This week Cutting the Curd host Greg Blais kicks off the new year with all-star guest Anne Saxelby, first catching up about the crazy cheese holidays before getting into their 2014 year in review. The duo discuss fondness for the Spring Brook Reading Raclette before deeming 2014 as the year of regulations in cheese. Revisiting the Food Safety Modernization Act and what it meant for imported and domestic cheeses, Anne points out that American cheeses have never been better and that by not being able to import certain cheeses anymore, it encourages domestic cheeses to step up. They go on to point out other regulations that came to fruition in the past year and how it has affected the industry. After the break, the chat turns to the very recent winner of the Cheesemonger Invitational, Matt Reilly, who is an alum of the NYC Eataly branch, trained by none other than Greg. Anne gets the scoop on how Eataly has trained Matt as well as the previous winner, Emily Acosta, and brainstorms an idea for a ‘Senior’ Cheesemonger Invitational. Closing out the show, Greg and Anne share what they are looking forward to in 2015 and great cheeses to look forward to. This program was brought to you by The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

“You can’t treat a dairy farm with ten cows the same way you’d treat a giant, industrial farm in Wisconsin or California. Of course you need good practices across the board… but what it looks like is different from operation to operation.” [8:00]

—Anne Saxelby on Cutting the Curd