How to launch a food brand: Interview with Chris Cornyn from Supermarket Superstar

• 

Food marketing expert Chris Cornyn helps aspiring entrepreneur Patricia Kiernan design her label on Lifetime's Supermarket Superstar (photo: Adam Taylor)

Have you ever thought of taking your signature dish to supermarket shelves? Anyone ever told you that you should bottle your barbecue sauce, salad dressing, homemade jam?

[Raises hand.]

That's why I was so excited to talk with Chris Cornyn, founder of DINE Marketing, one of the country's premier food branding companies. Not only has DINE developed the brands and packaging for more than 2,000 different food products, but Chris is currently a mentor on Lifetime's new food reality show Supermarket Superstar, where aspiring food entrepreneurs compete to get their products manufactured and in front of grocery buyers. If anyone knows what it takes to make a food product successful, he does. Read and learn.

Erika: How long does a product have to get shoppers' attention?

Chris Cornyn: There's a lot of research on that. It takes somewhere between 2.5 and 3 seconds for a consumer to decide whether they're going to pick up a product - we call that "The Stop." If they pick it up, then generally they look at the label. That's "The Sell" - they look at the photo or illustration, the product if it's showing, and the information on the label to decide whether they want to buy it.

Erika: When the Supermarket Superstar contestants came in, how far along were they in their product development processes?

The Supermarket Superstar mentors: From left, Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies, chef Michael Chiarello, and Cornyn, with program host Stacy Keibler (photo: Adam Taylor)

Chris Cornyn: All of them had an idea that they thought belonged on supermarket shelves. But none had thought out what we call "The 6 P's": product, positioning, packaging, production, profit, and promotion. I assume anyone who wants to get into the food business has a delicious product. But the other P's are what make the product work.

Erika: When you first meet the three contestants in each episode, they give you a short pitch. How much help did they get with that?

Chris Cornyn: I don't really know - that was the first exposure we three mentors had to the contestants. I heard some of the ideas and thought "That's a home run - just needs a little tweaking." Other people came in with unbelievable passion, conviction, and personality, but they didn't have the product to match.

Erika: What did you think of the guy who made snacks out of cricket flour [in the Natural Foods episode]?

Chris Cornyn: I was rooting for him because he's trying to change the world by making a sustainable protein that helps the planet. We're one of the only countries that doesn't eat insects - you can go down to Mexico and get some amazing cricket tacos. Is America ready to start eating bugs? Maybe not. But is he a trend-setter and thinking ahead? Absolutely.

Erika: In one episode the contestants made barbecue sauce. Does the world really need another barbecue sauce?

Chris Cornyn: Actually, a mature category like barbecue sauce is ripe for innovation. Consumers like to try new products, even if they're really similar to existing products, just because they're new. What about a barbecue sauce with an ethnic twist? Or a sustainable angle? Or a local style of sauce that's not as well known? There are ways to make everything new.

Erika: What trends do you see in food product labeling and packaging?

Chris Cornyn: The label should have as few ingredients as possible, and the easier they are to pronounce, the better. The package and label have to stand out in the product's category. I recommend that food entrepreneurs go buy every single product in their category and set them up like a grocery store shelf, then put their product in the middle and ask random people - not family and friends and neighbors - which ones they'd pick up.

Erika: Once you get your product made [and there's a whole manufacturing issue to deal with which doesn't get a lot of attention on the show - it's pretty technical], then you have to sell it. How does that usually happen?

Chris Cornyn: The most successful food entrepreneurs are the ones who go out and sell it themselves, often starting with small independent grocery stores or at farmers markets. They know the product and they have the passion - no hired gun broker or salesperson can replicate that passion. When you see entrepreneurs demoing their products in markets, that passion comes across both to consumers and to supermarket buyers.

Supermarket Superstar airs Monday nights on Lifetime. Check your local listings for channel and time.

Cooking tips from Food Network chef Ming Tsai

• 

Me with TV chef Ming Tsai at the Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival

Those of you who have perused my celebrity chef posts might have concluded that I am a celebrity chef groupie.

Okay. It might be a little bit true. I rarely pass up an opportunity to go one-on-one with a famous chef. I'm still trying to figure out the formula: What makes some chefs so much fun to watch on TV? What does "star quality" mean for a chef?

