Bobolink Dairy

special special special
this cheese is insane.
do you hear what i’m saying?
having been on a five year (and counting) quest for better and better and new and unusual and delirious cheeses, i can fairly report that i’ve found quite a few that i truly love. there are the far flung ones at whole foods on houston st that you’ll find in their mind-​blowing cheese room, there’s murray’s of course, and there are the small farms of vermont and even new york and jersey that produce their own signature artisinal varieties. if this was the end of the story, there would be no regrets at all.
but i am here today to tell you that i have found a cheesemaker superior to them all, a farm that operates in another stratosphere entirely, Bobolink Dairy.
Bobolink is a biodynamic working farm. the animals are either grass-​fed (cows, sheep) or pasture-​raised (pigs). meat, of limited supply and available seasonally, is sold online and then either shipped, or better still, sent to be picked up by you at the greenmarket. at various times, you can get suckled veal, grass-​fed beef, and whey-​fed pork. they also started producing bread, having built a wood-​fired hearth oven. the bread’s ok. bread’s a tough sell, there are some other mighty breadmakers around.
but the cheese: these are artisinal and of very high order. i’ve tried about a half dozen so far and at the stand they are very gracious about offering tastings. three or four have been totally out there. they are all made from grass fed raw milk, aged in caves that impart all sorts of strange and indigenous bacteria which develop into nonspecific flavors that emerge in layers over the time it takes to dissolve in your mouth.
all the cheeses have intense creaminess, from the softer to the harder ones, with varying levels of edge (initial bite), which then give way to all sorts of slow-​motion unfolding flavors and sensations. this is food to be savored, like an old expensive wine. it’s stinky and moldy, the rinds are so warped and decayed that the wheels actually resemble misshapen birthday cakes, but the taste is as sexy as anything, including sex.
my absolute favorite is called Jean Louis, where the rind has blotches of red running here and there like wine stains, a result of the random cave bacteria that gets in some of them and adds to the complexity. there is a great solid eating cheese called Floret, and a lush stinky softer one called Endgame that has been aged a bit more than the others and has what look like little turrets jutting out of the rind on the top face of the wheel.
these cheeses have so much flavor, and so much punch, and so much balance, really i’ve never experienced anything like it. i’m talking about more than eating, but an EXPERIENCE. they are seasonal, and that adds to the mystique — they are here today and gone tomorrow.
and they are pricey: $ 20 lb for the lower end, $ 24 lb for the rarer ones like Endgame. i’ve not encountered any cheese priced higher. but these are for afficionados, not families of four trying to get their kids to eat their vegetables on a budget. put the kids to bed, then break out the cheese! (that sounds pretty dumb and whitebread. so does the word ‘cheese’ for that matter, oh well, not everything that IS cool actually has to SOUND cool.)
matched with a cracker or a good bread, or better still, some of those winesap apples you can pick up at the apple stand next door, this cheese can send you to an exuberant kind of foodie heaven. melt them into scrambled eggs that you bought across the way at the flying pigs farmstand, and rest of the day you’ll be singing and smiling like a moonie.
Bobolink is only at Union Square on Fridays.
Cheese ON!