Cheese of the Week - Sartori SarVecchio Parmesan Reserve Cheese

On my way to Friday morning I was listening to the Joy Cardin show on WPR. The guest was Jeanne Carpenter of Wisconsin Cheese Originals, an organization dedicated to learning about and promoting Wisconsin Artisan Cheese. She also writes the Cheese Underground blog and recently posted the 25 best Wisconsin cheeses. I will not discuss my obsession with cheese vs cheeses vs types of cheese here, but the topic will be addressed soon.

I decided that this may be a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about one of the finer points of living in Wisconsin.  My idea is to try one of the types of cheese on the Cheese Underground list each week and see which ones we like best.



I stopped at one of my favorite cheese shops, the Cheese Board, in Minocqua with the Underground list. The ladies reviewed my list and pointed me in the direction of a parmesan style cheese from the Sartori  family called SarVecchio Parmesan.


This cheese has won a ton of awards.

2011 U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

GRAND CHAMPION RUNNER UP

2011 U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

FIRST PLACE (BEST OF CLASS)

2010 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

FIRST PLACE (BEST OF CLASS)

2010 WORLD CHEESE AWARDS

SILVER MEDAL

2010 WORLD DAIRY EXPO

GRAND CHAMPION

Before we moved to the Northwoods Friday night was Pizza Night. We would often order out or go out for pizza. That doesn't work here. We quickly found out that Friday night is Fish Fry Night in Mercer - no other main dishes are available. We changed our Pizza Night to Thursday evening. Since we don't really celebrate the Fish Fry, Friday is available for Cheese Tasting Night.

Maddie Jo
watches the
preparation.

"Let's taste some
CHEESE!"

In addition to the Sartori SarVecchio I also picked up Sartori's Balsamic BellaVittano - a golden cheese soaked in balsamic vinegar. I brought my treasures home and the dogs were ready to help out as soon as they heard my plan.



The parmesan was light and crumbly. It was flavorful, but not as sharp as the parmesan blocks you buy in the grocery store. Very nice and not overpowering. The Balsamic BellaVittano was really good. It tasted rich with a little bite from the vinegar. Overall, two good choices.  I hesitate to rate the cheese quite yet, as this is the first on the list that we've tasted.

I can tell you that compared to my favorite Wisconsin cheese - Merkt's it did quite well.  I'm afraid I go through way too many plastic tubs of this cheese-food spread; I eat it with everything. Perhaps by educating my Wisconsin cheese palate I will break my Merkt's habit. Stay tuned for next week's cheese.

A Trip to Net Lake

Gracie on the Road to Net Lake

Our property surrounds a little 23 acre lake named Net Lake. During the winter it is pretty hard to get to the lake because the snow is so deep. The trail down to the lake is about a car's width and we don't plow it. A couple of times I snowshoed down the trail, but I didn't take the dogs as I didn't want them to run across the frozen lake and on to the U.P.  I have spent too many afternoons chasing dogs through the snow and ice during my childhood on the Milwaukee River.

Last weekend I decided to walk the dogs down to the now thawed lake.  The phrase "Let's go to Net Lake" is in Asher's vocabulary. When walk down Ashe Road and he races past the turn off to the lake all I have to say is "Let's go to Net Lake" and he turns around and tears down the path to the lake.

Maddie Jo inspecting the porch

Near the end of the path, up on a hill overlooking the lake, sits a wonderful screened porch that Tom Theodore built for my dad. Dad likes to read there in a cool, mosquito free environment. It survived the snow, but it looks like a large animal, bigger than a Weimaraner, tried to scratch through one of the screens during the winter.

While Maddie was checking out the screened porch on the top of the hill Asher dashed down to the dock to check the lake for any unwanted guests.

He didn't see any beavers, otters, ducks, deer, geese or loons on the water; so he decided to take a closer look under the water.

Asher & Gracie see something

"Where is he?"

"Maybe on this side."

While Asher and Maddie were looking under the dock Maddie Jo looked on.







Maddie doesn't like to go in the lakes, although she doesn't mind wading in swimming pools or taking warm showers.






While Asher and Gracie were busy looking for trolls under the dock and Maddie was looking at them look for trolls, something was happening on Net Lake. I don't know if you can see it behind Maddie - not the Net Lake Monster, but . . .

A loon sneaking up behind us

We spent a long time down on the dock, but the dogs never saw the loon and eventually it swam to the other side out of sight.  After awhile Maddie and I got bored and dragged the two panting, dirty dogs back to the house.

The girls enjoyed a nap in the warm sun.

Maddie Jo & Gracie 

Asher on (in)
Payment Lake

Asher was confident that Net Lake was free of invaders, but what about Payment Lake?  He remained on Lake Watch.

Asher asleep in the leaves

Eventually, even the most vigilant watchers succumb to the warm sun and a soft spot within a dog's dash of the lake.