This weekend at the Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival I sat through chef Ming Tsai's cooking demo. I've been watching him on PBS and Food Network for years. Guess what? Tsai is just as borderline geeky in person as he is on television. Which, frankly, makes me like him more. He's not a rock star wannabe like Guy Fieri. He's not pretentious. He's not super polished, either, even after all these years in front of the camera. You get the sense, watching him, that he's actually kind of nervous to be cooking in front of a live audience. Sweet.

Of course, he's learned to mug for the audience a little bit. I guess I wasn't as inconspicuous as I thought when I crouched down in the center aisle to take photos, because chef Tsai stopped what he was doing and struck a pose:

A good cooking demo always includes kitchen tips. Here are the tips I picked up from chef Tsai:

• Taste everything. "I've made this a million times," he said as he sipped the passionfruit mai tai he'd just mixed, "but I haven't made it today."
• If the pan gets too hot, pull it off the stove and wait a minute before adding oil. Smoking oil gives food a bitter taste.
• Rub crushed lemongrass stalks on your skin to keep bugs away.
• That fancy one-handed technique for tossing food without a spatula? It looks slick and it's easy. Practice in the backyard with a frying pan full of dry beans or uncooked rice.
• If your meat sticks to the pan, it's not done yet. Wait until it's fully seared and it will release itself.
• Eating spicy food? Pair it with wine that's got a hint of sweetness, like a Riseling, Viognier or Gewurtztraminer.
• Use kitchen tongs to squeeze the juice out of lemon or lime halves.
• Look for "naturally brewed" soy sauce, where the only ingredients are water, soybeans and the bacteria that ferments the mixture.
• Chef Tsai prefers cooking with canola oil because it's flavorless, has a high smoke point and is cheap.
• Want to get your kids to eat vegetables? Skip the steamed broccoli and saute it in garlic oil instead. "Kids love flavor," he said. "They'll eat vegetables if you make them taste good."

Chef Tsai's kids are about the same ages as my boys, so when I caught up with him after the demo I asked him what he likes to cook with his kids. Watch the video below for his answers!

Rosh Hashanah with The Shiksa

• 

Tori Avey, the Shiksa in the Kitchen

I've been on back-to-back business trips for the past few weeks, which means I've had zero time to get started on (or even think about) cooking for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the upcoming Jewish high holidays. To get me in the mood, I asked Tori Avey, who writes the wonderful blog The Shiksa in the Kitchen, about her high holiday habits. Tori, who converted to Judaism in 2010, describes herself as a culinary historian, and her blog explores both the past and present of Jewish cooking.

For those of you who know no Yiddish, shiksa means "non-Jewish woman" in Yiddish, and often it's a term slung around with claws - as in, "Why are the most eligible Jewish men always attracted to the shiksas?" (Which they are.)

Erika: Tori, who hosts your Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur holiday meals? What's your routine through the two holidays? 

Tori: My family and I host the Rosh Hashanah meal, unless we’re in Israel or out of town. That’s actually how I got my nickname “The Shiksa in the Kitchen” — I started cooking our Rosh Hashanah and Passover meals close to 10 years ago, long before I converted to Judaism. My annual Passover meal has close to 50 guests! Rosh Hashanah is a bit smaller, usually around 30. Cooking for that many guests is tough, but I’ve found a few ways to make things easier. A week before the meal, I create a “holiday game plan.” The game plan includes my menu, the recipes I’ll be using, grocery list, cooking times, what time I should start cooking each item, and how much of everything I’ll need. I also have a list of the items we need for the blessings. I try to cook certain food items ahead of time, things that do better after a night in the fridge (brisket, certain marinated salads). I start two days before the holiday so I have a jump start on everything. The more I can prepare in advance, the more I’ll enjoy the actual holiday and spend time with my family and friends! 

Yom Kippur is a very quiet day in our home. We usually don’t have guests and we keep the break fast meal very simple. This year we’ll be breaking fast with our friends from Israel, who will be in town with us, so that will be fun. 

E: Do you cook the same things each year for the high holidays, or do you try to change things up from year to year? 

