Gift Guide 2020: Say Cheese
You don't naturally think of cheese-makers as being restaurant-dependent, but they are. Restaurants at every level require vast amounts of cheese, from the mozzarella on the pizza to the cheddar in mac and cheese. As for the finest small farmstead cheeses, chefs are often the ones who introduce them to the public.
So cheese-makers are suffering in this pandemic. Many have pivoted to on-line offerings; Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm, makers of fantastic cheeses like Moses Sleeper and Willoughby and is among my favorites. And if you're going to order cheese as a way of helping out, you can't do better than their Victory Box. It contains five cheeses from five small family farms.
Victory Cheese is a nationwide movement of dairy people and cheese-makers intent on preserving the American cheese industry. Conceived in the same spirit as the Victory Gardens of World War II, it's a national movement of cheese-makers in every state. American cheese has come so far and changed so much over the past twenty years; we must preserve it.