Wisconsin Foodie

– Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie .

[gentle music] Obviously, I love a farmers market, and the Eau Claire market is absolutely popping with the vegetables of late spring, early summer.

But today, I came to the Eau Claire Farmers Market to meet one specific vendor, Inga, from Around the Farm Table , but the person I know as the cheesemaker from St. Isidore's Mead.

- We're just outside of Osseo, Wisconsin, on my 30-acre dairy farm.

So I make a farmstead cheese, which means that we do everything here on the farm, from grazing cows, milking cows, and actually making the cheese right here.

– Luke: Hey, Inga!

- Hey, I'm so glad you made it to the farm.

I'm so excited to milk cows with you.

[both laughing] - Luke: Me too!

- There's only a few people that have, you're really the only other person that's ever milked cows here or made cheese here, besides my family.

– Luke: Really?

– Inga: Yeah, so that's really fun.

- I really wanted to be able to create a showpiece for St. Isidore's cheese.

– Inga: Mm-hmm.

– Luke: And the way that I thought I could do that is to hit the farmers market and put together a really, really beautiful vegetarian pasta.

– Inga: This is really good.

– Luke: Thank you.

- I mean like, you shouldn't be surprised, but... - I am.

– Inga: This is really good.

[gentle music] - Luke: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: sun, soil, rain, and grass.

And grass and grass.

- Yee-haw!

– Organic Valley Grassmilk: Organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is the largest local hunger relief organization in the state.

With your help, we ensure your neighbors in need don't have to worry where their next meal may come from.

Learn more at feedingamericawi.org.

- Additional support from the following underwriters.

[gentle music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music] - Luke: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling] We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[glasses clink] We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie .

[whimsical music] - One of the things that I love about farmers markets, it's like being a kid in a candy store.

As a chef, I have to walk into these places with a super clear mindset.

This is the dish that I want to create, and these are the ingredients that I want to pick up.

The problem for me, because I have a very short attention span, is that I wanna buy all the ingredients and make all the dishes at once, so I'm doing my best to keep my focus here as we're walking around the Eau Claire Farmers Market.

Can I pick up one of the bunches of onions?

– Vendor: Yeah.

- Oh, man, these are beautiful, yeah.

Boo ya.

[laughs] [whimsical music] Obviously, I love a farmers market, and the Eau Claire market is absolutely popping with the vegetables of late spring, early summer.

You've got the smells of the food vendors.

You've got the sounds of musicians, and of course, the beautiful people of Wisconsin.

But today, I came to the Eau Claire Farmers Market to meet one specific vendor.

The person you know as Inga from Around the Farm Table , but the person I know as the cheesemaker from St. Isidore's Mead.

Let's go meet her.

Hey, Inga.

- Luke, it's so nice to finally see you in person.

- I know, right?

- I feel like it's been years.

– Luke: It kinda has.

I'm floored; this Eau Claire market is gorgeous.

– Inga: Isn't it fantastic?

It's the diversity here and everything is just so exciting.

- And you've got, it's set up really well, like the musicians, the farmers, the food vendors, it feels so comfortable and a place you just want to spend an entire morning.

But the reason actually that I'm here today is I want to go a little bit behind the scenes.

St. Isidore's Dairy, it's been a minute since we've kind of crossed paths.

– Inga: Yes.

- Probably about seven or eight years.

- Yeah, well, you were the first restaurant that actually purchased our cheese, and it gave me such a huge confidence boost, knowing that someone of your caliber was interested in our farmstead cheese.

[Luke laughing] - I'm actually super excited to see where the cheese has progressed in the last seven or eight years.

Do you think you'd let us take a look behind the curtain?

- I would love to have you out to the farm.

I want to introduce you to the cows so you can see the pasture where we make cheese and just have a lovely afternoon.

- That's awesome, because I bought all these sweet vegetables, so I've got dinner covered.

So I'll see you in a little bit.

- Absolutely.

- Great, thanks, Inga.

[whimsical music] - Inga: We're just outside of Osseo, Wisconsin, on my 30-acre dairy farm.

Our farm is named St. Isidore's Dairy.

We named the farm after the patron saint of farmers and gardeners, St. Isidore, but mainly, I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie and everything British, and I thought it sounded like a little farm in one of her books.

What I do here is I graze my cows, I milk them here, and I make cheese.