T: I try to change things up every year, but there are certain dishes that are expected. I always make matzo ball soup — that’s a given for both Rosh Hashanah and Passover. Brisket is also on the menu, but I tend to change the type of brisket that I’m serving from year to year. This year, I’ll be serving brisket with a pomegranate molasses marinade because I’m currently obsessed with homemade pomegranate molasses. I’ll be posting the recipe for that next week.

Tori's Honey Apple Cake, a traditional Rosh Hashanah sweet

E: What's your signature Rosh Hashanah dish? 

T: My Honey Apple Cake. Everybody loves it! It’s full of moisture and flavor from the shredded apples, and it’s dairy free! It also happens to be very pretty. I make it as a Bundt cake, dust it with powdered sugar, and decorate it with drizzled white frosting. 

E: Challah: Do you bake your own? Raisins or no raisins? 

T: I love baking my own! It wouldn’t feel like a holiday without the smell of freshly baked challah in the air. The round challah is my favorite. I usually make a few with raisins and a few without. I like to make the round shape using the Linked Loops method on my challah braiding blog. So pretty! 

E: Do your non-Jewish relatives join you for the high holidays? What do they think of the whole thing? 

T: Yes! They love it. My mom often helps me in the kitchen. She’s my partner in crime. I think I was destined to become Jewish, even though I wasn’t born that way… when my mom married my dad, she walked down the aisle to “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof. A hint of things to come, perhaps? 

E: What traditions did you inherit from your husband's family, and which did you develop on your own after you married? 

T: My husband was born in Israel; he’s half Ashkenazi (Russian Jewish) and half Sephardic (Israeli Jewish). His mom’s Jewish family goes back at least six generations in Haifa, Israel. Because of the two different Jewish backgrounds in our family, we cook what I like to call “Ashkephardic” style, blending Ashkenazi and Sephardic cooking traditions to inspire new flavors. Ashkenazi food is rich, comforting, stick-to-your ribs…brisket, cholent, gefilte fish. Sephardic food is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/Spanish inspired. It’s all kosher, but the flavors are so diverse. It’s really fun to merge the two cuisines. For example, our family cholent recipe has an Ashkenazic base (meat, potatoes, barley, beans), but we spice it with Sephardic spices (cumin, paprika, turmeric, cayenne) and we add eggs, which is a North African tradition that we picked up in Israel. 

I’ve been cooking since I was a child; my mom taught me our family recipe for egg noodles when I was 8 years old. In college, we used to have a “Tori Cooks Night” where all my USC friends would gather and I’d cook dinner for everybody. But I never went to culinary school, and I’m certainly not a “trained” chef in the traditional sense. After I met my husband, I wanted to learn to cook the foods he grew up with. Jewish food fascinated and inspired me. I enlisted the help of family members and friends to teach me their favorite family recipes and cooking methods. As I became more confident in the kitchen, I started experimenting on my own and combining flavors to create new recipes. I also studied vintage and antique cookbooks to find out how things were done “way back then.” I’m a food history nerd. 

Nowadays, a lot of what I do in the kitchen is improvised — if something makes sense in my imagination, I throw it together to see if it works. It doesn’t always. I’ve had a few notorious flops (like a terrible pumpkin soup for Thanksgiving a few years ago…yikes!). But if it turns out yummy, more than likely it ends up on my blog. I only share recipes that I really, really love.

E: Which Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur food do you most look forward to? 

T: Okay, I know this might sound so boring, but the Rosh Hashanah food I most look forward to is matzo ball soup. I guess technically that’s a Passover food, but we eat it every Rosh Hashanah, too. I bind the matzo balls with schmaltz and mix in some fresh dill. I slow cook the chicken all day long with vegetables, seasonings, and nutmeg to make a really flavorful stock. The chicken falls off the bone when you take it out of the broth, it’s so tender. Then at the end of cooking, I mix some fresh dill into the broth for an extra burst of flavor. Holy moly. It’s the best! 

For Yom Kippur, we usually break the fast with a dairy meal, so it’s all about a fresh toasted sesame bagel with thinly sliced lox and whipped cream cheese. Doesn’t get any better than that!!

