I'm full steam ahead planning and editing great content for culture 2012, but before I do that, I often look back at what we've already done in past issues. Doing this recently, I was reminded that one of the best parts of my job is interviewing luminaries in our cheese world to capture, in their own words, reflections on success and failure, and the ever-changing cheese world, for our Voicings feature in every issue of culture. In case you missed them, here's some of my favorite comments from the cheese intelligentsia:

“Dairy used to be an industry that was run by Washington and big companies. It is now run by the consumer. [The issue of] rBGH is a good example; consumers said ‘I want rBGH-free milk’ and it happened. Washington didn’t know what hit them.”
-Dan Carter, cheese marketer and ACS Lifetime Achievement Award winner (Spring 2010 issue of culture)

“Every morning I’d milk about 50 goats by hand, get the girls off to school, then go make cheese. I used to put a milk can in a trash can filled with water and frozen gel packs, and every time I finished milking a goat I would swish the can to cool the milk . . . So many things we were able to do then because we were cute, you couldn’t do now.”
-Mary Keehn, cheesemaker and founder of Cypress Grove Chevre, Arcata, California (Autumn 2011 issue of culture)

“I’ve been the herdsman at Coach for 23 years . . . I can’t say enough good things about goats. They’re highly intelligent and personable. Each one is such an individual, with a mind of its own. Which means there’s any number of things they can be blamed for.”
- Rene DeeLeeuw, Herdsman, Coach Farm, Pine Plains, N.Y. (Summer 2011
issue of culture)

“The silver lining is that I can use my buying power to make other people happy by supporting their endeavor, what they’re putting their heart, soul, and brain into. That has been my joy in life—supporting all these little artisans and producers. One after another you could write a short story about them. Every one is so significant and integral to cuisine.”
- Steven Jenkins, Specialty foods buyer, cheese consultant and author (Summer 2010 issue of culture)

“I think we’ve stayed true to our vision and mission, but the business has certainly taken different forms than we imagined . . . You get these opportunities to push it to another level.”
- Sue Conley, co-founder and co-owner, Cowgirl Creamery and Tomales Bay Foods, Point Reyes, California (Autumn 2010 issue of culture)

“Europeans and Americans share the same interest in the products we sell and age. Epicureans have no nationality; they are universal.”
-Hervé Mons, third-generation French affineur (Winter 2010 issue of culture)
“People said, ‘That crazy woman from San Francisco thinks she can milk a sheep.’ They’d come in from the fog—we get a lot of fog down here—and they’d stand in the milking parlor and just watch. ‘I had to see to believe it,’ they’d say.”
- Cindy Callahan, cheesemaker and co-founder of Bellwether Farms in Sonoma County, California

“In Europe a cheesemaker can say, ‘This is how its been done for a hundred years; this is how you have to eat the cheese.’ In the United States you can’t do that. Customer preferences and feedback are critical.”
- Errico Auricchio, founder and president of Bel Gioioso Cheese Inc., Green Bay, Wisconsin

“As we were rapidly going out of business, we realized we needed to sell cheese to someone who knew what we were doing. So we targeted chefs in New York City and Boston . . . If you could get your goat cheese on the menu, you had assurance there was business, so you could concentrate on the cheese. Chef by chef, we made it work.”
- Allison Hooper, cheesemaker and co-founder, Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery, Websterville, Vermont (Spring 2011 issue of culture)

“You have to be unassailable.”
-Steven Jenkins, Specialty foods buyer, cheese consultant and author (Summer 2010 issue of culture)