Mike Gingrich's
Pleasant Ridge Reserve
is a great Midwestern cheese that is definitely something to taste. He and
his partner have worked hard over the past few years to produce a Beaufort
style cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Mike & Carol Gingrich make the
cheese and his partners Dan & Jeanne Patenaude produce the milk for the
cheese from 200 cows. Over the past few years five different varieties of
cow's: Holstein, Jersey's, Ayrshire, Normandy
and New Zealand Friesian's have been crossbred to be better grazing animals.
They are milked twice a day, 16 cow's at a time. The milk contains 3.4 to
4.5 percent fat which may not mean a lot to you and me but to a cheese maker
its essential. The cow's feed on 300 acres of pasture planted with grasses
and clovers. The farm is in Dodgeville, Wisconsin in the areas where the
land was untouched by glaciers and is characterized by rolling hills known
as the "uplands". That's the name of their company "Uplands Cheese Inc."
One
thing that makes Pleasant Ridge Reserve special is that the cheese is
made only in the summer and fall during the natural milking cycle of the
cows. According to Mike cheese made from the milk of cows eating fresh
grass as opposed to dry hay adds to the depth of flavor and sweetness
in the cheese. His cheese is raw milk cheese and has a nutty flavor characteristic.
When Pleasant Ridge Reserve is 4 to 6 months old it is a wonderful cheese
with delicious flavors. At 10 months the characteristics of this cheese
intensify. Pleasant Ridge Reserve becomes a sophisticated, incredibly
full flavored masterpiece.
Mike Gingrich sells his
Pleasant Ridge Reserve at the Chicago's Green City Market every third
Sunday of the Month located at C.H. I. C. on Orleans and Chestnut in Chicago.
Uplands Cheese Inc
4540 County Rd. ZZ
Dodgeville, WI 53533
phone: 866-588-3443
Sarah Stegner is the Chef of The
Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Chicago (a Four Seasons Hotel)
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