What does Giada De Laurentiis pack in her daughter's lunchbox?

• 

Food Network chef Giada De Laurentiis signing books after her talk

Last weekend Food and Wine magazine and the Los Angeles Times put on The Taste LA, a four-day food festival packed with stylish small plates, festive wines and star-studded celebrity chefs. Of course, the very smart producers saved the most popular chef for last: Food Network chef Giada De Laurentiis, whose Q&A with LA Times associate food editor Rene Lynch closed the place down.

I'm seeing a pattern with these celebrity chefs: strong personality, sparkling smile, supreme patience. Rene only got in a few questions because the adoring fans packed into the sweaty tent had plenty of their own. Twice Giada was asked how she stays so thin when she's always around food ("Portion control. Exercise. Genetics"). She got questions about her favorite recipe ("Lemon spaghetti"), her future travels (Bora Bora for the next season of Giada in Paradise), her future as an Iron Chef ("They keep asking, but no - once was enough"). She mentioned her preschool daughter Jade at least a half-dozen times. At the end of the hour, with security detail standing by, she signed books and posed for photos, all with that same huge smile.

Someone in the audience had asked whether Giada follows food blogs. "I don't," she said remorsefully. "But I should. I want to." I don't need more of a hint than that. As she came off the stage I introduced myself, handed her my card and said "That's for your blog reading list." She thanked me and bent down to take a picture with my son Emery.

My 12-year-old gourmand son Emery with Giada De Laurentiis - have you ever seen a happier kid?

As Giada stood up, I threw out a question: "So what do you pack in Jade's lunchbox?" I thought she'd give an off-the-cuff response and keep moving, which her security guys clearly would have preferred. But she stopped and looked at me. Feeding her family: This is a topic she cares about, thinks about. "Lamb chops," she said. Lamb chops? I was trying to picture a three-year-old pulling that out of her lunchbox at school and must have looked puzzled.

Giada elaborated. "What I do," she said, "is cook up a few proteins, a few vegetables, a few grains, and I keep those in the refrigerator. Then, when I'm making Jade's lunch, I cut up some meat and vegetables, heat them up in a pan with some of the grain or pasta, and top it with some grated cheese. Then I put it in one of those insulated thermos things. That's how I eat, so that's how she eats." And then, with her dazzling smile and security guards, she said goodbye and moved on.

The morals of this story:

1. For bloggers: Never be afraid to ask your question. You might get blown off. Or you might have a real conversation. You'll have better luck if you ask about something you know they care about, rather than just something you care about.
2. Carpe diem, baby.
3. Spend the money on professional teeth-whitening. Sorry, Crest Whitestrips, but you can only take a girl so far.
4. I might need to get slightly more ambitious when packing my kids' lunches.

VIDEO: Food Network chef Claire Robinson on her mom's cooking

• 

Food Network host Claire Robinson making scones and butter at The Taste LA

Celebrity chefs have lots of stories to tell, so when I get a minute with a food personality, I always have a few questions ready. I met Food Network host Claire Robinson this weekend after her cooking demo at The Taste LA, an extravagant three-day food festival. She talked about her grandmother's creamed corn recipe (two ingredients: bacon and corn), which got me thinking about food and family. So when I got to the front of the line I switched on my video camera and asked:

"What's the first food you remember your mom making for you?"

Watch the video below for her response - she's adorable and funny (which is probably why she's on TV and I'm not) (yet).

Video: Celebrity chef Scott Conant

• 

Celebrity chef Scott Conant cooking pasta at The Taste LA

If you had one minute with a celebrity chef, what would you talk about? I'm always looking for backstory. This weekend I caught up with restauranteur and Chopped judge Scott Conant after his cooking demo at The Taste LA, an extravagant three-day food festival. Earlier, a woman in the audience had asked if he was married, and he said yes (to the disappointment of many). So when it was my turn I switched on my video camera and asked:

"What's the first thing you ever cooked for your wife?"

Watch the video below for his response - and you'll see why more than a few of the ladies in the audience were charmed.

