Seattle Cheese Festival May 14-15th

Anyone who knows me knows I love a farmer's market. Whatever the weather or the hour, I'm blissfully happy wandering through the stalls of fresh produce, eggs, breads and cheese, sampling flavors and taking in the local scenery. Farmer's markets are a great place to meet your local artisan cheesemakers, too.  Still, even in my wildest dreams I never thought I would see (at least here in the Northwest) a farmer's market-style event devoted entirely to cheese (gasp)- but that day is, in fact, coming! On the weekend of May 14-15th, Seattle's  Pike Place Market will be transformed into the venue for the Seattle Cheese Festival.

The festival is sponsored by DeLaurenti Specialty Foods, home of great cheeses, wines and Italian specialty groceries. On the genesis of the festival, Pat McCarthy, DeLaurenti's owner, says  "I love cheese. I believe the timing is right for such an event. More people should know about the smaller cheese producers, especially those in the Northwest. With that in mind, I started considering such an event in 2003 and planning began in June 2004." After what must have been an incredible amount of time and effort devoted to planning such an ambitious gathering, this great event is now only a few weeks away.

The Seattle Cheese Festival will surely be quite the cheese party, with over 30 cheesemakers from around the world in attendance - US cheesemakers from Oregon, Washington, California and Wisconsin, and overseas cheesemakers from the UK, Ireland and France, along with several purveyors of gourmet food products. (Imagine the samples!) For those in the trade (or the  fanatic like me), Saturday seminars feature topics such as pairing cheese with wine, raw milk vs. pasteurized milk cheeses and cheese marketing. For kids, there will be a cheese maze and scavenger hunt sponsored by the folks at Beecher's Handmade Cheese.

Of course, I will be attending this (hopefully annual) event and will bring back lots of pictures and experiences to share.  For now, you can savor this article from this Sunday's Seattle Times, which features an interview with Pat McCarthy.