SAVE THE DATE! Please join me for my live, Facebook Fabulous Food Tour on the Rue des Martyrs on Wednesday, May 19 10am EST (east coast time), 9am Midwest time, 7am, West coast time, and 4pm Paris time.
CLICK HERE to reserve your spot.
Despite a few misgivings about Facebook in regard to some of their practices and policies, I still think their initial idea of connecting people is a fantastic idea. While I have connected with many long-lost friends and high school classmates, I have made some wonderful new friends, some who I have met in person, and others have become good online friends without ever meeting.
New friends also come in the most peculiar ways. About two months ago, I received a comment about something I posted on Facebook from a woman named Marcella. She then said to have a look at her website, https://www.marcellathecheesemonger.com/. I went to her site and was immersed in Marcella’s Cheese universe. Her resume and long list of awards and citations really impressed me, and I said, boy, this lady really knows her cheeses. I was so fascinated that I asked Marcella if could interview her. Here’s the delightful interview with Marcella Wright. Make sure you have some cheese to nibble on while reading this!
What’s the first cheese you remember tasting, how old were you, and what was your reaction? What cheeses did you have at home when growing up?
In the summer, my grandfather drove a delivery truck for a Michigan creamery (winters he drove a snowplow). He brought home milk, cream, and cheeses for the family. Later my father was a traveling salesman for a meat company in Atlanta, Georgia, and every Friday he brought home steaks, chops, sausage that were outdated but still fine to eat (in some cases even better because of a little age). Both my mom and her mother were excellent cooks; my grandmother taught me a lot of basics of southern cooking. I never mastered baking; too scientific for me. From an early age I ate “real” food; rarely eating fast food. Bit of trivia – I haven’t eaten in McDonalds since the 1970s and I’ve never been to Taco Bell or Arbys.
I don’t remember my first cheese but I do have a first cheese memory. My mom and I were in a grocery store and I noticed Velveeta on a shelf (not refrigerated). I asked my mom why it wasn’t with the other cheeses and her reply was simply “Because it’s not real cheese”.
My first exposure to specialty cheeses was in the 1990s at Wally’s in West Los Angeles. Wally’s is a bottle shop with an impressive selection of domestic and imported wines. At Wally’s, the wines are left in the boxes and stacked around the shop (at least that’s the way it was in the 90s). My husband aka The Man and I were invited to a Cheese and Wine tasting (before they were fashionable). One of the cheeses was an extra-aged Gouda speckled with “crunchies” (which I later learned were tyrosine, an amino acid found in many Goudas, Alpine and Italian cheeses). I fell in love with this cheese. (BTW, these cheeses came from Norman Wabnig’s Cheese Shore of Beverly Hills, opened in 1967 – again before the specialty cheese appreciation took hold in the US).
My mom always kept Cheddar, “Swiss” (an American marketing term developed to describe Alpine cheeses), String (mozzarella sticks), Baby Bels (they are “real” cheese), Colby, Monterey Jack and Blue in the house. She kept Velveeta for sauces (a popular – but rarely acknowledged – ingredient chefs use because it adds a velvety finish to cheese sauces). Mom and Dad were lovers of cheese and kept a cheese drawer in the fridge which my brother and I could raid without asking permission.
Aged, sharp Cheddar remains one of my favorites but instead of a cheese drawer I have a dedicated cheese refrigerator. My cheese fridge includes back-stock for my cheese shop inside Sweet Combs of Honey, charcuterie, dried fruits, nuts and chocolates plus one shelf of what I call “everyday cheeses” that The Man can raid without asking permission… funny how habits are passed from generation to generation…
There’s an impressive list of cheese trainings and certifications on your site. Please tell us more about those and what the trainings were like.
In the late 2000s, the American Cheese Society began exploring a Certification process for Cheese Professionals: Cheesemakers, Importers, Distributors, and Retailers. A Body of Knowledge (several domains of knowledge from cheesemaking to affinage to food safety to retail sales) was developed over the next few years and in 2012, the first Certification exam was offered. The exam included 150 questions. The Cheese Professor site recently capsulized the requirements in this interview with Gayle Martin, another CCP.
I sat for the exam in 2013 while working with Kroger/Murray’s Cheese. For fifteen weeks MC hosted weekly conference calls to discuss the various domains of the BOK. I also had a study buddy who worked at Whole Foods. She and I exchanged info we received from our employers. I spent every weekend reading, researching and getting ready for the exam.