Feeding the holiday house guest: Mad Hungry tips from Lucinda Scala Quinn

• 

Lucinda Scala Quinn

"I live in fear of being unprepared when it comes to throngs of hungry people." - Mad Hungry host Lucinda Scala Quinn (but the words might as well have come out of my mouth, because I feel exactly the same way)

I've got hordes of houseguests descending for the December holidays, and it's my job to feed them. I love having our extended family and friends around, I love cooking for them all, and I'm pretty organized. But shopping for and preparing two weeks of meals for houseguests and other drop-ins intimidates even me. I need help.

Enter chef, author and supermom Lucinda Scala Quinn, who knows a lot about feeding crowds. Her must-read cookbook Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys covers the blocking and tackling required to satisfy the immense appetites of teenage boys (she's raised three). Now, as host of the Hallmark Channel series Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn, she dishes out the kind of family meals I love to make: cheese fondue, one-pot stews, homemade "Chinese takeout." 

When Lucinda and I met last year we talked about feeding our families; this year Lucinda kindly gave me pointers on how to keep guests happy and well fed over the holidays while still keeping your sanity. I think you'll find her advice useful, too.

• Breakfast: "I'm a breakfast fanatic. I make one breakfast every morning, not different things for everyone. It might be granola and fruit; bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches; oatmeal; coffee cake and hard-boiled eggs. Make sure there's something for everyone. I always have food ready in the morning - it gets people started."
• Lunch: "I put lunch out at a certain time, and I make sure everyone knows when that is. I'll make pressed sandwiches in large loaves of bread and put them out with a bowl of fruit. Or I'll have two kinds of soup on the stove and serve that with crusty bread. The day after Thanksgiving for lunch I made a big pile of crepes and brought out all the Thanksgiving leftovers, and everyone made their own crepes instead of sandwiches."
• Snacks: "I'll put out a fruit bowl, olives, nuts, maybe homemade pita chips. A bowl of cleaned radishes with olive oil and a dish of specialty salt. And cheese. I have a problem with cheese - my family is always saying Mom, step away from the cheese!"

• 

  Baked ziti makes a great do-ahead dinner

  Dinner: "I try to make a few main dishes ahead and stick them in the freezer, like lasagne or coq au vin. That way, when we've got eight hungry people and I don't feel like cooking, we don't have to go out or order in. Once a week I make chili and serve that with cornbread, or corn chips if I don't have time to make the cornbread."
• Shopping: "I replenish my liquor cabinet and baking supplies before Thanksgiving. In December I splurge a little: smoked salmon, prosciutto or serrano ham, specialty breadsticks, panettone, dulce de leche. Prosecco to give as gifts or to mix with juice for brunch. Lump crabmeat, which I stretch by making dip or crab cakes. And I buy specialty sodas and flavored seltzers for the kids, because the adults are drinking lots of special things."
• The kitchen: "I don't like guests working in my kitchen. I've got everything organized. When I'm a guest in someone's house, I try to be on their program. I'm a planner; I make sure everyone has enough. I don't like people starting in on omelettes when I've already got breakfast prepared." [Me too. I can't help it. I'm territorial when it comes to my kitchen.]

Do you have tips for feeding the holiday crowds? Leave a comment - I need all the help I can get!

A conversation with Eat Pray Love food stylist Susan Spungen

• 

Food stylist Susan Spungen

Things I learned last week from Susan Spungen, food stylist to the stars:

