Cheese at the Reading Terminal Market

Fair Food always has an enticing display of artisinal cheeses

With the opening earlier this year of Valley Shepherd Creamery it's easy to forget other vendors also offer fine examples of this basic foodstuff at the Reading Terminal Market.

Longtime vendors Ed Sciamanna of Salumeria and Jack Morgan of Downtown Cheese are the go-to stalls when your tastebuds crave a fine brie, traditional geitost, genuine Swiss emmentaler or many of the world's other great cheeses. Fair Food concentrates on cheeses made within a half-day's drive of Philadelphia which you would otherwise have to obtain by visiting the farm or seeking out at one of the city farmers' markets. (Before Valley Shepherd opened its RTM shop Fair Food frequently carried one or two of that North Jersey producers varieties.)

Sometimes, however, it's not the fancy, $26 a pound cheese you crave, but that flavored spread for crackers, or just some sliced domestic Swiss for your sandwich. If that's the case, head over to either Hatville Deli or Riehl Deli (L. Halteman Family), two Pennsylvania Dutch vendors. The pimento spread at Riehl's makes a fine, easy and cheap accompaniment to a bottle of beer while watching the game.

A more limited but specialized selection can be found at Wursthaus Schmitz, with a few German dairy products, like Quark.

Another spot for specialized ethnic cheeses is 12th Street Cantina, with a strong inventory of essential Mexican cheeses if you plan on making queso fundida or other South of the Border dinners.

And Hershel's East Side Deli will cut you a hunk of creamy cheese to bring home to accompany their smoked fish.

Creamery, Soul Fooder To Open This Coming Week

Staff at Valley Shepherd Creamery fits in some training Saturday before stall's opening

Eran Wajswol and Jamie Png

KeVen Parker's Soul Food Café will be serving up food starting Monday in the former Delilah's space at the Reading Terminal Market. Two days later Valley Shepherd Creamery plans to begin selling cheese, cheese sandwiches and accompaniments.

Parker, proprietor of Miss Tootsie's on South Street (he can't use that name at the RTM because Marion Iovine D'Ambrosio already has a claim on Tootsie's for her salad bar), built the stall in record time. There's still more work to be done, but he told RTM General Manager Paul Steinke he'd be open Monday. That should give him enough time to work out at least some of the kinks before the auto show crowds descend next weekend.

Both Parker and Valley Shepherd owner Eran Wajswol received their certifications this past week from the city health department.

Valley Shepherd won't begin cheese-making operations at the stall for another week or so, according to Wajswol's on-site cheese-maker, Jamie Png. But the full range of cheeses made at the creamery in Long Valley, N.J., will be available, along with paninis. Helter Skelter, a raclette-like cheese seen at the bottom right of the photo of Wajswol and Png, will serve as the base for three of the sandwiches.

Acorn-fed Ham Back at Downtown Cheese

Downtown Cheese at the Reading Terminal has Jámon Ibérico de Bellota back in stock at a necessarily pricey $159/pound. I treated myself to an ounce for my birthday last January and the only worthwhile description of its taste I can offer is this:

Ham butter.

The free-roaming pigs rely on fallen acorns for their diet.

In addition to a broad and deep selection of cheeses, Downtown offers some tasty cold cuts, primarily Italian style. Some are imported, but some are locally made, like the soppressata from  Claudio's, which also supplies the RTM stall with fresh mozzarella and riccota.

More Random Notes on Reading Terminal Market Celebration

It's time to play catch-up with the remaining events at last week's Avenue D Renovation Celebration at the Reading Terminal Market.

Eran Wajswol

Rick Nichols, who planned much of the week's programs along with market officials was quite proud of the title he gave to last Thursday's noontime talk by Eran Wajswol of Valley Shepherd Creamery:

What a Friend We Have in Cheeses

Wajswol, a late-comer to commercial cheese-making after a career as an engineer for nuclear power plant cooling systems, will be joining the list of market vendors this fall when he opens up his shop along Avenue D, where he'll not only sell and serve cheese (serving in the form of cheese paninis), but make it, too. He'll use cow milk from regional dairies (Delaware Valley College's and University of Pennsylvania's veterinary school are likely, but he's got others under consideration) to produce at least one cheese at the terminal, in full view of customers. "Reading Cheddar" will be his first cheese, but you won't be able to buy it for at least eight to twelve months after it's made: that's how long it will take to age in the market's basement where he'll have his aging room as well as milk storage tank. He's also considering making a Stilton-like cheese, and perhaps a fresh mozzarella.

