My husband and I always look forward to this time of year, not least because of the annual Chocolate Festival in nearby Ashland (which I wrote about a few weeks ago) and the yearly Oregon Cheese Guild event held in our town of Central Point. Last weekend we made our way through a large crowd of folks under the big tent on the grounds of the internationally acclaimed Rogue Creamery, host of the gathering that celebrates the art of artisanal cheese.

Every year there seem to be new vendors and new products, alongside booths representing a host of Oregon and Northern California cheesemakers, and this eighth event offered everything from locally distilled organic gin and vodka (more on that next week) to Oregon white truffle butter (YUM!) and freshly harvested wild mushrooms. It seems that just about anything that might be served with a creamy havarti or a robust blue cheese may be found here, so for a $20 entrance fee ($15 if you don’t want to indulge in sips of cheese-friendly wine, beer or spirits), visitors can sample breads, spreads and sweets along with dozens of cheeses of the cow, goat or sheep variety. It’s really difficult to narrow down one’s choices to just a few to take home; this year we wisely brought a big cloth bag into which to toss our purchases. It bulged with all sorts of treats by the time we made it back to our car.

Also on offer are a few seminars, and we spent an hour away from the crowds to learn how to make three easy cheeses from Margo True, food editor at Sunset magazine. While walking us through the steps to producing a fresh chive cheese (a chenna-like one which involves kneading the curds like bread dough), ricotta and fromage blanc, plus a bonus of crème fraîche, she regaled us with stories behind her introduction to cheesemaking. A few years back, she and her staff decided to embark on a mission to create a “one-block feast” from the magazine’s test gardens — which encompass about a square block of land in Menlo Park, Calif. The idea was to create an end-of-summer dinner from items produced just from that plot, and the need for protein in the meal led them to making cheese. (They “bought” a cow which actually lived off-site; too many issues came up with raising a healthy beast on their small parcel.) The class opened our eyes to the simplicity of basic cheesemaking and also got us thinking about how much one can produce with a little thought and ingenuity in a relatively small space. It tempted me to consider trying some new crops in the garden this summer as well as to trying my hand at crafting some homemade cheese. All in all, it was a very tasty and enlightening day!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor