- Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie .

[upbeat jazz music] - Madeline: Welcome to our production floor.

- Luke: Wow!

- Yeah, there's a lot going on here.

- Luke: Seriously, it's like walking into Willy Wonka's cheese factory.

- Madeline: Wisconsin is the place to be for cheese because we have such a density of experience and knowledge in a small area.

This is the freshest, youngest Grand Cru.

- Luke: Oh, it's a baby.

- Madeline: It's a baby.

- Luke: And this is how the World Cheese Championships are won, correct?

- Madeline: Yes, it is.

- Luke: This is where it starts.

- Madeline: Absolutely.

- And it's like that beautiful sweater in the wintertime.

Maybe you have this, maybe you don't.

Like the one where it's kinda gross outside and you just want to crawl into it.

And it feels so comfortable.

This cheese kinda takes me right there.

Good evening, welcome to this wonderful estate, the Anaway Place.

45 guests, biophilia.

Technically, biophilia is the incorporation of nature into a space.

And this property reflects that amazingly.

The hosts, the owners, have graciously opened their doors to let us execute this here.

We're here tonight, we're celebrating this amazing place.

We knew that preparing this dinner, we wanted to have all the spaces here that were available at Anaway Place represented in courses.

This is gonna be incredible.

All right, here we go.

- Narrator: 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.

- Yeehaw!

- 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 onsite, 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.

Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[jazzy, 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 .

[gentle music] - My name is Madeline Kuhn, and I am a member of the research and development team and a licensed cheesemaker at Emmi Roth.

We produce about 20 varieties of cheese.

While I grew up on a dairy farm, inspired me to pursue the food science field in general.

So after college, I had received a great opportunity at Roth Cheese to come and work for the research and development team and make cheese.

[gentle music] And welcome to our production floor.

- Wow.

- Yeah, there's a lot going on here.

- Seriously, it's like walking into Willy Wonka's cheese factory.

- Right.

- You know, one of the things that always strikes me in these plants is like, the ability to make such a high-quality product, but to make a lot of it, right?

- Yes.

- You constantly gotta be moving and shifting and keeping this thing clean, sanitized, yet everything has to work like clockwork, basically.

- Madeline: Absolutely.

Wisconsin is the place to be for cheese because we have such a density of experience and knowledge in a small area.

We have been able to draw talent from all over the world and because cheese is produced all over the world, that's a beautiful thing.

I want to show you something special.

- I love special things.

- These are the copper kettles.

We have four cheese vats here, and it's also where our copper vats for making Grand Cru are.

- These are copper?

- These are copper.

If you look way in there, you can see the copper lining.

- Why is that so special?

Why is that important?

- Copper is part of the traditional Alpine cheesemaking style.

It heats fast, and we need those high temperatures for making cheeses like our Grand Cru.

There are only a few copper vats in the U.S., so the fact that we have two here is really special.

- That's incredible.

- This is the freshest, youngest Grand Cru.

- Oh, it's a baby.

- It's a baby.

- And this is how the World Cheese Championships are won, correct?

- Yes, it is.

- This is where it starts.

- Absolutely.

And these, these are a few hours old and they're just about ready to head downstairs into the brine.

The Grand Cru is our flagship cheese here at Roth.

And we did win in 2016, the Grand Champion award with the Grand Cru Surchoix, which was huge for a specialty cheese producer in Wisconsin.

- Whoa.

- Let's take a look at the cheese in the brine.

The climate is controlled in here, just like the temp, the pH, the salinity in the brine is controlled.

- This is like a beautiful swimming pool of deliciousness.

- It is.

So this is one of our cheese brines.

It's full of cheese.

- Sure.

- All of our cheese comes through the brine.

- Are the brines the same for every cheese?

- They shouldn't be the same.

- They should not be the same, okay.

- Depending on the variety of cheese, we need a little bit different pH, you might need a little bit different salt content.

So we try to keep them segregated to where they fit in best.

The cheese comes in here and it gets a little bit of a spa treatment.

The temperature is cooler.

It comes down hot, so we're trying to cool it off.

There's also a lot of moisture still inside the cheese.

So we're replacing some of that moisture with salt.

The texture, it gets firm, more compact, and you're also adding a nice amount of flavor from the salt.

- Luke: I have to imagine that what happens next is nothing less than spectacular.

- I'll take you to the next step for our Grand Cru, which would be the cellars.

- Let's see 'em.

Oh, my gosh.

- Welcome to the cellars.

- Luke: This is beautiful.

- Madeline: Our Grand Cru are traditionally produced, Alpine-style cheeses that we wash and flip in our cellars.

And to be producing a cheese like that here in Wisconsin is special, because a lot of the cheeses people are familiar with in that style are actually imported.

So we are very proud that we were able to deliver a champion produced right here in Wisconsin.

Our Grand Cru, and some of our other cellar-aged cheeses spend time in our cellar rooms for a couple months, up to a year.

And the processes in here are responsible for adding a lot of that flavor development, the nuttiness, the sweetness, that aged character that comes out in all of our products.

Luke, I'd like to share something really special with you.

- Awesome.

- Let's take a look at this.

- Whoa.

- This is a very limited batch production of our Roth Monroe cheese.

This is a product that I worked on and brought through development to production in my time here at Roth.

It's a semi-soft, washed rind cheese that has a really luscious, pudgy texture and a rind with just a little bit of texture, like a little bit crunch, a little bit, you know, stick to your teeth, candy-like.

- Is this the only Monroe, right now in the cellar?

- This is the only Monroe anywhere.

- Sweet.

- It's not available for sale, temporarily.