Terrence Feury works salmon as Rick Nichols comments

Ellen Yin of Fork was joined by her long-time, but soon-to-be-gone chef, Terrence Feury, for a fish demonstration Friday at noon.

It's unfortunate that in the demonstrate Feury used a fish that's hard for the retail customer to come by: a salmon trout from Loch Duart in Scotland. This farm-raised fish is of superb quality, much better than the typical farm-raised Atlantic salmon. But it's impossible to find in fish stores, and exceedingly pricey even at the wholesale level. Even domestically raised salmon-trout, also known as steelhead, can be difficult (but not impossible) to find in retail stores in the Philadelphia area.

That said, Feury made a tasty dish that could easily be replicated, if not for the fish, at home. (I'd recommend doing it with Alaska king or sockeye salmon, now in season.) Cut a skinned filet into small serving pieces, about 2 ounces and lightly sprinkle with a mix of equal amounts of kosher salt and sugar, then let sit for about 20 minutes. The pieces then get very lightly sautéed in a lightly oiled pan (just warmed through, not cooked, hence the need for the best possible fish), then served with a lemon-oil emulsion (equal parts juice and olive oil, emulsified in the blender). He accompanied the fish with a melange of tiny cubes of cucumber, sun-dried tomato, in a sauce made with verjus and olive oil.

Yin and Feury's presentation was well attended, and among those watching was a Philadelphia restaurant luminary from the past: Kathleen Mulhern. She was another contributor to the city's restaurant renaissance in the 1970s with The Garden, which lasted from 1973 until early in the new millenium.

Jeremy Nolan makes sausage

Sausage, sauerkraut and beer was the focus of Doug Hager, proprietor of Brauhaus Schmitz, and his executive chef, Jeremy Nolan, at Friday's 5 p.m. demonstration. This summer they plan to open their retail outpost at the RTM, Wursthaus Schmitz, where they'll sell sausages for cooking at home, German deli meats, and grocery items imported from the old country. Sausages and salad items they don't make in their own kitchen at the South Street restaurant (now being expanded) will come from Rieker's, the emporium of all goods German in Fox Chase.

As Nolan operated the gleaming sausage stuffer, after mixing ground pork with appropriate seasonings to make bratwurst, Hager, born in northern Bavarian to an American father and German mother, poured the beer. And they weren't tiny samples, either! The beer and cooked brats were accompanied by a sauerkraut (based on imported German wine kraut, but doctored up by Nolan with beer, juniper berries and other seasonings), and German potato salad.

Anna Florio (left) and Aliza Green

On Saturday at noon, in the week's final demonstration, Aliza Green, the first chef at White Dog Cafe, consultant to many Philadelphia restaurants, and inveterate cookbook author, demonstrated how to use ingredients found at the market with Anna Florio, proprietor of La Cucina at the Market, the demonstration kitchen where she conducts classes and food-related events.

The centerpiece was handmade pappadelle pasta: she kept on saying how easy it was, but her kneading and rolling obviously required plenty of elbow grease, even if the technique was simple. Although she had semolina for dusting, the primary flour was Daisy, from a mill in Annville, Pennsylvania, which started in 1740. She said the low-protein, extra finely milled flour is ideal for pasta because it easily rolls out and results in soft, tender pasta that readily absorbs sauce or broth. While Green tended to the pasta, Florio worked wonders with zucchini (bought from Iovine's) in the sauté pan. The pasta was served with a simple olive oil sauce enlivened by garlic scapes.

NJ Creamery To Make, Age Cheese at RTM

Although there's some food manufacturing going on today in the Reading Terminal Market, Eran Wajswol will take it in a new direction when his Valley Shepherd Creamery opens later this year.

Wajswol plans on bringing 24,000 pounds of raw milk to the market each week to make about a ton of hard or semi-soft cheese. With that much cheese, it will age both in the market's basement and back in the creamery's caves in Long Valley, in northwestern New Jersey. In addition to making, aging and selling cheese, Valley Shepherd will serve lunchers cheese paninis and offer an olive bar.

"We are designing and gathering equipment now to determine if we can, indeed, do what we want," Wajswol replied to your blogger's email inquiry. "In a few weeks we will know more."

