Cheese Please

WRITTEN BY AMBER KEISTER PHOTOGRAPHED BY JONATHAN FREDIN

heese Please!

Discover the deliciously distinct flavors of local cheese

Small-batch, handcrafted cheese is produced across the state, and quite a few award-winning varieties are made in our neck of the woods.

Tyler Morgan grabs some Hickory Grove cheese in the aging room at Chapel Hill Creamery.

LUCKY FOR western Wake residents, some of the finest artisan cheese in North Carolina is being made right here in the Triangle.

Locally made cheese is a delicious addition to your charcuterie board, and benefits more than your tastebuds. Buying local cheese also supports a network of small family farms across the state.

“We have a dairy farm, but we’re producing our own cheese,” said Portia McKnight, coowner of Chapel Hill Creamery. “If people can buy North Carolina cheeses, particularly farmhouse cheeses like us, they’re supporting family dairy farms which otherwise just can’t exist.” All it takes is a mouse-click, a leisurely drive, or a trip to the nearby specialty store to get your hands — and your mouth — on these tasty creations.

Chapel Hill Creamery

Flo Hawley and McKnight launched Chapel Hill Creamery in 2000 and have been selling their handcrafted cheese at local farmers markets since 2001. All of their cheese is made from milk from their own cows, about 30 sweet-faced Jerseys.

“A farmhouse cheese has lots more character, because the milk is coming from one herd. The characteristics of the milk vary over the year,” said McKnight. “The nuances of the cheese are very interesting, they change, and it gives the cheese character.”

The dairy makes roughly 1,000 pounds of cheese a week. Its most popular varieties are Calvander, an aged cheese inspired by Asiago; Hickory Grove, with a rich, buttery flavor and lacy, smooth texture; and Carolina Moon, a soft-ripened cheese similar to Camembert.

“Hickory Grove is in my refrigerator all the time. So is Calvander, but I think of that as more of a condiment cheese,” said McKnight. “Hickory Grove goes in almost every sandwich I make.”

Whether it’s where we get our supplies and our feed from, or where we sell our cheese, we want to stay as close to us as possible.” — Portia McKnight, Chapel Hill Creamery

Chapel Hill Creamery's 50-acre farm is Animal Welfare Approved, and every cheese label celebrates the 'Happy Cows.'

The farm is Animal Welfare Approved, certifying that all the animals on the farm are treated well. That includes all of the cows and the heritage-breed pigs, which are fed whey leftover from the cheesemaking process and sold for meat.

While there are no farm visits scheduled now, Chapel Hill Creamery is a stop on the annual Piedmont Farm Tour, returning in April 2022.

Until then, their cheese can be found locally at Whole Foods, Wegmans, the N.C. State Farmers Market, and through the Produce Box. Cheese and pork sausage can also be ordered online at chapelhillcreamery.com for pickup at the farm or at the Carrboro Farmers Market.

Boxcarr Handmade Cheese

In 2009, Dani Copeland and her husband, Austin Genke, bought 30 acres in Cedar Grove, N.C., and launched Boxcarr Farm.

ABOVE: Wheels of Hickory Grove do time in the aging room. According to the farm's website, the cheese takes its name from the nearby Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

Danny Shawcross, right, and Alexander Kast, left, pump roughly 200 gallons of milk into coagulation vats to create a batch of Carolina Moon, a soft cheese.

I think that, at least for North Carolina anyway, that the creameries and cheesemakers are doing a really, really good job of trying to be competitive on a global scale, not just a nationwide one.”

— Dani Copeland, Boxcarr Handmade Cheese

Some of Boxcarr’s offerings include, clockwise from left, Redbud, spreadable Herb & Garlic Freshen, Cottonseed, Rocket’s Robiola (top), and Pimento Freshen.

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They partnered with his sister, Samantha Genke, who had trained as a cheesemaker at Goat Lady Dairy and Chapel Hill Creamery.

“The plan was definitely to be cheesemakers,” said Copeland. “The reality just took time and finding the money.”