So I make a farmstead cheese, which means that we do everything here on the farm, from grazing cows, milking cows, and actually making the cheese right here.

The cheese is a great way for us to share our farm with other people.

And when you're eating it, you're tasting those flavors.

The terroir of our farm.

We have six Jersey cows here on the farm.

Jersey cows are known to be the most sustainable dairy cow that you can have.

I love their personalities.

Each of them has a name.

We do rotational grazing here on the farm, which means that we move our cows to fresh pasture every 12 hours.

That way, the cows can harvest their own feed, they can spread their own manure, and they're getting a rich, diverse diet of native grasses and beautiful clovers.

[whimsical music] - Luke: Hey, Inga.

- Hey, I'm so glad you made it to the farm.

I'm so excited to milk cows with you.

- Me too.

[both laughing] - So this is Toby.

- Hi, Toby, good morning.

- And so what you're gonna do is you're gonna start with, I have clean towels over here, grab two towels, get one wet into our wash bucket there.

- Okay.

- So now you're gonna come down here and you're gonna wash with a wet rag.

You're gonna wash her teats.

- Okay.

Oh, hi, sister, how are you?

Okay.

- And then the next process is, we call it stripping the cow.

- Okay.

- So what we're doing is we're just, come down here, it's like hand milking, like a little bit.

- Yep.

- What you do is, you just kind of have a finger and a thumb, and you can just strip her out.

So, and when we do that process, it's always kinda funny, it's hard for a lot of people.

[laughs] - Oh, a little bit, sorry sister, oh, yeah!

- So, and the reason why we do this is just, we want to make sure the milk looks good coming out.

It's important with the cows that they're letting their milk down.

They're feeling comfortable when you're milking them.

We milk in a bucket milking system.

So this is very state-of-the-art for like, 1950.

[Luke laughs] We want to keep the integrity of our milk from the cow into the cheese vat, so if we had a traditional pipeline, that milk's being pumped constantly, and if the pipeline's cold, the fats in the milk will actually stick to that stainless steel.

So we're losing fat on the way to the cheese vat.

- So, like the Jersey is going back to like the milk or the butterfat count in the milk.

That's why you want Jerseys when you're in a cheesemaking operation like you are, correct?

- Yes, they're great for butterfat.

They're also the most sustainable breed of cows.

- Okay.

- For milk cows.

They're smaller animals.

They use less water.

They're better on grass.

Eat less food, produce less manure.

So they're actually the most sustainable dairy cow you can have on your farm.

And now you can dump this bucket.

– Luke: Okay.

– Inga: And then we can just go into the milk house.

– Luke: Okay, oh, that's not bad.

[gentle music] Okay.

- So right after we milk those cows, we want to get that milk chilled down.

– Luke: Sure.

I'm gonna pop this thing off.

– Inga: You can set that aside.

– Luke: That's about as fresh as it gets, right?

– Inga: Yeah.

- All right, and just in?

- Yep, and we have a filter in there.

– Luke: Oh, man, that is so, it's yellow, all that beta carotene in there.

It's a really gorgeous.

– Inga: It's neat to see the milk change season to season.

- I bet, and that's kind of one of the high points of having a farmstead dairy like this.

I mean, you really get intimate with that product.

– Inga: Right.

A lot of our cheeses in Wisconsin are made with milk from several different farms.

– Luke: Yes.

– Inga: So there's a co-mingling happening where when it's one farm, we can see those differences right away.

– Luke: Sure.

This is real work.

[gentle music] - So this is where we age our cheeses.

Every other day, I come in here, I turn the cheese.

So, and by doing that, I want to turn the cheese so that the moisture of the cheese can settle all throughout the cheese.

If I just left it on one side, the moisture would settle at the bottom and then it wouldn't be a nice cheese.

So we have all different ages of cheese in here.

One thing we do with our cheeses, we always want to mark the lot number, the date, the pasture, or the hay that the cows were eating, and then also the cheesemaker, so that we can always have that to reference back.

And I think it's nice for the cheesemonger to see that or the customer to see that, to know that that's part of what we care about.

And you'll see the cheeses that were just made this week are very beautiful and very bright in color, and then we're having this different micro flora forming on these and creating these molds.

This mold is very specific to this aging room, where it would be different, even if it was on the next farm over, they would have different micro floras and things in the air in their aging room.