Friday Architects, the Philadelphia planning and architecture firm which created the market's Avenue D renovation plan, will visit the farm and dairy next week to begin its design work on the RTM outlet, which Wajswol describes as "very complex, because there are four elements to the space, each requiring design, equipment and talented folks."

The first element will be sourcing and transporting the milk to the market in three weekly 8,000-pound shipments. It will be unloaded into basement tanks for storage, then pumped back upstairs as needed in the cheesemaking operations behind glass for visitors to watch.

Wajswol decided against making fresh cheeses, like mozzarella or quark, because a pasteurization system would be required. With only 610 square feet for retail sales, panini-making and cheese-making, there's simply no room.

The lunch menu will be based on paninis or, as Wajswol calls them, Maninis. He said they are "being conceived by some infamous food truck people and will be tested and redesigned by local Philadelphia food talent (which we are finding amazing)."

Using milk from sheep, Jersey and Guernsey cows, and goats, Valley Shepherd's cheeses cover a wide range of styles and traditions: fresh, soft-ripened, blue, hard, semi-hard, and washed-rind. You can read a full menu of the cheeses at Valley Shepherd's website. The store also plans to sell a few cheeses from "several family farms we know and love," Wojswol said. 

There will be additional brined products beyond olives on the olive bar, he said, "featuring products from several countries with a strong emphasis on brined products from that most foreign country called Brooklyn."

Brooklyn is no accident, since last year Valley Shepherd opened a retail store in the borough's Park Slope neighborhood after closing a Manhattan outlet.

A limited variety of Valley Shepherd cheeses has been available for the past few years at the Fair Food Farmstand of the Reading Terminal Market. Other than at a few farmers' markets, the Park Slope store, the farm, and a handful of retail outlets in New Jersey and New York City, the only other places you're likely to find its products are cheese plates at upscale restaurants.

Who makes food today at the RTM, besides the restaurants and lunch stalls?

Herschel's East Side Deli takes fresh meat and turns it into brined corned beef and cured pastrami in the basement. And Giunta's produces some of its sausages on site. Otherwise, food production is centered on baked goods and sweets: cookies at Famous Fourth Street and the Pennsylvania General Store, baked goods at Beiler's Bakery and Flying Monkey Bakery, pretzels at Miller's Twist, fudge at Sweet as Fudge Candy Shop, and molded and dipped chocolate items at Chocolates by Mueller.

Cheeses On Parade

The Fair Food Farmstand at the Reading Terminal Market added

a new display case just for cheese last week, much to the

delight of cheesemonger Paul Lawler.

Vendors Crowd Headhouse

More vendors sold their goods at the Headhouse Square Farmers Market today than any other Sunday so far this season. Katy Wich, who manages the market for The Food Trust, said 34 different vendors showed up today, including one new one, PorcSalt, which has been an occasional vendor at the Rittenhouse Saturday market this year.

With produce tables groaning under the weight of apples, squashes, potatoes and other harvest goodies, it's my favorite time of year to wander farmers' markets.

Because the larder's rather well-stocked at home, my purchases were minimal. The only "must" item on my list was apples.

And what a selection! Three Springs, Beechwood and North Star all offered great variety, most priced at $2 to $2.50 a pound -- more than what you'd pay at the supermarket, but all fresh-picked off the tree.

Esopus Spitzenberg apple

My big score was an Espopus Spitzenberg. This apple holds a special place in my heart, but not merely because it tastes so good (definitely on the tart side, but enough sugar to balance it out, plus a crisp, dense flesh). No, it's among my favorites because its named for the creek (Esopus) where I used to swim -- or at least get into the icy cold water -- during family vacations in the northern Catskills, in the Big Indian-Oliveria valley. This apple, great for out-of-hand eating or baking, was available today from North Star. Of all the apples offered by North Star this week, it's the one true antique. It was reputed to be one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite.

Over at Beechwood Orchards, Dave Garrettson offered another American antique, the Northern Spy. Although it can be enjoyed as a dessert apple, i.e., eaten out-of-hand, and is an excellent storage variety, it's highest use is in pies. Since my available kitchen time this week is extremely limited, I reluctantly passed these beauties by.

Instead, I picked up some Macouns, Winesaps and the latter's even tastier offspring, Stayman, all from Beechwood.

Of course, if you're stocking apples for plain eating, you've got to get some cheese as an accompaniment. For that part of the equation I stopped by Sue Miller's Birchrun Hills Farm stall where I picked up her Red Cat. This is a washed-rind cheese, slightly pungent (most washed rind cheeses are stinkier) and creamy.