• Central Rome is a difficult place in which to make a food movie. When Spungen was working on the food scenes for Eat Pray Love, the city of Rome limited the number of trucks the production was able to park on the narrow, stone-paved streets. Which meant Spungen was making and plating the food for the shots in a kitchen several blocks away, and production assistants were literally running through the streets with dishes held over their heads.
• When you're cooking on location, be nice to the local chefs. Spungen had to make pizza for one scene, but the only equipment she was assigned was a portable oven. She knew she wouldn't get the blistered crust of a true Italian pizza, "and besides," she said, "we were in a city full of good pizza places. Why should I come to Rome from the U.S. and make the pizza?" She got a local restaurant to deliver the goods on short notice, and everyone was happy.    
• If the food scenes are being shot outside, pray for cool weather. The mercury hit 100 degrees in Rome when they shot the outside cafe scene in Eat Pray Love. It was supposed to be fall, so the cast had to wear sweaters and eat pasta in every take. Keeping plates looking fresh in the heat of a summer day is tough. "We just kept switching them out," said Spungen.
• Don't worry about poisoning the cast. It was hot during the shoot for the Eat Pray Love food scenes, but none of the plates stayed out long. As soon as the take was over, one plate went away and another appeared in its place. Besides, actors only eat as much as they have to - a bite or two, if that. (Julia Roberts "did what she had to do," Spungen said, but her implication was clear: Movie stars don't eat a lot of pasta voluntarily.)
• Play with your pasta. When plating the spaghetti for Eat Pray Love, Spungen used her hands to twist it into a rope, which she coiled around the plate in a spiral. I forgot to ask her whether she had to find a dozen sprigs of basil that looked exactly the same for the sake of continuity. That sounds challenging.
• Sadly, most food used in movie shoots goes to waste. Remember the huge piles of chopped onions in Julie & Julia, another film on which Spungen worked? Every time I watch that scene I dream about onion soup. In reality, those onions went into the trash, as does most other food used on film sets and in magazine photo shoots. The crew does get some, but by the time the filming and photography is done, the food is mostly too far gone to eat.
• Shop 'til you drop. Buy a lot of everything. If you're setting up a close shot of the perfect BLT, for example, you need the perfect tomato, the perfect lettuce, the perfect bread, the perfectly cooked piece of bacon. To find the prince, one must look through and cook and slice a lot of frogs. And, if you're creating the perfect BLT for a magazine shoot (Spungen styles food for still photos, too), you're often doing it completely out of season, making procurement that much more difficult. Spungen says she buys everything she can get her hands on, then sorts through the stacks to find the best specimens.

Thanks to Sony Home Entertainment for arranging the event at Vincenti Ristorante with Spungen and Eat Pray Love producer Dede Gardner. Eat Pray Love is now available on Blu-ray and DVD - a great stocking stuffer for the food fanatics in your life, don't you think?

So nice to see many of my Los Angeles food blogging buddies at this lunch: Daydreamer Desserts, La Fuji Mama, Family Fresh Cooking, Yvonne in LA, Sippity Sup, The Enchanted Cook, Teenie Cakes....

Daydreamer Desserts, La Fuji Mama, Susan Spungen

Dede Gardner and Susan Spungen

Cookies at Vincenti

Family Fresh Cooking and La Fuji Mama in an intense conversation

Amuse bouche: roasted tomato with burrata

Butter lettuce salad with polenta croutons

Winter decorations at Vincenti

Listen: Erika on the radio!

• 

A few months ago I taped an interview for Good Food, Evan Kleiman's weekly show for KCRW, our local public radio station. We talked about my Grandma Rose's rugelach recipe, which I've tried hard to recreate since she died.

That interview aired this morning. I was fortunate enough to have some of my food blogger friends with me when it aired - thank you Kate, Cheryl, Paulette, Dorothy, Melissa and Linda for helping me enjoy my moment in the spotlight.

You can listen to it online - I'd love to hear what you think. How's my radio voice? Click the link below, then click LISTEN to stream it online. My segment starts 8 minutes in, right after the Market Report.

** Listen: In Erika's Kitchen on KCRW's Good Food **

Goat cheese in Vermont: Consider Bardwell Farm

• 

I spent summers in Vermont as a teenager, and every year when spring arrives I have this unreasonable yearning to head back to the Green Mountains. I say "unreasonable" because at the moment I live in southern California, and there are few places less convenient to Los Angeles than Vermont. If you live in New York, or Connecticut, or Boston, or even New Jersey, you can buy a place in Vermont, head up one or two weekends a month, spend longer periods during July and August. If you live in Los Angeles and have a full-time job, summering in Vermont is out of reach.

And still, every May and June I spend evenings sorting through Vermont real estate listings, trying to find the perfect house on the perfect stream, walking distance from the perfect picturesque village where the kids and I can walk down to the country store for penny candy and ice cream. It doesn't have to be a big house, and it doesn't have to have a lot of land. Just a front porch for rockers or a swing, a few craggy apple trees, and that wet, green-grass smell you only find in Vermont at dawn and dusk. 

