Cheese of the Week

It’s rare for us, as Americans, to experience the kind of kinship with our food purveyors as people in other parts of the world are able to. Consider yourself among the fortunate few if you have a local butcher shop, farmer’s market or cheese counter. Unlike East Wittering, Chichester (a small seaside village I once visited in England), most of us can’t walk out of our house, around the corner, and to the town fromagerie. Hell, it wasn’t much before I visited that town did I finally realize that Publix didn’t exactly qualify as a local bake shop.

Fortunately, there are people like Sally Jackson out there, helping us to experience real, artisinal American cheeses in all their glory. Sally and her husband Roger raise sheep, goats, and cows on their sprawling farm in eastern Washington state. They then turn the milk from their animals into hand-made, small-batch cheeses and distribute them to a handful of retailers across the country.

Sally says no to herbs and pasteurization, making only straight-up, raw cheeses wrapped in her signature chestnut leaves. The sheep’s milk cheese is a testament to purity—all sweet, creamy goodness with very subtly notes of rich thyme and fleur de sel. Semi-soft (which actually makes it a lot softer than many other sheep’s milk cheeses), SJ Sheep is bright and uncomplicated, which is just fine when the flavor is this good.

Unfortunately, most of their website is still under construction, and a Google search didn’t reveal any online retailers. However, Sally is well-known in the cheese world and it would definitely be worth your while to inquire about her products in your local cheese shop or even grocery store (the big guys are actually starting to take an interest in the small farms these days). And, if all else fails, you can put in an order with me and expect it sometime around Christmas (central Florida area only, please).