Cheese CONNOISSEUR - Cover Stories

From Wine to Rind

Gayle Martin curates the best of local and gourmet at Plum Plums Cheese. Photos by Jane Beiles Photography It all started thanks to wine. Gayle Martin and Michael Riahi met while working in the wine business in New York City — she in marketing and he in sales, and the

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A Cheesemaking Guru

Sid Cook, Owner & Certified Master Cheesemaker at The Carr Valley Cheese Co. If there was a gene for cheesemaking, Sid Cook was certainly born with it. The fourth-generation cheesemaker and owner of Carr Valley Cheese Co., in La Valle, WI, can trace his family’s cheddar-making roots back to the

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Laura Werlin: An American Cheese Authority

Author, presenter and self-proclaimed cheese “edu-tainer,” Laura Werlin has turned her passion into a career. Laura Werlin contends she got into cheese “because it got into me”. “It started at the age of three; a simple grilled cheese sandwich on Wonder Bread with American cheese was the first food I

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Bob Wills: A Cheese Innovator

Owner of Wisconsin’s Cedar Grove Cheese,Bob Wills has worked hard for three decadesto stay at the forefront of cheesemaking. One could say Bob Wills’ road to cheesemaking was a detour. He has worked as a post doctorate economics instructor and researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and also worked

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A Cheese Calling

Kurt Beecher Dammeier, founder, Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, Seattle Sometimes it is a particular destination that determines an entrepreneur’s journey. Such was the case for Seattle’s Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. Even before having a business plan, founder Kurt Beecher Dammeier knew where he wanted his cheese company to be based. “I decided

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BRINGING CHEESEMAKING TO THE MASSES

Kim Mack, founder, Scratch Made Life Kim Mack, founder of Scratch Made Life, which offers online and in-person cheesemaking classes, could not have seen where her life was headed when she began her business almost four years ago. An army veteran, she worked in a police department, on an ambulance

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TAKING AN UNFORESEEN PATH

Savencia’s Sebastien Lehembre For Sebastien Lehembre, senior marketing manager at Savencia Cheese USA, cheese didn’t start out as his purpose, but became a passion and a career by happenstance. “Some people have a clear trajectory but, in my case, it was unexpected in a way, while such a part of

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Stephanie Clark: Champion of Cheese

The Iowa State University professor bestows her passion for dairy onto her students while making a difference in the industry. Although Stephanie Clark is Virginia M. Gladney Professor for Ames, Iowa-based Iowa State University’s department of food science and human nutrition, it’s not her only role. Admittedly one who stretches

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