Vermont's appeal for me is largely nostalgic, but the state's recent foodie explosion is a big draw, too. Dairy farmers have made cheese in Vermont for centuries, mostly cheddar, sturdy and predictable. But now there's an artisan cheese movement afoot in Vermont. Cheesemakers are turning out small-batch cheeses made with local cow, goat and sheep milks, using mostly French methods, and they're bringing home award after award.

One goat dairy that's gotten a lot of attention is Consider Bardwell Farm. Tucked away on a back road in southwestern Vermont, Consider Bardwell is the realization of the dreams of a professional urbanite who, like me, yearned to escape the big city and find her little corner of green. Except, unlike me, her crazy dreams included goats. Lots of them.

Angela Miller is the mother of a friend of a friend - a distant connection, but enough to get me in the front door for a look around. She meets me by the road and walks me around the pens. These are Oberhasli goats, eager and friendly as puppies. Angela calls them as we approach the fence and they crowd around, asking for attention, nuzzling our hands, nibbling at my shirt.

I'm not really an animal person - too allergic - but Angela clearly sees these goats as her kids (pun intended). They look like fun, but oh, boy, they are a lot of work. Even if you only read a few chapters of Angela's memoir, Hay Fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life, you will come away with a deep understanding of just how crazy was her dream of raising goats and making cheese in Vermont. Especially while maintaining her high-powered, high-profile literary agency in New York. Equipment broke down. Goats got sick. Cheesemakers and farm workers left, came back, left again. The cheese got great reviews, but selling it in the depths of recession proved challenging, nigh impossible. And every morning, every night, the milking. Clients need attention, meetings get scheduled, deals need to be done, and yet the seasons come and go, years come and go. The goats can't wait. The cheese must be made.

We walk around around the farm, talking about goats, cheese, marriage, Vermont, New York, children. Angela is soft-spoken, hesitant, not someone who seems to like the spotlight. I know she doesn't play tour guide at Consider Bardwell very often, and I'm grateful for her time. But I get the feeling she'd rather be with the goats.

We go inside the dairy to watch master cheesemaker Peter Dixon at work. He and the other cheesemakers are "hooping" - scooping the curds out of the whey and packing them into cheese molds. The liquid drains out as the cheese is pressed, readying it for aging. It's hot and damp inside the dairy, and the floor is wet. It smells a little sour, a little salty. You taste warm milk when you inhale.

Then we walk through the aging rooms. Big, climate-controlled, stainless-steel closets - that's what they look like to me. There is cheese everywhere: big, small, tan, white. Most is goat cheese from the farm's herd, but some is made from the milk of Jersey cows who live nearby. I know it's a ridiculous thought, but all I want to do is sit in the chilly steel closet and watch the cheese age. It feels peaceful, wholesome, nurturing. Also, it smells like cheese.

I buy a few wedges of Consider Bardwell cheese to take to the friends I'm visiting in the Berkshires. We taste them that night and love Dorset, a washed-rind raw cow's milk cheese; Mettowee, a fresh goat's milk cheese named for a nearby river; and Manchester, an aged, raw goat's milk tomme, firm and creamy. Does cheese taste better when you've watched the goats walk to the barn to be milked? When the girls have licked your fingers and chewed on your clothing? I think it does.

Note: I highly recommend Angela's memoir (Hay Fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life). It didn't cure me of my Vermont spring fever, but raising goats has dropped on my lifetime list of priorities. If driving country roads and visiting artisan cheesemakers sounds like your idea of fun, visit the Vermont Cheese Council's website, especially their Vermont Cheese Trail Map - many of the cheesemakers welcome visitors and give tours.

Vermont cheddar cheese: Grafton Village Cheese Company

• 

** You like cheese, right? Make sure you see the end of this post for my Vermont cheddar cheese giveaway. It's free and easy to enter, and if you win...you get VERMONT CHEESE! **

One of the great things about taking a vacation all by yourself is that you get to do pretty much whatever you want. And one of the things I wanted to do when I was traveling in Vermont at the end of the summer was learn about cheese. Vermont is known for its cheddar cheese, so I stopped into the Grafton Village Cheese Company in Brattleboro for a tour.