The day of the exam, I was terrified. My first question asked what milk a Nubian goat in the Southern Hemisphere would yield in September. (All questions were multiple choice – 4 choices – 1 “most” correct answer. I use “most” because some answers were kind of correct and we had to choose the best of the 4.) Thankfully, I passed.
After leaving Kroger in 2014, I developed a study program tailored for Cheese Professionals sitting for the exam. It is posted on my website and shared via the Cheese Study Group I created at Facebook. I ran the group until January of this year building the membership to 7500+. I made the choice to pass the torch to Amy Sherman, Editor of The Cheese Professor. In 2017 and 2018, I spear-headed a crowd-funding project to raise funds to assist those taking the exam (and had no employer to help defray the expenses). We raised almost $20K and were able to help more than a dozen persons sitting for the exam.
In 2017, I was humbled to be inducted into the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers – New World Order. By invitation-only, the Guilde is one of the highest honors a Cheese Professional can attain.
In 2018, I realized I needed to know more about food safety and enrolled at a nearby technical college to take a sixteen-week course to secure a Serv-Safe Food Protection Manager Certification. In the US, if you own or manage a restaurant, you are required to have this Certification. I don’t plan to work in a restaurant, but it is useful when preparing my cheese spreads and marinated cheeses in a certified kitchen.
Making cheese at Sartori Cheese Wisconsin
Your first trip to Paris in 2019 was an add on to an invitation for a press tour of the Jura region of France by the Franche-Comte Region in 2019. Please describe your experience and also your impressions of you first trip to Paris?
Comte Association USA invited me to be their guest for the 2019 Press Tour. The purpose of the trip was to introduce social media persons (there were five of us) to the Jura region with emphasis on the iconic French Cheese, Comte AOP. As you know, Comte is the number one selling French cheese in France (90% stays in France and only 10% is exported – during the pandemic, it has been exceedingly difficult to find it here in the US.) We spent 5 days and four nights visiting Comte farmers, cheesemakers and affineurs. We visited La Ferme du Montagnon, a historic farmhouse that was a Charcuterie Museum; we visited an organic absinthe maker. We were treated to gourmet lunches and dinners in the region, enjoying the foods and wines of the Jura. I found a new appreciation for the French Roses. On our last day we visited La Petite Echelle and enjoyed traditional fondue and rosti which the chef/owner allowed us into his kitchen to assist in preparing.
After the tour, a friend and I headed to Paris, the last city on my bucket list. Because it was my first trip to Paris, we visited all the monuments and a few of the museums, including the Louvre and Orsay. We spent as much as fourteen hours a day exploring the city. It was magical. Often, we build up an event or place to the point that when we arrive, we are underwhelmed/disappointed. Not Paris!! It was everything I had imagined and more. However, five days is not enough time to enjoy Paris; next time I plan to designate at least two weeks to get to know the City.
I had been warned that not speaking the language (I read some French and have a small French vocabulary) would incur derision from the residents. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Everywhere we went, Parisians were friendly and eager to help. Two residents walked with us to our destinations (Edith Piaf’s grave and a small restaurant on a side street near the Bastille Monument that was known for Aligot) to make sure we didn’t get lost.
Occasionally, I would stop and say out loud, “I can’t believe I am in Paris”.
I know that you visited the Laurent Dubois cheese shop, one of the best in Paris. What was your impression and what were some of the favorite cheeses you bought? Did they differ from the imported French cheeses you get in the U. S.?
While touring the Jura, I asked our host which of the several prestigious cheese shops in Paris, should I choose for my purchases to take home. Without hesitating, he recommended Laurent Dubois. Monsieur DuBois is a Meilleur Ouvrier de France which translates literally “Better Worker of France”. In the Cheese World, it means that Laurent DuBois is “the real thing” when it comes to knowing and caring for cheese.
And that is where I went my last day in Paris. I chose the location on Saint Germain. The big difference between French Cheese shops and US Cheese shops is that US regulators require cheese be stored in cases with temperatures under 40 degrees F. In France, in the dedicated cheese shops, the cheese sits out at room temperature. Being used to the US, I reached for a piece of cheese (which was wrapped) in the shop and the fromager “fussed” at me. There were signs that clearly said “Don’t touch the cheese” but I wasn’t thinking. I was embarrassed.