The main course for tonight's dinner also came from Sue: bockwurst, a traditional German sausage traditionally all-veal or mostly veal with a bit of pork. I'll cook it tonight with sauerkraut braised in unpasteurized apple cider mixed with mustard, maybe throwing in some carraway seeds. Which reminds me, gotta put some beer in the fridge. Although mashed potatoes would be the ideal side, I picked up some rye bread from Ric's.

BAAH! Cheesemaker Plans RTM Outpost
Fresh Cheeses To Be Made On Site

Some of the more than 600 sheep
in Valley Shepherd's flock

Valley Shepherd Creamery is expected to be the first new vendor to occupy space along the Reading Terminal Market's Avenue D.

Earlier this month the RTM and cheesemaker Eran Wajswol signed off on a proposal to occupy about 700 square feet across Avenue D from what will soon be Molly Molloy's gastropub.

The shop will be located along the RTM's back wall, where it will be easiest to pipe in fresh milk from delivery trucks. That's necessary because Wajswol plans to make fresh cheese on premises for market shoppers. At Valley Shepherd's farm store in Long Valley, N.J., his fresh offerings include cream cheeses (no gums or additives) and ricotta.

As its name implies, Valley Shepherd specializes in sheep milk cheeses, although some of its products are cow-sheep mixes.

Although Valley Shepherd plans to make fresh cheese at the RTM, its cave-aged product earned the creamery its stellar reputation. Wajswol went so far as to blast an aging cave into a hillside on his farm. One of his cheeses, a Gouda-like product, spends two years in the cave.

If you haven't had a chance to try Wajswol's cheeses, you're missing one of the best artisinal products available. At least one variety is usually in stock at the Fair Food Farmstand at the RTM, often Shepherd's Basket, a Basque style aged for four to five months. With the exception of the fresh cheeses and yogurts, everything else is made from unpasteurized raw milk. You can get an idea of the offerings at Valley Shepherd Creamery's website.

In addition to the store at the northwest New Jersey creamery. Valley Shepherd operates a small store on Sullivan Street in Manhattan's SoHo district, and soon will be opening another in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. The RTM store will be its third owned and operated retail outlet. In addition to restaurants, like New York City's Le Bernardin, Wajswol sells at various farmers' markets in New York and New Jersey.

If all goes according to plan, you might see Valley Shepherd at the RTM by late spring, according to Paul Steinke, the RTM's general manager.

Local Grower, Local Buyer
Cheese makers rule at Fair Food's annual showcase

Crowds line up for samples

I thought I was still in Wisconsin.

Cheese curds and brats were all that was missing at last night's Local Grower / Local Buyer, an annual event organized by Fair Food to bring together buyers and sellers in center court at the Reading Terminal Market.

I counted eight cheese makers among the couple of dozen farmers and producers showcasing their goods for local restauranteurs and institutional food buyers .

Among them were a few well-established cheese-makers, including Cherry Grove Farm and Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills.

Some of the others, however, while they may be "artisan" in the sense that they are small scale producers using traditional methods, brought competent but undistinguished samples: cheddars, Emmenthal wannabes, goudas, etc. Even the blues at one of these cheese-makers, Farm Fromage, seemed so-so: they offered one designed for folks who say they don't like blues (yes, it was mild) and another for true blue-a-holics (it was sharper, but hardly up there in the pantheon of stinky cheesedom).

And then there were the excellent cheese-makers whose products I would be reluctant to purchase simply on account of price. That would be the case for Doe Run Dairy's tasty Hummingbird. It's a creamy, herbal brie-like cow/sheep mixed milk cheese that can hold its own on any cheese plate. But priced north of $50 a pound at the Fair Food Farmstand, I''ll pass it by. (Cheese maker Kristian Holbrook operates the dairy on the farm owned by Richard Hayne, chairman and co-founder, with former wife Judy Wicks of Urban Outfitters; local foodies know Wicks as the creator the White Dog Cafe and, through its foundation, the Fair Food project.)

Other cheese-makers at the event included Hidden Hills Dairy, Clover Creek Cheese Cellar, Shellbark Hollow Farm, and Your Family Cow.

The predominance of cheese-makers makes one wonder if curdled milk product is the next sun-dried tomato. Are they entering the cheese business because producer milk prices haven't kept pace with the costs of operating a dairy farm? How many of these new producers will be around in four or five years?