So now you being in here, you're gonna be a part of this aging process for hopefully generations.

[both laughing] So I hope you got a nice shower this morning.

- Yeah, exactly, no pressure there.

[Inga laughing] - Each wheel of our cheese has been cared for like a little baby, you know, by me and my husband, my mom and dad will come out and help with this part too, and it's just like, there's only a few people that have... You're really the only other person that's ever milked cows here or made cheese here.

Besides my family.

- Really?

- Yeah, so that's really fun.

- That's awesome.

- I'm gonna call you this weekend so you can come help.

[Luke laughing] - Luke: That's, I mean, I gotta say, like what an honor.

[whimsical music] - All righty.

So first, I'm gonna take the bandage off.

Let's see.

- Okay, how does that work?

Do you want a knife?

- I just pull it.

It's kinda fun.

It's just y'know, we're... Yeah, cut me a little piece so I can rip it.

- Sure.

Oh man, now we're into arts and crafts.

[Inga laughing] This is amazing.

- And then we'll just see how it looks.

And this is just, it looks really colorful and crazy, right, but that's just part of the flavors.

- Yeah.

- Let's see, there's two on here.

- Okay, what do we know about this cheese, Inga?

- So this cheese is from last June, and like I said, we always mark the date, the pasture, so this was made on June 22nd.

- Okay.

- And the cows were grazing in a pasture that I call Devonshire.

- Mm-hmm.

- And they were eating, there's lots of beautiful clovers, a lot of purple clovers in there.

And my dad and I made this.

So I'm gonna go ahead and just try to cut as straight down as I can.

- Cool.

- It's just, feels like buttery when you cut into it.

I love it.

- Oh, my gosh.

- See that?

- Can I touch it?

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Inga, it smells so delicious.

I have to try it, is that cool?

- Yes.

I'm gonna get you a little piece here and then I'll let you take that off.

- Thank you.

All right, so I'm gonna try this from the inside out; is that how you recommend?

- Yes, yes.

Because the flavors will change from the middle of the cheese to the rind.

- Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

On the first taste of St. Isidore's, it continues to linger, that warm, rich, buttery-ness.

It tastes like summer, and it helps that it's a summer day here today, but this on my palate has all those notes of sunshine and brightness.

And I'm taken back to being in the barn with the cows.

And as I eat in on the rind, it becomes sharper, and it's beautiful.

I can't wait to cook with this.

- Well, I'm gonna cut some up for you right now.

- Great.

While you do that, I'm gonna jump outside and start the process for dinner, but I really appreciate you taking the time to walk me through this; this is amazing.

- I appreciate the help today.

- Oh my gosh, you're a talented human.

Mmm.

[whimsical music] It is a beautiful summer day, and we are so lucky to be here in your summer kitchen; thank you for having us.

- Thanks for coming.

- So with this menu, or this dinner tonight, I really wanted to be able to create a showpiece for St. Isidore's cheese.

- Mm-hmm.

- And the way that I thought I could do that and incorporating all the locality and seasonality of this place is to hit the farmers market and put together a really, really beautiful vegetarian pasta.

- I think that sounds fantastic.

You know, when you cook with great ingredients, you can cook with seasonal great ingredients, and it's always gonna turn out fantastic.

- I have two flours here, and these flours are from Meadowlark Organics.

I'm gonna ask if you can run it through the sifter on your board.

In this particular recipe, I've taken two flour types.

One is an all-purpose flour.

So I have 500 grams of that all-purpose flour and 200 grams of the rye flour.

So we're gonna have a little bit of texture with this pasta, and my rule of thumb, for every 100 grams of flour, we incorporate one egg.

- Okay.

- So with 700 grams of flour, we are going to need exactly seven of your beautiful, farm fresh eggs.

- And you use the whole egg, not just the egg yolk?

- I'm gonna use the whole egg.

So if I can have you make the well in the middle.

If you wanna start cracking those eggs into the middle.

- Okay.

- What I'm going to do, actually, is I'm going to take and cut out the center of this tomato to separate the really, really wet parts from the parts that are going to stand up to a little bit more heat.

All right, so right now, we see this well here, what I'm gonna have you do, let's start to pop those yolks a little bit with the tongs or the tweezers.

And while you do that, I'd like it if you started spinning in a counterclockwise direction, and as you're doing that, you're starting to slowly pull that flour in.

