Search results for "illinois"


Huckleberry Blue

Huckleberry Blue

Series: Cheese Portraits

Description: Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery from illinois makes this stunning blue; a very seasonal, raw goat milk blue cheese made with either late (October-December) or early (March-April) lactation milk, because it's the richest milk and makes the creamiest blue cheese. Highlighting the terroir of Central illinois it's made on an organic and sustainable farmland they rescued from previous cash crops. The cheese has a natural rind is sometimes covered with sycamore leaves from our farm that are macerated with Rhine Hall Distillery Apple Brandy. They were kind enough to send me just more than a 3rd of a wheel and I loved how it was cut a bit lopsided and full of personality. They also sent me one of the very last available wedges wrapped in the sycamore leaves! It was a true pleasure to both paint and eat this subject!

Origin: USA, illinois

Tags: blue, sheep, goat, blue cheese, midwest

Price: sold

Cave Aged Chandoka

Cave Aged Chandoka

Series: Cheese Portraits

Description: Winner of the "Best of Show" tied 2nd at the American Cheese Society's annual conference in 2015, this is a midwestern collaboration that made magic (in my opinion). Wisconsin's LaClare Farms produced this mix of cow and goat milk cheddar. The wheels arrived at the Standard Market in illinois where they were larded and bound in cloth to be aged around ten months. The flavor of this cheddar is incredible. It's grassy and mild and has just the right amount of cave aroma that makes your senses enjoy the history of its aging process; it feels like you are eating cheese royalty as a result. The texture is as perfect as I've ever found in a cheddar so it doesn't surprise me that it is ranked 2nd in North America, in a competitive pool of 1,779 cheese.

Origin: USA, Wisconsin & illinois

Tags: ACS, Best of show, ACS2015, 2015 , cow, goat, ACSBOS , ACS best in show 2015

Price: sold

Chandoka Wedges

Chandoka Wedges

Series: Cheese Portraits

Description: Having fell in love with this incredible cheese the first time I painted this award winning cheddar, I knew I had to revisit it. I needed to explore in a larger painting with the change of colors and all it's glorious crumbly texture. It turned out to be quite a long painting day though, because my model became more beautiful and its colors more pronounced as I worked. In fact, this one took over 12 hours! I suppose I made my job a lot bigger by the complex set up. The wedge became two when I broke it in half, while deciding on the staging of this composition. The crumbled pieces lay like evidence of an explosion. Even after 12 hours under my lamp, these small bits tasted just as delicious. This image of the painting here doesn't really pick up the range of colors or all the subtle shifts that I focused on. I will likely have to rephotograph it once it's dry. This is highest ranked cheddar in North America for 2015, having won the American Cheese Society's "Best in Show, 2nd place" award, with over 1,700 competing cheeses. See my other painting for more information.

Origin: USA, Wisconsin & illinois

Tags: ACS, Best of show, ACS2015, 2015 , cow, goat

Price: sold