without, you know, supportive artisans, You know, like Sue and other ones around with it, you know, um, you know, great, like I said, pig farmers like Country Time, or, you know, great um, you know, beef, cattle raisers, you know, we wouldn't be able to do what we love to do, which is kind of take those products. And, you know, put them on a plate for people to sit down and have wonderful dinners with friends and family.
So, you know, I'm always important to support those, that support you. So [00:48:00] I'm happy to, um, I was really glad to get this, get this done. You know, I see Sue every once in a while, anyways, don't head house so, you know, it's not like we never see each other, but you know, it was funny. My mom, my mom was here over the holiday and she was like, gotta do something with cheese, gotta do a cheese one, cheese podcast. What about Tenaya? What about, you know, what about the, you know, that lady down at the market, you know, so.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:48:23] Oh my gosh, we're here because of your mom. I love her.
Eli: [00:48:28] Yeah.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:48:29] We need to send your mom a card at the very least.
Eli: [00:48:35] She's Dutch and cheese and bread, or that's lunch, that's breakfast and lunch over there. And you know, so cheeses. Know, she's got a cheese calendar for my gino. She got a cheese ornament for my gino. I was actually picking down some cheeses they left.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:48:58] Stripping occurred nerd, [00:49:00] Eli, you know, this is an awesome community and we're just so glad you're part of it.
Sue Miller: [00:49:06] Uh, distributing Christmas ornaments, cheesy Christmas, Christmas ornaments from like Gino at the last market at the end of the year. That's where we met up. And it was so it was so great. We were happy given, you know, we were just happy.
Eli: [00:49:21] That was fun. So, all right. Let's uh, let's pivot to 11 questions session. So I'm going to go back and forth. Uh, it was 11. So I think one of you might get one extra one, but. We'll try and keep this there. All right. Tenaya, besides sous cheese, if you had to eat one cheese, the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:49:47] Gosh, that is tough. Um, it would probably be just, this is a, she is often revert to it's just so homey to me and it's Colston Bassett [00:50:00] Stilton. I love blue cheese and that cheese, it's just, it's like a little fireside chat. It's called Colston Bassett Stilton. It's the smallest of the Stilton makers in England. Eli. If you haven't had it, you know, get ready to curl up with it sometime this winter.
Sue Miller: [00:50:20] Yeah.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:50:20] It's just beautiful.
Eli: [00:50:22] Sue, um, do you have a favorite cow on the farm?
Sue Miller: [00:50:28] I figured. Do you want to know her name? Of course. It's Brie. Her name is Brie. Honestly, she's got a loyal following with people who come visit the farm because she's sort of the ambassador of the farm. She's a red and white Holstein. A she's got a cheesy name. How isn't that great? And when people come to visit the farm, she comes from wherever she is on the property and bellies right up to them and makes them her best friend. Really,
Eli: [00:50:59] she [00:51:00] sees a greeter, right?
Sue Miller: [00:51:01] You've witnessed this magical act that Bri does.
Eli: [00:51:05] That's cool. That's really great. All right. Tenaya, outside of the U S uh, best cheese region in the world and your opinion? Um, country, region, whatever.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:51:20] No, that's a tough one for me. I'm just gonna, I'm just going to say, I like to always point out the things that are a bit underrated and I think Somerset, England, which is. We'd have incredible cheddar and we're cheddar really comes from his original people would never think about going there on vacation. But to me, it's heaven. It's like a little world of villages and there are a few long-time chief families, cheddar making families.
Um, they are now members of their inductees into the slow food. Uh, Presidium because, um, many of them, um, and going there with cheese journeys was eyeopening because of course you [00:52:00] think of Italy, France, and Spain as these like countries, the greatest trees in the world, but going to England, first of all, the Brits.
I just feel like they have fabulous cheeses people, you know, have no idea here that there are just so many great British cheeses, but in particular, this, the countryside around Somerset is just gorgeous. You see this, all these grazing animals, it's so green and you just lay in that grass, Eli, and you eat these cloth bound shutters, and you want to sink into them.
Eli: [00:52:31] Love it. All right. Sue, one piece of clothing or accessory, you must have to be a farmer? \
Sue Miller: [00:52:38] Good boots.
Eli: [00:52:40] Good boots. Do you use like the, uh, the rubber boots or do you use like, like, you know, do you tie them.
Sue Miller: [00:52:51] Well, it depends on the season. You know, this week everybody's wearing, you know, their, their rubber boots, because it's been so wet [00:53:00] mucky on the farm, but when it gets dry, you gotta have the support in your ankles from the lace up boots.
