Wisconsin – Day 1

 
It was like a kid getting ready to go to Disneyland; The Lady hasn’t slept for the last three nights, she was so excited… The day started early; she was up at 2am and at the airport by 430am for her flight to Chicago and on to Green Bay, home of the cheeseheads.
I watched her board the plane and then I put my master plan into action. She looked so surprised when she walked in the door at her plush hotel room in Green Bay…what the heck did she expect…I am an alien from another galaxy far, far away…getting to Wisconsin was a piece of cake…
This evening, the festivities began with a wine, beer (beer and cheese pairing is the “next big thing” – heck I’ve been pairing them since I started this blog…guess I started the trend…) and cheese tasting reception for the Cheese Stewards (there are a total of sixteen from across the country) with welcoming remarks by Tim Smith, the corporate cheese guru for the company and members of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. The array of cheeses offered were quite impressive – all from Wisconsin…imagine that. The primary host was Sartori Foods.

The “theme” of the evening centered around Great American Artisan Cheeses and how the quality of the cheeses made in the US – not only Wisconsin – are now giving the snobby European Cheesemakers a run for their money. The Lady’s favorite tasting was Sartori Reserve – Raspberry Bella Vitano. A Parmesan tasting cheese with a Cheddar texture that was soaked in New Glarus Raspberry Tart Ale. She promised to bring me some tomorrow so that I can give it its propers…she drew the line on me attending the reception and the dinner afterward. Evidently she signed some waiver that stated feline foodies were not allowed…I’d really like to see that waiver; but alas, she claimed she wasn’t given a copy…I know I believe her…
Each Cheese Steward received a “goodie bag”; nice enough to make them feel special; but not nice enough to catch the attention of those rat ass bastards aka the IRS…again, please note, that The Lady calls most (okay, all) government officials RABs…this feline would never consider such name-calling…
After the reception, a buffet dinner was served and every salad and entree had incorporated cheese into the dish…now there’s a surprise…The Lady sat with Charlotte, the other Cheese Steward from their division; two Stewards from Seattle who work for another division of the company; a Steward from Albuquerque; another from Salt Lake and the West Coast Sales Rep for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. Pictures were taken of a few of the attendees and you can view them at Picasa.
It was an early night; The Lady is already in bed playing with her Sleep Select Bed while I toil away at the computer…but we do make a good team, don’tcha think???
“We” leave early tomorrow to tour Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese Facility, a negative carbon, green facility. They actually take the cow manure from their 600 Holstein herd; convert it into methane gas to run their generators to make the power to run their farm AND provide electricity to more than three hundreds homes in the surrounding area…now that’s taking sh*t and literally turning it into shinola…
The Lady will take lots of pictures tomorrow and I will relate her tales from the cheesemines…

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