- Okay.

- It's gonna give that dough a little bit of structure.

- Right.

- And we're gonna be able to work it just a little bit better.

I'm gonna sprinkle some salt on there.

[knife chops] All right, sister.

Now what I'm gonna have you do, is you just gotta, you gotta go for broke, go ham here.

- With my hands.

- Get your hands in there.

These little babies are amazing.

These are my favorite vegetable at the market today.

These are mustard greens, and I love these things for a myriad of reasons, but mainly, I like being able to chop off the top greens and saut 'em down.

- Are they spicy?

- A little bit.

They give you that kinda horseradish kick.

- Okay.

- Look at these.

I was so stoked when I picked these up at the market, but we're gonna use 'em in a couple different ways today, Inga.

I'm gonna take and flip them first, and I'm gonna get a little bit off the ends here because that's gonna be the first thing that hits my saut pan.

- Okay, and you're gonna use the greens as well?

- I'm gonna use the greens as well.

- Yeah, use the whole plant.

That's what I always say.

- Yeah, seriously.

So now that we have this.

- Do I need more flour to make it a little more... - We're gonna dust this up with a little bit more flour.

So you're rolling it now, you can see the consistency of this coming together.

How does it feel?

- Right, it feels good.

It feels heartier than a lot of pastas that I've made before.

- Yeah.

- Which is nice.

- Right, and what we're gonna want to do here is, I'm gonna have you work that, like really get into that thing, sister.

So what I want to do is, I want to start sauting a little bit of my tomato here, some of my onions, and then we'll work those asparagus tips in, how's that sound?

- Fantastic.

[food sizzling] - Oh, yeah.

So next, I'm gonna throw in a couple of these onions, and I actually want to put a super special gift in here.

In this bowl right here, these are serrano chilies that were dried by my friend, Jen Faulk.

Jen is a member of the Oneida Tribal Nation, and she gave these to me as a parting gift from one of the shoots we did last year.

And I am so thrilled to be able to put a little piece of this into this set, because it's gonna add just a little bit of spice.

It's gonna add a little bit of dimension to this, but it also is putting another beautiful food memory... - Right.

- ...right in the pan.

At this juncture, how does this feel?

- This is feeling really... - Ooh, look at that.

- How would you describe it?

Like, is it the glutens that are working together?

- Yes.

One of the ways that I test the pasta dough is if, can I stretch it like this?

And do I tear it when I do it?

Here, not so much.

We're starting to really work those glutens.

But the other thing is, when I put my finger on it, does it bounce back a little bit?

- Oh, nice.

Wow, that's amazing.

- Right, you see that?

- So, and if it didn't, you'd keep working.

- We'd keep working it.

We're gonna set that there.

And we're gonna let that chill out for just a second.

I can really smell this starting to come together.

And those tomatoes are really starting to work down.

I got a little shot of that chili flake there, even as I breathe it in, which is great.

That tells me that that is activated and working.

And what we're gonna do is just splash it with a little bit of this Kava.

So as this kind of sauts down, and I'm gonna chill this out just a little bit.

How about we roll out the pasta dough?

- Perfect.

- We actually pre-made a little bit of pasta dough, too, just because the trick with pasta, to making really good, really satisfying pasta at home, is being able to let it rest.

- Right.

- By letting it rest, we let that flour hydrate and by letting it hydrate, it develops even more gluten.

So with this, I'm gonna take this pasta dough here and we're gonna cut it into thirds.

So we are going to do basically one, two, three.

We're gonna run each sheet through three times.

[gentle music] Man, this is so big and beautiful, and really, it's not that hard.

- Making pasta homemade is, it's a game changer.

- Totally.

- I don't think you go back to store-bought pasta, dried pasta after... - Not easily.

- ...after learning this skill.

- I'm gonna remove this and we're gonna go straight into the spaghetti spot here, okay, so we're gonna feed this through, just like this.

And you can see right here, like this beautiful little nest.

This is exactly what I want to do.

Now, I'm gonna actually take a little bit more flour.

I'm gonna dust it, just a little bit.

[gentle music] I can hear that water boiling.

We're gonna take, and we're gonna dunk this in here, okay?

It's only gonna take like three or four minutes.

- And you're gonna just wait for it to come up to the top, right?