Grafton's marketing guru Alise Sjostrom met me in the large retail store just inside the front door of the barn-like building pictured above. She told me a little of the company's history. The Grafton Cooperative Cheese Company was founded in 1892 in Grafton, a village in southern Vermont, by a group of dairy farmers who needed a way to preserve their excess milk. The original factory burned down in 1912, but in the 1960's, the Windham Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Vermont's rural nature, rebuilt the factory, as well as much of the town of Grafton. The company now makes cheese both in Grafton and in the newer facility in Brattleboro I visited. The cheese company is actually owned by the Windham Foundation, so all the profits from sales of Grafton's cheddar go straight back into rural Vermont.

We looked through huge glass windows at two strapping men "cheddaring" - that is, raking the curds to separate them from the whey so they can be pressed into blocks and aged. They use their rakes to press the curds against the sides of the tank, and the whey flows out through drainage holes.

Next we went to the cutting room. All Grafton's cheddar is cut, weighed and packaged by hand.

Some of the aged cheddar Grafton produces is smoked. Their smoker is about the size of a big refrigerator and sits off in a corner by itself. As you can see from the signs, it gets very HOT.

In the aging warehouse, cheese is packed in plastic and then in cardboard boxes. The boxes are carefully labeled with dates and lot numbers so they know exactly when it was made and how long it's been on the shelves. Let me tell you - there was A LOT of cheese in there.

One of the things I learned walking through the warehouse is that Grafton private-labels its cheddar for gourmet stores like Zingerman's, Dean and Deluca, and Gourmet Garage. When you see a hunk of store-brand Vermont aged cheddar at any of these places, there's a good possibility it came from the Grafton factory.

Back in the shop, I sampled cheddar that had been aged one, two and three years. My favorite was the two-year - it was creamy with a tiny bit of graininess, and the flavor was superb. The three-year cheddar was a little dry for my tastes, and the one-year was delicious but very mild. I also tasted smoked cheddar and a cheddar with paprika and caraway seeds, both interesting.

As I left, Alise gave me a little cooler bag with samples of four Grafton cheeses. I took them with me to the friends I was visiting in the Berkshires. We liked them all, but my favorite was the horseradish cheddar. I'm a sucker for horseradish.

If you're planning a trip in New England, I'd highly recommend finding a few cheese factories to visit. Most of them give tours and are delighted to explain the cheesemaking process. And they almost always have a tasting room...the best part! If you can't get to New England, you can still get a taste of it by ordering Grafton's cheddar through their online cheese shop. They sell a lot of cheese in December, in case you were wondering.

And now the GIVEAWAY! Grafton Village Cheese Company wants YOU to taste their cheese, too! They'll send one lucky reader a wonderful sampler with some of their most popular cheeses, including a 6-ounce wedge of Duet (cheddar and blue cheese); an 8-ounce wheel of Classic Reserve two-year cheddar; an 8-ounce wheel of maple-smoked cheddar; and a 4-ounce block of my favorite, the horseradish cheddar! (The horseradish cheddar isn't in the picture, but trust me, it's part of the package.)

So how do you enter? Just do one or more of the following before 5PM PT on Wednesday September 22:

1. Leave a comment below telling me your favorite way to use cheddar cheese.
2. Tweet about this giveaway with a link to this post ("Win Vermont cheddar from @GraftonCheese and @erikakerekes [URL]"), then come back and leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet.
3. "Like" my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/InErikasKitchen/, leave a message on my Wall or on the Note about this giveaway, then come back and leave a separate comment telling me you've done so.
4. Share a link to this post on Facebook telling your friends about the cheese giveaway, then come back and leave a separate comment telling me you've shared it.
5. Subscribe to this blog (use the "Subscribe" link at the top of the page) by email or in your reader, then leave a separate comment telling me you've subscribed.

So you can get up to FIVE ENTRIES in this contest - pretty cool, right? I'll choose the winner at 5pm next Wednesday (September 22)! Make sure you leave a link to your blog, your Twitter name, or some other way for me to contact you in case you win.

Thanks again to Grafton Village Cheese Company for the tour, the cheese tasting, and the winner's cheese sampler! Ready? Say "cheese"...