Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1512297
ENTERTAINING 202 3 culturecheesemag.com 47 Tasting Notes Bloomy Breeze Milk: Pasteurized cow Digging into this plush, delicate camembert-style round is like curling up with your favorite pillow. A snowy-white coat conceals a sweet, buttery paste made extra supple with a combination of Holstein and rich Jersey cow's milk. Pair this versatile, welcoming bloomy with f resh blackberries, rosehip jelly, or slices of summer cantaloupe. Merry Goat Round Spruce Reserve Milk: Pasteurized goat Bark-wrapped wheels were historically made with extra-rich winter milk that made cheeses so soft and oozy, a band of spruce cambium was needed to hold their shape. FireFly puts an Appalachian spin on this Alpine tradition with a goat's milk edition that's available year-round. Peel back the top rind to reveal a lush, liquid pool of white gold with subtle hints of pine forest and brassica—then dig in with a hunk of crusty bread, your favorite potato chip, or a spoon. Black & Blue Milk: Pasteurized goat In the world of blue cheese, goat's milk wheels are rare. But FireFly's Black and Blue sets the standard for domestic wheels. This piquant, balanced cheese is shot through with blue veins of Penicillium roqueforti that pop against the bone-white paste. With an approachable ratio of milky sweetness to salty punch, it pairs as well with fiery kimchi as it does with sweet sherry. Moo & Blue Milk: Pasteurized cow Mike Koch is a self-professed "sucker for blue cheese," so it makes sense that FireFly's product line includes another blue—this time made with rich, golden cow's milk. Fudgy and creamy, this sweet-savory wheel pairs well with bold flavors f rom big-bodied red wines, f resh or dried figs, and salty, crunchy pickled green plums. The COVID pandemic triggered a flurry of pivots, including opening and closing a sandwich stand in a Baltimore food hall, investing in automation at the plant for simple tasks that include wrapping cheese, and reconsidering the idea that growing bigger is always better. "Scale is complicated by exit strategy planning," Koch says. He's in his early sixties, and after Solanet recently recovered from a cancer scare, the couple feels ready to slow down. "It's not going to happen tomorrow, but we need to start thinking about what's next." One path is acquisition, which requires more growth. But Koch and Solanet found that chasing scale isn't always good for business. Now, they're rethinking the future of FireFly. "Instead of acquisition, which has its plusses and minuses, we're considering all sorts of things, like a transition to employee ownership," Koch says. That focus on the future also includes investments in sustainability: powering the cheese plant with their own solar array, making energy- conserving electrical upgrades in the production space, and capturing nutrient-rich whey from cheesemaking and returning it to farmers to use as pig feed or fertilizer for crops. "We think about our packaging, water use, energy use, and the sustainability of our farms," Koch says. Part of FireFly's vendor relationship with Sweetgreen, which purchases the creamery's fresh chèvre and cow's milk blue, includes sustainability benchmarks as part of its own zero-carbon mission. "They've come out and measured our carbon footprint, which is thrilling for us, so now we're able to track its progress towards zero and hopefully one day, regenerative status," Koch says. "That would be my happy thought." c Black & Blue