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Focus on Co-op
Suppliers: R & G Cheese Makers
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by Suzanne Fisher
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If you have been in the
Cheese department at Honest Weight in the past few months and have been
offered a sample, there's a good chance you have already tried and
purchased one of the R & G cheeses. The first one I encountered was
the maple chipotle chevre, and it knocked my socks off! (Some of it
found its way home with me that day.) I recently had the privilege of
visiting the cheese makers Sean O'Conner and Jason Lippman while they
were working, and spoke with them about their product and how it all
came to be.
About seven years ago, Sean and Jason began working at the Old Chatham
Sheepherding Company. Sean had just moved back to the area from
California and had left a job in computer supply. Jason, who lived in
Chatham, was taking a break from nursing. At their new jobs, they
learned how to make hand-crafted cheeses. About a year ago, they began
making goat's milk cheeses together. Last September they moved into
their current space, a room filled with coolers, incubators, a
pasteurizer and other cheese making equipment, situated inside the
Harmony House Market Place on Remsen Street in Cohoes.
Here, they transform milk from a variety of local small dairies into
many delicious forms of nourishment. Currently their prime source of
goat's milk is Lady Lilac Farm in Ballston Spa. From this farm they
receive anywhere from 17 to 300 gallons of milk a week, depending on
the season. When the supply of milk runs low from one farm, they buy
from others in the area, and use cow's milk from small, local dairies
for different cheeses during the winter, when goat's milk is typically
not as plentiful. While the milk they purchase is not organic because
it is not available at a marketable price for them, they know the small
farmers they buy from and have confidence in the quality of the milk
they purchase. Sean pointed out that organic milk now costs 500% as
much as conventional milk.
Their cheese making methods remain traditional, using low-temperature
pasteurization, vegetable rennet, microbial cultures, salt and herbs.
Sean and Jason experiment with new varieties and try everything they
sell to check its quality. They pride themselves in making cheeses that
are as good as the best cheese anywhere.
R & G Cheese and Greek-style yogurt is sold at the Co-op and six
farmer's markets, where family members help man the tables, and in
several other small co-ops and stores in the Hudson Valley. They also
sell cheese through the distributor Pampered Cow, so their cheeses have
been seen at Whole Foods and in New York City at various venues.
Honest Weight now carries their plain and garlic herb flavors of chevre
in addition to the maple chipotle, their herb encrusted semi-soft in
wheels, and their Eclipse, an ash ripened goat cheese in small rounds.
When I asked which was their favorite, it was the Eclipse they both
chose, so I took some home with me and paired it with dried dates, the
only ripe fruit in my fridge at the time. It was fabulous, as if I were
tasting what the words "classic" and "elegant" mean in food form. It
was visually beautiful, too, with its striking color contrast of formal
black and white. I could go on and on, but will settle for recommending
their cheeses to you unequivocally, so that you can enjoy goat cheese
perfection grown and produced right here in the Albany area.
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