So I'm big LL bean boots wearer but I'm on the only one on the farm that wears those. So I have a little of each, I got a little rubber, I got a little lace.
Eli: [00:53:15] Always good to have rubber and lace. Yeah.
Sue Miller: [00:53:18] The other guys on the farm wear a little different, like boots for sure.
Eli: [00:53:24] Worked. Yeah. All right. Um, Tenaya, uh, favorite piece of cheese centric, clothing and or accessory.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:53:36] I have some really amazing, um, sneakers, they say Madam Fromage on the back, um, that I won in a raffle and I had to cheese raffle. I mean, you know how it goes. I was at some sort of a cheesemonger competition in New York. I filled out my name on a card to Winston. It was mentioned stealth sneakers and.
[00:54:00] Eli: [00:54:00] Yeah, you also have some great cheese earrings.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:54:03] I do collect cheese earrings and and wearing some cheese graters right now.
Eli: [00:54:07] Cheese graters hanging from your ears.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:54:10] Exactly. My friend Mike Gino collects cheese t-shirts. I like just like the small embellishments, the shoes, the earrings. I do have a cheese hat from Wisconsin.
Eli: [00:54:21] I asked you, do you have the wedge of cheese for the pack?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:54:24] Absolutely. It's actually a cheese top hat, but didn't really comes out.
Eli: [00:54:30] Awesome. That's great. So besides yourself and you, might've already answered this question earlier on who is, in your opinion, a cheesemaker who's really at the top of their game right now that could be locally or nationally or as I don't really care.
Sue Miller: [00:54:46] Oh, there's a lot. There's so many people, but I really have to talk about my friend, Peter Dickson at Parrish Hill Creamery. Um, he's been making cheese for 40 plus [00:55:00] years and right now, I mean, it's kind of a landmark operation that he has because. All of the cheeses are made with native cultures. So he uses no commercial cultures. He, um, you know, cultivates these cultures from the milk from maybe a half a dozen cows that they work with and that he rotates them between Sonia and Patsy, you know, each culture, um, and carries these cultures on for years.
So if you think about it in the chef world, And liken it to a sourdough culture, this is what he's doing with milk cultures. And he's one of the founding members of a project that I'm also a member of, the Cornerstone project, where all three cheese makers are making, uh, An American original cheese all with native cultures.
And it really has been the brainchild with Peter Dixon. So if anybody out there is intrigued by this idea, jump on their website, [00:56:00] order their cheese. They've been really hard, hit by COVID. I just inspiring you to follow them on social media. Um, but this guy I've got a cheese question, he knows the answer.
Eli: [00:56:13] That's pretty next level. Yeah.
Sue Miller: [00:56:15] Or he may know that I know the answer and I just don't know it yet. And help guide me to finding it.
Eli: [00:56:21] Oh, he's one of those guys. I
Sue Miller: [00:56:23] have the highest level of respect and, um, for, for his skills, he has mad skills.
Eli: [00:56:30] Well, tell me one more time. The name of his dairy or Creamery.
Sue Miller: [00:56:34] The Creamery is Parrish Hill Creamery in Westminster, West Vermont, Southwest, South Eastern part of Vermont. Cool.
Tenaya Darlington: [00:56:45] You can be there in six hours.
Eli: [00:56:48] Let's get a car. That's good. Um, all right. Uh, Tenaya favorite place you've ever stopped?
Tenaya Darlington: [00:56:57] Oh, my gosh. Well, it has to be Mystic [00:57:00] Connecticut, where Sue and I have a mutual friend, Mystic Cheese Company. And one time he was operating out of a shipping container. It was like it was micro cheese maker and, uh, he makes literary theme cheeses.
Since, you know, I'm a writer, you know, I just have a soft spot for like English, English nerds. Um, and he does a cheese called Melinda May. It's a soft goey Stratego style, cheese, uh, named after Shel Silverstein poem. And I'll just never forget eating that cheese in the stick, Connecticut at a shipping container. That was a wild road trip.
Eli: [00:57:41] All right. Um, Sue, um, what was your biggest failure as a cheesemaker may something that you really learned from? Was there one thing that like, here's like I had, no, I had a couple early on in my career as I look back I'm like, what the hell was I thinking.
Sue Miller: [00:57:57] I got to tell you that [00:58:00] there's, there's just, she's making is kind of one of these things where as soon as you, you just have to be humble all the time cause as soon as you think you're honest, it it'll come up and bite you in the ass. So, um, uh, there's just been times. Well, I mean, I developed a new cheese out of mistake and that was fat cat about, uh, 12 years ago that sort of has a happy ending. I mean, everything in the make that could go wrong did go wrong.
