I Locavore: Old Chatham's Shaker Blue Cheese at Saxelby Cheesemongers

Thanks for the cheese, sheep

"I stuffed figs with this the other day," said Anne Saxelby, as she handed me a taste of Old Chatham's Shaker Blue. "It's like butter." And it is--like butter crossed with one of the most completely delicious blue cheeses I've ever had.

The cheese is made from the raw milk of East Friesian ewes, raised by the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in Old Chatham, New York, in the Hudson Valley. East Friesian sheep are originally from the Germany's East Friesland region, along the North Sea coast. They have pink noses, woolly coats, naked tails, and produce copious amounts of milk.

Old Chatham's Shaker Blue is very creamy and moist, pungent and yet also sweet, made in a Roquefort style. If you like blue cheese at all, stop by Saxelby Cheesemongers and get yourself some a wedge. Perhaps you will use it to stuff figs, or perhaps you will eat it by itself, in chunks, with a glass of wine.

Saxelby Cheesemongers
Essex Street Market, 120 Essex Street
212-228-8204