Culture Magazine

I N N OVAT I O N 202 3 culturecheesemag.com 11 C H E E S E B I T E S IN SEASON If spring vegetables had a pageant, I'd bet my grocery money that asparagus, English peas, and ramps would duke it out for beauty queen status. They are all beautiful, certainly, and each already has ties to royal sorts of things. Asparagus perennially springs from a crown of roots beneath the soil. English peas recall that princess who can't sleep due to a lumpy mattress, and are equally persnickety to get out of their pods. And ramps are now worth their weight in king's gold since becoming a chefs' darling ingredient and subsequently over harvested from the wilds of the eastern United States. Pageant dreams aside, the flavor of asparagus—described by author Karen Page in The Vegetarian Flavor Bible as "quiet to moderate in volume and bittersweet in taste with pungent notes of grass and nuts"—plays well with other spring vegetables on the same plate. Local asparagus in springtime is always going to have the best flavor; however, it's usually available year-round due to the volumes grown in China and Peru. An easy way to have asparagus at the ready for soups, salads, and stir fries is to blanch the stalks for 3 to 4 minutes in heavily salted boiling water (1 tablespoon per quart) and then immediately plunge them into ice water. Once drained and dried, blanched asparagus will store for up to a week in the refrigerator, wrapped in a clean towel in an airtight container. Recipe on p. 54 Asparagus WRITTEN BY CHRISTINE BURNS RUDALEVIGE F or tiny Paoli, Wisconsin, the $11.2 million project to transform a historic cooperative dairy into a 21,000-square-foot restaurant, café, eight-room boutique hotel, and creamery, is remarkable for its grand scale. Even more remarkable: Seven Acre Dairy Company co-proprietors Nic Mink and Danika Laine are doing a very brave thing. They're refusing to serve cheddar. "Our cheese rules here are muenster, brick, or Swiss," says Mink, "because those were the historic cheeses of this area." Swiss-immigrant workers also made these cheeses in what are now guestrooms, at various intervals between 1888 and 1980. Sourcing from nearby Landmark Creamery—its sheep's milk Pecora Nocciola and Pomona won First at the 2022 American Cheese Society Judging and Competition—further expands offerings at the property's restaurant, The Kitchen. But still, no cheddar. Here the menu riffs on Swiss-German dishes from the middle of last century, a project that has the culinary team, led by chef Ben Hunter, sifting through local church and community cookbooks for inspiration. In March, Landmark Creamery launched its first brush with butter, made at Seven Acre Dairy Company with whey cream and sold exclusively in the retail store. "It's about the land and the place, thinking about all the wild and indigenous foods here, and early Wisconsin agriculture through modern food," says Mink. To that end, the soft- serve wild-rice ice cream served in the café is made with milk from a third-generation dairy farm. That same farm used to deliver to the former cheese factory. And small family farms on either side of Seven Acre Dairy Company supply beef and veal to The Kitchen. From saving original yellow subway tiles to creating a chandelier out of vintage milk bottles, the nods to preservation are so strong that Seven Acre Dairy Company earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places a month before opening last December. The co-owners' thoughtful approach easily opened dialogue with former plant workers and town residents who supplied the historic photos that are now framed and proudly hung. "We've had half a dozen families here that have been critical to supporting this project," says Mink. Even the bar is in on the museum effect, with artifacts from butter and cheese production joining glassware and spirit bottles in back-lit cubbyholes. Once the weather warms in late spring, an outdoor patio will open, perfect for enjoying the café's ice cream drumsticks and "choco tacos", signature treats courtesy of local pastry chef Samantha Kincaid. This is another one of Mink's creative partnerships involving dairy innovation, proving it's not just about cheddar in Wisconsin. c History Loves Company WRITTEN BY KRISTINE HANSEN PHOTOS: In Season: berdsigns/Adobe Stock; 7 Acre Dairy: Tricia Shay

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