Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1500122
THE HOT LIS T 202 3 culturecheesemag.com 41 LISA LOPEZ CHEESEMAKER RIVER WHEY CREAMERY SCHERTZ, TEXAS OUTREACH/SOCIAL DIRECTOR THE CHEESE CULTURE COALITION CHEESE EDUCATOR LISASDAILYCHEESEPLATE.COM G rowing up in a small town east of San Francisco, Lisa Lopez was a picky eater who loved cheese. When her mother took her to a creamery, Lopez got her first look at how her favorite food was made. "There was something about the liquid turning into a solid that messed with my child brain," she says. But the visit made another impact. "We weren't treated unkindly, but I didn't see myself there, I didn't see Latino people making cheese. I thought maybe Mexican people couldn't do this." Lopez draws on that experience in her work as a board member for the Cheese Culture Coalition (CCC). "When we talk about representation so that children can see us in the industry, it really does matter because I was there," she says. Years later in Texas, where she has now lived for more than two decades, Lopez was working in the corporate world when she met Susan Rigg from River Whey Creamery at a chocolate and cheese tasting. "She had come from a similar background," Lisa recalls. "There was something about that night; I saw that Susan was able to transition her career into something she loved, which was cheese. That's when the bug bit me." In 2019, Lopez started selling Rigg's raw-milk cheeses at a local farmers' market but had to quit when she got a promotion at her job. In her free time, she took cheesemaking classes, attended all of culture's Virtual Counter Cultures, and earned her first certification from the Academy of Cheese (She is working on her second.) "Somewhere in all of that, I had been listening to Cutting the Curd for some time, and one day the CCC women were on," Lisa says. "The message of trying to diversify really hit home with me." She joined the board in 2021 and works with schools to schedule the CCC's cheese education classes. Last October, Lopez took the full-time leap into cheese when she began working at a water buffalo creamery as an apprentice. In February, River Whey's production manager called her "out of the blue" to offer her a job. "It was a no-brainer for me because Susan's values about cheesemaking align with mine," says Lopez. Eventually, she would like to strike out on her own. "I hope to be the first Mexican-American woman in Texas to own a farmstead creamery and use natural cultures to make my cheeses." Lopez says. She was recently awarded the Cheeselettes Back in the Vat grant to work with the cheesemakers at Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. "I realize that I have a lot to learn about natural cheesemaking, but I am doing everything I can to prepare myself for the future." FUN FACT: "I used to draw a lot. I wanted to be an illustrator. I went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco. They show you how to draw the standard fashion figure, called a croquis. It's done with markers. I got really good at drawing them." PHOTO: Ana Isabel Photography