But because I had the support of Amelia DeNucci at Di Bruno brothers and Hunter Fike, who Tenaya just referenced earlier, I brought this crazy batch becaus my mentor, Peter Dixon said don't ever throw anything out, keep accurate notes. And this batch of cheese was just walking from the day one, but it sorta taunted me while I was aging it over the two months, caring for it lovingly, wondering if it was going to [00:59:00] become pig food or if it was going to be edible.
And I really was patient. I held out until it was aged the minimum 60 days for a raw milk cheese. I cut into it and it was amazing Eli. Um, it could have gone anyway, it could have been bitter and had these weird, what we call yellow flowers that are so acidic, we'll steer your mouth, but it wasn't, it was like this amazing cheese.
And so I packed it up and I hauled it into Di Bruno Brothers and I said, will you try this? They had become, they were my very one of my very first customers. Um, and they had the cheese and Emilia said, how much do you have? We'll take it. And they sold it. They, I split the batch between, um, that was pretty remarkable.
I split the patch between Di Bruno brothers and Saxelbys Cheese and Saxelby be bought it sight unseen, never tried it. Uh, and that was, that's kind of what it takes in this [01:00:00] community is for people to like give honest feedback, support folks. Um, but I'll never forget that none. I had to work on reproducing that mistake of the fat cat cheese
Eli: [01:00:11] you've been messing it up perfectly for the last 12 years.
Sue Miller: [01:00:15] Every once in awhile, it gets a little dodgy and you might come across a blue cat or, you know, A different variation of this cat, but you know, I try to keep it in its lane. We'll see. That's a fun.
Eli: [01:00:28] All right. Uh, Tenaya, best place to hang out and eat cheese in Philly?
Tenaya Darlington: [01:00:34] Um, right now, I feel like it's the patio at Martha up in Kensington. It's I call it my unofficial cheese clubhouse. Um, there's heaters over the tables. There's open fires. There's cocktails. So there's local cheese and it's just a really warm, wonderful place.
Eli: [01:00:52] Cool. All right. Last one for each of you, Sue, if you could sit down and share your [01:01:00] cheese with anybody dead or alive, who would it be?
Sue Miller: [01:01:04] Yeah, I know the answer to this. Um, a woman, this woman I referenced earlier, Daphne Zepos, um, who started a cheese company called Essex Cheese. Anyone who's a monger or has been in the cheese world for more than seven years would know of this woman. She was truly an inspiration to me because, uh, she would come in and do training trainings at Di Bruno brothers.
And with the sense of community that the team over there has, they always invited me when Daphne would come and she often would request that our cheese uh, be there for the tasting. So for me, it would be so special. Um, she left this world far too young, um, and I'd love for her to taste the cheese and just pick her brain and travel around the world with, um, you know, Just having a chat with her.
So to me, that would be the [01:02:00] pinnacle to sit with her and try some cheese. And I'm sure if there are any people in the cheese world listening, they'll say good call.
Eli: [01:02:07] All right. All right. Good. And Tenaya, if you could take someone to a cheese maker anywhere in the world, who would it be and where would you take them?
Tenaya Darlington: [01:02:17] Oh Eli, don't you want to go to Corsica?
Eli: [01:02:21] Let's do it. Alright.
Tenaya Darlington: [01:02:25] It's just like on the top of my list, Lily, I've been reading about Corsican cheeses and I'm, uh, developed this little obsession. Um, thanks to a friend of mine named Mike McCauley was the wine director at TRIA. We did a thing on wine- Island wines, Island cheeses.
He got me really interested in this idea of Island cheeses. And so for a while we had like, She's on the menu from the Canary islands, and Sordidia and Sicily. And I think island cultures are fascinating and they had these interesting heritage cheeses that often are kind of like under the radar. So I've been reading what course you can choose and Eli, I just think you should come with me. We should go.
Eli: [01:02:58] All right, let's do it. [01:03:00] Love it. All right, ladies, this was awesome. It's always good to check. So I haven't seen the two of you together in quite some time, so.
Tenaya Darlington: [01:03:09] Absolutely. Thanks for having us on this was such a fun conversation.
Eli: [01:03:13] Yeah. Good. All right. I will talk to you very soon.
li: Thanks for listening to The CHEF Radio podcast. If you'd like to support the show, please leave us a review. Wherever you listen to your podcast, it helps others find the show and allows us to continue to make great content. The CHEF Radio podcast is produced by RADIOKISMET. Post production and sound designed by Studio D Podcast Production and I am your host Eli Kulp.