Smoking at New Skete is OK (under certain circumstances!)

By Brother Luke

     In today’s marketplace, one of the most ubiquitous signs is the one that says: NO SMOKING. What a dramatic change from 50 years ago, when smoking was chic and basically part of the landscape of society. Here at New Skete, no smoking applies, too, except for one building where smoking is definitely OK. That building is our new smoke house, where we continue to smoke cheese for several clients.

     Our new Dog Training facility has replaced the oldest building in our monastic complex, a building that served as home for a variety of activities over the years. Originally it was a barn for our farm animals and workshops for our liturgical arts and crafts; then dog training, our guest house, and gift shop plus our New Skete Farms, which included processing our various food products and running our mail order business. Now the monks’ gift shop has been relocated to our residence, the guesthouse is down in Emmaus House, and dog training, of course, is in its shining new facility. New Skete Farms as such has disappeared, but one element remains: smoking cheese. We have several small clients for whom we smoke cheese, but by far the most significant client is Shelburne Farms in upstate Vermont. We have smoked their cheddar cheese for some 30 years, and we are honored that they continue to value our work. Over the years they have entered their smoked cheese in competitions and won prizes. They did this again a couple of months ago. Rory Stamp of Shelburne Farms describes the competition and the outcome.

Hi Brother Luke,

My name is Rory Stamp and I took over for Ellen Fox as the Cheese Sales Manager here at Shelburne Farms. I wanted to thank you for doing such a fantastic job with our cheese and to provide you with some additional information on the competition and award.

This year the annual American Cheese Society Annual Conference and Championship was held in Providence, Rhode Island, from July 29th to August 1st. In addition to participating in seminars and forums with fellow cheese makers, retailers, and other cheese professionals, we entered several of our cheddars in competition. This year, there were over 1,779 cheeses entered from 267 producers from North and South America, spanning over one hundred categories. Our Farmhouse Smoked Cheddar was entered in the "Smoked Cheddar - All Milks" category, which contains not only traditionally smoked cheddars but also cheeses flavored with smoke extracts. This year, we selected a particularly delicious batch of our 6 month cheddar to send to you, which had a supple, elastic texture and a finish redolent of caramelized onions and browned butter. This base provided an excellent vehicle for your expert smoking and earned us a third place ribbon for the category.

Thank you for all of your help and we are excited to start smoking again with you in the fall. I'm not certain how long we have been working together, but Shelburne Farms has been making cheddar since 1980. I look forward to working with you and hope that I can schedule a visit sometime in the fall.

Best,


Rory Stamp


If you are interested in learning more about Shelburne Farms or trying some of their cheeses, visit their web site at: shelburnefarms.org

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