The Great Canadian Cheese Festival – Part 2

This is the second and final part of an interview with Georgs Kolesnikovs about the Great Canadian Cheese Festival coming to Picton, Ontario, June 4 and 5, 2011.

Q:  Georgs, what is your vision for the festival?

I see it as a showcase event for Canadian cheese and Canadian cheesemakers and a great opportunity for Canadian cheese lovers to meet cheesemakers and other cheese enthusiasts in a unique setting at the Crystal Palace at the Prince Edward County Fairgrounds.

Cheese lovers will be able to taste cheese, talk cheese, learn about cheese and buy cheese from Canada’s leading cheesemakers. And have a great time.

Q:  How will this play out?

Saturday will be dedicated to a keynote presentation, a choice of tasting seminars, several cheesemaking demonstrations and guided tours of the cheesemaking operations within an hour’s drive of the Festival. Attendees will be able to pick and chose the program that suits them.

Saturday evening will be a Cheese Gala, a moveable feast featuring tasting dishes prepared by Canadian chefs with Canadian cheese and paired with Canadian wines and beers. Featuring a groaning board of fine cheeses. Followed by sweet delights. With two sittings to eliminate long lines at food stations.

On Sunday, the Cheese Fair and Gourmet Market will take place with a wide variety of artisan and specialty cheeses for sampling and purchase, represented by Canadian cheesemakers from coast to coast. Vendors will include vintners, brewers, purveyors of fine foods, charcuterie and other delectables.

Q:  How can folks get involved?

First mark the dates June 4th and 5th on your 2011 calendars. Our website will go live in October with program details, seminar selection and advance registration.

Until then, http://www.cheesefestival.ca redirects to a temporary page at CheeseLover.ca, where cheese enthusiasts can sign up for an email advisory of posts about cheese, the cheese scene, and the Festival.

Cheesemakers and others in the cheese business can obtain information about participation by contacting me via telephone 905.837.0102 or festival@cheeselover.ca

Or follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/CheeseLoverG

Georgs at the Warwick Cheese Festival 2010

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Move Over Wine: Try Pairing Cheese with Beer!

From the farmsteads of yore, cheese is re-discovering a natural home on the palates of beer lovers. What’s the connection, you wonder? More than first meets the tongue.

As farmhouse products, beer traditionally complemented the ploughman’s lunch of meat and cheese. Beer is grown from barley grass and milk is a by-product of a cow’s diet of grass, not to mention grain. And something new to me, both beer and cheese were made on the farm by women!

According to Beer Advocate, cheese and beer share common characteristics in aroma and flavor, while the carbonation in beer lightens the palate and brings out the many nuances in the cheese.

So if you are ready to move beyond your run-of-the-mill wine and cheese party, try pairing cheese and beer.

5 Cheese and Beer Pairings to Try

  • Sharp Cheddar with Pale Ale
  • Feta or Goat’s Cheese with Wheat Beer
  • Havarti or Monterey Jack with Pilsner
  • Gorgonzola with Barleywine
  • Gruyére with Bock Beer

For a beer inspired repast offered up by Jamie Kennedy, Marc Breton and many more, saunter down to the 3rd annual Brewer’s Plate at Hart House in Toronto on Wednesday May 26th, 2010.

Ever considered starting your very own cheese factory or investing in a business idea with old roots?  Pay a visit to Invest in Cheese ambassador Andrew Redden, who will be mixing it up at the event under the Live your Dream banner!

I’d love to hear about your favorite local cheese and beer pairings featuring microbrews and artisan cheese from Ontario in particular, but anywhere in general!  Galen

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Collaborating with Gurth Pretty “Canada’s Big Cheese”

As part of my Christmas week marathon of cheese meetings, I met with Gurth Pretty “Canada’s Big Cheese”. Gurth is a chef, author, runs his own cheese business and heads up the Ontario Cheese Society among other things.

My mission was to talk about our invest in cheese initiative and discuss how we could work with Gurth under the various hats that he wears to cross promote each other, drive traffic, membership, investment attraction leads and sales. Gurth was keen to work with us and his cheese counterparts in Toronto on our up coming brainstorming session.

Gurth has some exceptional and ambitious plans around the possibility of expanding the Ontario Cheese Society coast to coast and make it a National Association as well as being very interested in seeing an accredited cheese making school establish in (Ontario) Canada. While our invest in cheese initiative doesn’t see a direct role in realizing these dreams we are very interested and supportive of these exciting ideas.
I can see this topic coming up in our brainstorming session and I can see each of the stakeholders at the table having a vested interest in seeing the visions realized.

Should a national association and an accredited cheese making school become established, we will all win and become stronger and more successful in our individual missions. It may very well behoove us to collaborate to assist in realizing some of the dreams…
It is really easy to maintain a myopic view of one’s mission, but if we open our minds up to the possibilities of working together great things can be happen. It’s hard to argue that a strong National Cheese Association and an Accredited Cheese Makers school wouldn’t help us tap into potential cheese making start ups and new investments in our region, especially if we play some sort of supportive role.
These cheese folks are a really creative and collaborative crew, I am looking forward to working with these folks in the new year and seeing where things go.

My final “cheese collaboration blog” will address some exciting cheese promotion ideas starting to take shape.

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