All the cheeses I chose to bring home were not easily found in the US or are banned for sale. The FDA allows US citizens to bring home any cheese for personal consumption; however, cheeses made with raw milk and aged less than 60 days cannot be offered for sale in the US. Cheeses that fall into that category are mostly soft-ripened cheeses such as brie, camembert and those lovely goat cheeses made in the Loire. I brought home several Loire cheeses, Brie de Meaux, Reblochon, Timanoix and a few aged cheeses that don’t find their way across the Atlantic.
You worked for Kroegers supermarket chain setting up in store, gourmet cheese shops. What was that experience like and also what’s it like interacting with customers who may be exposed to these types of cheeses for the first time?
In the late 2000s, Kroger made a deal with Rob Kaufelt, the owner of the iconic Greenwich Village Cheese Shop, Murray’s, to open mini-Murray’s Cheese shops inside select Kroger stores. The first shops were opened in Cincinnati, Ohio and Dallas, Texas. The program was successful and in 2011 Kroger and Rob decided to expand the program across the Kroger system. I joined the program at that time and for the next three years I traveled fifty weeks of the year; catching a plane on Monday AM and returning home late Friday PM.
During those three years I opened seventy-five shops (setting up the shops and training the personnel) across the US from Aiken, South Carolina, to Anchorage, Alaska and more than ten states in between. The Man was a good sport about my traveling but Spaulding Gray, my beloved cat who “wrote” my blog from 2008 until his return to the Mothership in 2013, switched his allegiance from me to The Man.
Opening cheese shops and training Associates was the best way to increase my cheese knowledge but was a position better suited for a younger person. After three years, it was time to slow down and hang out with The Man.
God has a way… three weeks after leaving Kroger, my father became ill, and I came to Georgia to help my mother care for him. While caring for him I realized my mom was having more than normal memory issues. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few months before my dad passed. The Man joined me in Georgia to care for mom and after she passed away, we decided to stay in this small Georgia town with only one traffic light.
Currently you work with Sweet Combs of Honey. What kind of events do you plan for them and why the switch from cheese to honey?
In Georgia, I wanted to stay in cheese and “re-purposed” myself to fit the area. I approached the owner of Sweet Combs of Honey about staging cheese events and selling cheese within her shop, which is an Artists’ Collective, wine shop with a small café in the back.
I installed two small refrigerators and stocked them with specialty cheeses not available at the local grocer. I also sell charcuterie and olives. Once a month, we offer a Cheese event. In February we had a “Be My Brie” event for Valentine’s Day. In March, we welcomed spring with a fondue night. To celebrate The Masters Golf Tournament (a big deal here in Georgia) I made three small-batch Pimento Cheese spreads. Next month we are offering a Cheese and Wine 101; pairing cheeses from six cheese families with six different wines.
I offer special order cheese platters and boxes with everything that goes with cheese that allows the customer to “Just Add Cheese” (from my refrigerators) to complete the box. The customer can also add from the wine selection and other specialty foods available in the shop.
You recently received the title of Amazon Influencer. What does this mean and what is in entailed in keeping that status?
I received an invitation from amazon to apply to become an “Amazon Influencer” and establish an Amazon storefront. The invitation was based on my social media presence. Every post on my blog contains at least one link to an Amazon item offered for sale through my storefront. For every purchase I get a few pennies. Not a lot, but one hundred pennies equal a dollar; it adds up.
What are the latest trends in cheese?
Sadly, in our industry, the Pandemic has adversely affected Cheesemakers, especially the smaller producer whose customers often are primarily restaurants. As with every business around the world, the past year has been more about keeping alive and open. I have been impressed with the many ways the industry has found creative ways to get cheese to cheese lovers everywhere. More online cheese sales and subscription boxes are being offered. Cheesemakers have banded together to form Victory Cheese to assist the smaller producers.
Instagram is a fun place to visit to see ways cheesemakers and retailers are “slinging” cheese. One concept I saw that didn’t work for me was “jarcuterie” – cheese, meat and olives speared and sitting in a mason jar. Kind of hokey; not very classy, in my opinion. “Jarcuterie” is a trend that I hope goes away.
Okay, the cheese survival question. If you were on a desert island, what three cheeses would you choose to survive?
I recently wrote a post about “favorite” cheeses. When someone asks me “What is your favorite cheese?”, my answer is “The last one I ate”. It’s too hard to pick one; picking three isn’t much easier… but since you asked: Comte, Rogue River Blue (2019 World Cheese Awards Grand Champion) and Parrano.