Their early income-generating endeavors included raising heirloom vegetables and heritage pigs, operating a food truck, and running a catering business. All the while they were growing their herd of milk goats.

In 2015, they began making cheese for commercial sale, and today Boxcarr Handmade Cheese produces about a dozen varieties. Copeland estimates they make about 1,500 pounds of cheese weekly, using milk from their goats and cow’s milk from Lutheridge Farm in Rowan County.

“We work very closely with the dairy. It’s a younger farmer getting back into raising dairy cattle,” Copeland said. “They just have beautiful milk, and they have been so willing to make it work really well with us.”

Inspired by small Italian farmstead cheesemaking, Boxcarr sources all of its cultures from Italy and aims for “a deep amount of flavor,” according to Copeland.

“When we decided we were going to make cheese, we really did not want to just take milk and turn it into cheese. We wanted it to be something that we wanted to eat,” she said.

Copeland’s favorite is the best-selling Rocket’s Robiola, an ash-dusted cow’s milk cheese with a soft, creamy texture. Other popular cheeses include Cottonseed, a fullbodied cow and goat’s milk cheese with a gooey center; Lissome, an aged beer-washed cow’s milk cheese; and Redbud, a nutty, buttery semi-firm cheese that has been handrubbed with paprika.

“Handmaking everything individually, it definitely is something that is so unique and different,” said Copeland. “It’s fun to taste cheese when it’s young, and then have it when it’s super ripe.”

Some of Goat Lady Dairy’s offerings include, clockwise from top, Lindale, Providence, Smokey Mountain Round, roasted red pepper chevre, fig and honey chevre, and plain chevre.

The N.C. Cheese Trail

Discover more local cheesemakers and explore North Carolina dairy farms and creameries at nccheesetrail.com.

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Boxcarr cheese is available at Whole Foods, Wegmans, Triangle Wine locations, and at ELK Local Foods in Apex. Cheese can also be ordered online, either to be shipped or picked up at the farm; details are at boxcarrhandmadecheese.com.

Goat Lady Dairy

One of the largest goat cheese creameries in the region, Goat Lady Dairy, in Climax, N.C., has been producing artisan cow and goat milk cheeses for over 25 years.

In 1995, Ginnie Tate, ‘the Goat Lady,’ her brother, Steve, and his wife, Lee, opened Goat Lady Dairy in Randolf County. Carrie Bradds has been there since the beginning. She was the first full-time employee, and in 2017, she and her husband, Bobby, purchased the business.

Goat Lady Dairy makes roughly 150,000 pounds of cheese a year, more than 3,000 pounds of cheese a week. Among its offerings are 13 flavors of fresh goat cheese, including fig and honey chevre, the company’s most popular product.

“We have the fresh chevre, which is in the little tubes,” said Carrie Bradds. “In the cheese world, we call that the bread and butter, because that’s what has the fastest turnover. That gets your money flowing the fastest.”

Also worth noting are Providence, an aged goat’s milk cheese reminiscent of Parmesan or Pecorino; Lindale, a raw cow milk Gouda with a buttery, rich flavor; and the Smokey Mountain Round, a chevre that is dried and lightly smoked over apple wood.

“It’s our most labor-intensive cheese, but it’s one of the best sellers, probably the second best,” said Carrie Bradds, of the Smokey Mountain Round.

“When we started making them, I would make 20 a week to sell at the farmers market. I would never have dreamed — we made 480 this week. Ginnie, who was the Goat Lady, would be so happy, but she would have never believed that we would make 480 smoked (cheeses) in one week.”

Providence, Lindale and Smokey Mountain have won numerous accolades from the American Cheese Society, and last year Providence received a Made in N.C. Award from Our State magazine.

The Goat Lady Dairy ships its cheese nationwide, but locally, it’s available at Whole Foods and the Mae Farms booth at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh. It can also be ordered online, either for shipment or for pickup at the farm; details are at goatladydairy.com. t