Culture Magazine

42 culturecheesemag.com THE HOT LIS T 2024 Founder, Local Goods Gathered Portland, Maine Holly Aker credits her mother for never knowing a day without cheese. Aker founded Local Goods Gathered, a platform designed to build sustainable relationships in the supply chain, with a focus on curating Maine dairy products and fostering a direct connection between maker and consumer. Aker, who is certified in food safety control, assists creameries with their food safety plans to effectively access markets. She also served as the president of the Maine Cheese Guild from 2020 to 2023. Who is your biggest inspiration in the cheese world? American Cheese Society Lifetime Achievement winner Debra Dickerson. After hearing her speak, I loved the way she advocated for cheesemakers. She also listened and helped identify ways I could support Maine creameries in an industry I was still trying to understand. She shared her motto "do no harm" with me, and I live by that in my business. What's your number one goal for your career in the cheese industry? Maine cheese everywhere! A roadmap! Or access to channels for small American producers to scale their products. My goal is to make it a little easier for the person who has the skill and talent to make the thing we love so much. And I want the consumer to get the cheese exactly as the maker intended it. Pair a celebrity with a cheese: Stephen King with Balfour Farm Smokey Ghost. Intriguing, spicy, suspenseful, and addictive. What is an underrated cheese that everyone should know about? I want to say all Maine cheese! But it's not underrated to those who have discovered it. It's fabulous—it's the highest-quality cheese from artisans who care about their craft and put the love of their farm and herd into every bite. There are too many to name, but: Kennebec Cheesery, Balfour Farm, Crooked Face Creamery, Winter Hill Farm, Josh Pond Farm, Spring Day Creamery, Springdale Farm Creamery, and Fuzzy Udder Creamery, to name a few. What is a pairing you're ashamed to love? If I was going to be ashamed, and it's hard to be ashamed of anything that involves cheese, it's the ridiculous amount of jalapeño-stuffed olives I eat while raining cheese shreds into my mouth. INGA WITSCHER-ORTH Owner, St. Isidore's Dairy Osseo, Wisconsin Inga Witscher-Orth is a fourth-generation dairy farmer who milks cows and makes cheese on her micro-dairy in Osseo, Wisconsin. In 2018, she revamped the farm to include a small creamery, where she makes a small-batch, raw-milk, clothbound cheddar from the milk of six grass-fed Jersey cows. St. Isidore's Dairy was recently awarded a 2024 Good Food Award for its Clothbound Cheddar. As a passionate advocate for small family farms and grazing livestock, Witscher-Orth shares her journey on PBS television series Around the Farm Table. The show combines recipes and stories from her daily life on the farm and in the local agriculture community. What was your big "aha moment" when you entered this industry? My biggest "aha moment" in cheese was during a tasting in Paris 10 years ago. I tasted a raw-milk goat's cheese that had been made a few days before; it was filled with the flavors of Provence, rosemary, and lavender. When I learned the flavors had come from what the animals were grazing on, I knew I had to start making a raw-milk cheese. What's your number one goal for your career in the cheese industry? My goal is to encourage more micro-dairies across America. Micro-dairies are a way for more dairy farmers to stay on the land and be profitable on the farm. Dairy farmers are resilient people, and I encourage more family farms to look into farmstead cheese. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a "Cheese Trail" throughout the United States? I would also like to start a conversation with cheese lovers on the benefits of grass-fed milk. The benefits of grazing livestock are many, and the flavors of grass-fed cheese are extraordinary. Pair a celebrity with a cheese: Bruce Dern and Limburger. You're on a desert island and can only eat one cheese for the rest of your life. What is it? Roelli Cheese Dunbarton Blue. What is an underrated cheese that everyone should know about? Dreamfarm goat cheese—it's a small-batch farmstead near Madison. What is a pairing you're ashamed to love? A gin martini and f ried cheese curds while watching reality TV. HOLLY AKER ACS CCP PHOTO: Elizabeth Johnson at Harbor Light Studio PHOTO: Trenity White

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