Aug. 13, 2009
By Karen McEnany-Phillips
Observer Staff
The light brown Jersey cows, milked for the day, grazed unconfined in lakeside pastures.
Their warm milk was precisely cooled, cooked, curdled and poured into cheese wheels.
Now it will age in a climate controlled cave as local chefs await the finished artisanal product — not bleu cheese from a French village, but Bleu Sunshine Cheese from Winter Park Dairy, just off Howell Branch Road.
David Green's family has owned the eight acres of unincorporated Seminole County land for four generations and enjoyed a thriving citrus business until hard freezes ended the groves in the mid-1980s. David and his wife, Dawn, attempted to raise beef cattle but felt more aligned with a dairy operation, which they began 18 months ago.
"Cheese making is an ancient art and it's great that the community is so supportive," David Green said. "Our cheese works in cooking, as an appetizer, or as an awesome gift … no one ever returns it. It's like giving love itself."
Surrounded by housing developments, their land is considered a farmstead where they are raising their young family. Everyone benefits: The cows enjoy a much longer life, the neighbors appreciate boarding their horses nearby and waste is composted so farm odors are minimal.
Bessie and Molly are two of the nine "Jersey girls" who supply five gallons of milk daily and three gallons in the summer. It is a breed known for tolerating heat and producing milk high in butter fat content.
Winter Park Dairy is the first raw milk dairy to be licensed in Florida and the first new dairy farm built in a decade using small scale dairy equipment from Holland.
The cows step up to the classic milking parlor where the milker sits on a black stool and collects the milk. Since cows do not like to step down, they follow a ramp back to their pasture.
The fresh milk goes immediately to a pristine milk room where it is cooled in a bulk tank. Then it's piped to the immaculate cheese-making room where the Greens and their apprentice Leah Steele, a UCF student, create the cheese.
"It's cool to work with the animals to make food," Steele said.
They monitor and stir a complicated brew of enzymes, starter cultures, pH levels, flavoring, rennet, curds and whey in the 80 gallon vat which cooks for a day. It's then poured into round containers called hoops which are flipped several times then readied for the brine bath and the cheese cave.
The cave temperature stays at 55 degrees and holds shelving units of cheeses at various stages of aging. The cave floor is kept wet to maintain humidity. Young cheese is light yellow while the rind of older cheese takes on various colors as it ages.
"No two wheels are exactly the same," said Green. "Each is unique like a snowflake."
Bleu Sunshine Cheese is sold at the Winter Park and Maitland farmers markets.
"My wife and I are foodies and we stumbled on their cheese about two months ago," Winter Park resident Sean Murphy said when he stopped by the farmers market booth. "It's the best bleu cheese we've ever had, mild and addictive. We love it on tomatoes from our garden."
Executive Chef Paul Player of Old Hickory Steakhouse in the Gaylord Palms Resort uses Bleu Sunshine Cheese.
"We built an entire recipe (ugly ripe tomatoes and Vidalia onions) around this cheese," he said. "My staff even visited the dairy."
The Slow Food movement began in Italy in the 1980s and is active in more than 100 countries. It promotes sustainability, stewardship, eco-friendly processes and food quality, taste and traditions. David Green is vice president of Farmer Relations for Slow Food Orlando and works to empower and connect local farmers with their communities.
Player's restaurant supports the Slow Food movement, which links restaurants and chefs to local farmers from whom they buy fresh daily.
"Our kitchen was built small intentionally so we cannot store large quantities of food," Player said.
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Learn more
Winter Park Dairy
David & Dawn Green
4501 Howell Branch Road in Winter Park
407-671-5888
www.winterparkdairy.com
Cheese@WinterParkDairy.com
To learn more about the Slow Food movement visit www.slowfoodorlando.org
Old Hickory Steakhouse
407-586-1600
www.gaylordpalms.com
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