Say ‘cheese’
By Gregory Childress
[email protected]; 419-6645
DURHAM – The Durham County Library came alive with cheese, and cheesemakers, on Sunday.
Three cheesemakers and the owner of a downtown cheese shop answered questions about the art of making cheese and entertained more than 120 people who showed up for a panel discussion that was part of the library’s Humanities Programs for 2012.
The program was sponsored by the Durham Library Foundation.
Patrick Coleff, the owner of Reliable Cheese, moderated the panel that included Dave Krabbe, who owns Prodigal Farm along with his wife, Kathryn Spann; Matt Lardie, cheesemaker and manager of Hillsborough Cheese Co.; and Portia McKnight, co-owner of the Chapel Hill Creamery.
Coleff sells cheese from the cheesemakers in his store.
“Without great cheesemakers in the area, I wouldn’t have anything to sell,” Coleff said.
The four fielded dozens of questions ranging from one knows when cheese has gone bad to how the cheesemakers got into the business.
For Krabbe, cheese represented a lifestyle change. He and his wife, who moved to Durham from New York, bought a farm and started raising goats whose milk they now use to make cheese.
Krabbe said they started with four goats, but now have 175.
“Cheesemaking is a way we can support our goat habit,” Krabbe quipped.
Krabbe was please that so many people turned out for the panel discussion.
“This is fabulous to see so many people come out to learn about where their food comes from,” Krabbe said, noting that Durham is an activist community.
Although he knows Durham is a community that supports its artisans, Lardie said he was a bit surprised that so many people attended the event.
“The questions were so insightful,” Lardie said. “It was a great program.”
Responding to a question about what has been the best surprise since getting into the cheese-making business, McKnight said it has been getting to know the cows that make the milk she uses to make cheese.
“It so delightful to have these cows,” McKnight said. “I can’t tell you how wonderful these animals are.”
The panel discussion was the brainchild of Alice Sharpe, the development director of the library.
“Patrick [Coleff] is making quite an aficionado out of a lot of folks here in Durham, not only in downtown, but in Durham in terms of cheese,” Sharpe said. “It only goes to reflect … that foodie side of not only Durham, but this area. We are very fortunate to have, I call them real artisans, who take their food craft quite seriously, and we are the beneficiaries of that.”
But what would a panel discussion about cheese be without samples?
Coleff laid out a table-long spread of various cheeses from the three cheesemakers and invited those in attendance to come up and taste for themselves.
Joyce Sykes, a library trustee, said the program was educational.
“I thought it was excellent, and showed the variety of what one needs to know to become a cheesmaker,” Sykes said.
As for the taste test?
“Very good, but some of them were too strong for my taste,” Sykes said.
Cheese Recipes with Bill & Sheila
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