- Yep, just come up to the top.

Let's get those greens in there.

Oh, yeah.

Now these will cook down.

They'll absolutely shrink down in the pan.

I'm gonna pot this pasta.

How do you feel about butter?

- This is where I get my girlish figure from.

[Luke laughing] All the butter I eat.

- I got a body by butter.

[Inga laughing] Me too.

A couple nice, healthy dabs in there, mmm.

I'm gonna take and toss this together.

Last but not least, Ms. Inga, we're gonna do two eggs.

[eggs sizzling] Oh man, look at that yolk.

Those are some happy ladies.

What we want with this is these eggs are actually gonna work as our sauce.

So when we pop that yolk over the top of our bowl of pasta, it's gonna ooze into that thing.

[singing] We've got pasta with my friend, Inga and when... - This looks like a very chef-y dish, but it looks like something that everyone can make.

- Yeah, yeah, it's like Ratatouille , right?

- Right.

- Like, anyone can be a chef.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- That looks beautiful.

- Right?

I'm gonna put that there.

Look at this thing, those crispy edges.

Ooh, don't you go away.

Now.

All of this has been done to just set the stage for the cheese.

- Oh, I forgot all about the cheese.

- You forgot about the cheese?

How could you forget about the cheese?

The cheese stands alone.

[Inga laughing] So I'm gonna ask you with the micro plane over there, what I want this to look like is a snow-capped mountain.

- Okay, and see how the color of the cheese matches up with the color of the yolks?

- Right?

- It's because the chickens and the cows are eating the same grass-fed diet, which I always love.

I love to tell kids about this.

- Yeah!

- Because a lot of us think that cheese is supposed to be a really bright, kind of fake color, but it's because of the milk, if it's good quality milk.

[gentle music] - We have here a homemade pasta with Meadowlark Organics flour.

We have mustard greens, tomatoes, asparagus, onions from your local farmer's market.

We have put that in a saut pan with Driftless Organics sunflower oil.

We have garnished this with local herbs, and then we've put two of your house eggs on top of it with St. Isidore's cheese.

Does it get any more local, seasonal, and fresh than this?

- This is so exciting, having you make dinner for me.

- Oh man, this is so exciting to be here.

Thank you for having me into the summer kitchen.

And I am quivering with anticipation to give this a taste.

This is gonna be out of this world.

All right, you ready, moment of truth?

- Yes.

- Mm-mmm.

- Do you mix the yolk around?

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's not a party until you mix that yolk around.

That first bite, you get like the lushness of those greens, right, the tomatoes add a lot of body.

The pasta itself has a certain umami flavor that you get with that rye, but the chili flake starts to come up a little bit with that acidity and the thing that kisses it at the pinnacle of flavor is that cheddar.

It's right there to catch it.

So just as soon as you think, "Wow, this is a really unusual bite, my mouth is moving in a lot of different directions," that cheddar comes in and takes it over and swirls, and then it lets you finish with a clean palate, which is awesome.

- This is really good.

- Thank you.

- I mean like, you shouldn't be surprised.

- I am!

- This is really good.

- Inga, thank you so much for having me out on the farm.

It's truly been an honor to kinda shadow you today and see into your life, to get to know you a little bit better, to see how the cheese is made, to be in the barn with you and the girls, to be out here in the summer kitchen putting this together.

I really, really appreciate it, and here's to you.

- I appreciate you coming out, and I hope that you'll join us one day in our winter kitchen as well.

- I love it, cheers.

[gentle music] [imitating Montell Jordan] Mm, this is how we do it Shooting at a farmers market Here it is, I got it.

Do I have anything in my teeth?

Am I good?

- P.A.

: Yeah.

– Luke: I'm good?

All right, great.

So let's keep walking around and find some ingredients that we can saut together to make something completely bombastic.

How'd you like that word?

Bombastic.

I got it out so clean.

[laughing] Oh my God, look at the corgi.

Look at the corgi, get the corgi on camera.

I love the corgi, come on.

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie , and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: sun, soil, rain, and grass.

And grass, and grass.

- Yee-haw!

– Organic Valley Grassmilk: Organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is the largest local hunger relief organization in the state.

With your help, we ensure your neighbors in need don't have to worry where their next meal may come from.

Learn more at feedingamericawi.org.

- Additional support from the following underwriters.

[gentle music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.