So this cheese, when we're making it, this ages for 30 days here in the cellars.

It's a very labor-intensive cheese.

Everything is handmade in very small batches, hand-poured and turned.

And once it gets into the cellar, it's handled every day and washed by hand every day.

- Wow.

So this is truly an artisan cheese.

- This is a very artisan cheese.

[gentle music] So all the cheese is placed on imported cedar boards, and the use of a wooden board is a very traditional practice for cheese affinage.

It's porous, it allows the cheese rind to breathe without trapping too much moisture.

- So this is kind of like a time-tested technology piece, right?

The cedar is an old school, old world kind of a way to, to let that cheese age and grow and breathe and develop flavor characteristics.

- Yeah.

- From, like, the old style.

But over here, I'm watching this crazy process down the hall of this, is it a robot?

Can I refer to as a robot?

- Madeline: Absolutely.

- Luke: And it's flipping the cheese and is it washing the board?

Or is it doing anything with the board?

- It's washing the cheese.

- It's washing the cheese?

- Yeah.

- This used to be somebody's job once upon a time, correct?

- Madeline: Absolutely.

This used to all be done by hand.

People would turn the cheese, they'd pull the boards down, turn the cheese and manually wash the rinds with a mixture of saltwater and the bacteria we add to the surface to create the rind.

- Luke: Whoa.

- Madeline: And now it's all done with these machines.

- Luke: This is fascinating.

I could legit watch this all day long.

- Madeline: We're constantly in here monitoring what the cheese looks like and what it needs.

- Luke: Sure.

- Madeline: And deciding when it needs to be turned and washed.

Every few days, up to maybe once a week, towards the end of its curing time.

- Do you think you're ready at some point to go taste some of this cheese?

- I'm ready anytime.

- My favorite part.

[laughs] I'm so excited.

- Good, I brought some cheese for us to taste.

First, we have our Grand Cru Reserve, then we have our new Roth Aged Gouda.

Something brand new is our Spinach Artichoke Gouda.

And finally, we have one of our award-winning blue cheeses.

- Is this the buttermilk blue?

- This is the buttermilk blue.

- I love that cheese.

But I'm assuming you're probably gonna want us to start here.

- Definitely.

- Correct?

For you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- What I look for in this cheese is, some of those brothy notes, nuttiness, sweet flavors that come out in our Grand Cru as it ages.

- Initially, you get a little bit of that, that nuttiness, you get some of that sweetness.

You get that nice texture with this cheese.

- Definitely one of my favorites.

Next is something that I've put a lot of work into, the new Roth Aged Gouda.

- Okay.

- That's aged for six months.

Here I get notes of cooked sugar.

- Mm-hmm.

- Maybe a little bit of a tang, like some kind of tropical fruit, pineapple.

- Ooh, this is really good.

[both laughing] - I was hoping for that.

- Mmm.

- Sweet.

- Yep.

- Caramel.

- Yes.

- But it's bright.

- Mm-hmm.

It's absolutely mouthwatering.

And you get those caramel notes on it right away.

So that sweet, rich creaminess accented by just that little tang at the end of something that tastes tropical.

I think I'm addicted to blue cheese, you know that?

- Yeah, I think it's addicting.

- Cool.

Okay, so you pick first, 'cause I've been eyeballing one particular piece and I wanna see if you take that one.

- Wow.

- Go ahead, no pressure.

- All right, I'm going in for a nugget, this one.

- Ah, you didn't take the piece I wanted.

I like this one because it looked like a star.

- Yeah.

- It's so cool.

All right, this is the buttermilk blue.

I love this, mmm.

Oh, God.

When I eat this, all the sensors on my tongue, my palate, they light up.

As opposed to the Grand Cru, which gets me in the front of the palate, this one really works the sides, and it keeps lingering and going.

And that creaminess, all that fatty, fatty richness carries that salty flavor all over your palate.

And it's like that beautiful sweater in the wintertime.

Maybe you have this, maybe you don't, like the one where it's kinda gross outside and you just want to crawl into it.

And it feels so comfortable.

This cheese kind of takes me right there.

- Yeah, this is a, it's an incredibly smooth, earthy blue cheese.

And what I love about this one is, the blue notes are definitely present, but it's not overwhelming.

So it might even win over some people who aren't into blue cheese yet.

- Thank you so much.

- You're most welcome.

- This has been like a carnival for my mouth.

It's been amazing.

[mellow acoustic guitar music] - Norbert Calnin: Well, this is a special day for us.

We've got some big news this week.

We've changed our name from Candlewood Cabins to Anaway Place.

- Yes.

- And it's just a whole new era coming up.

- Susan: We were really excited to partner with Luke and Ruthie from Driftless Café to bring this event to our space, which we've dreamed about doing for, gosh, years.

I am really, really excited to sit down and have each dish represent the cabins the way they do.

It's very, very special.

- Norbert: He has an amazing creativity, Luke Zahm.

And, yes, he has a course named after each cabin.

And so we're looking forward to hear him talk about each course and how it represents each cabin.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

- Luke: All right, first and foremost, thank you for coming together today.

Honestly, like, this is a dream.

45 guests, biophilia.

Technically, biophilia is the incorporation of nature into a space.

And this property reflects that amazingly.

The hosts, the owners have graciously opened their doors to let us execute this here.

We're here tonight, we're celebrating this amazing place.

This is a place people have been when the rest of the continent was literally frozen over.

This has been a safe haven for people, and it's been flyover country for too damn long.

So my ask is that tonight, we turn it up one notch.

We put on a show for these people, and we do this place proud, all right?

Here we go, let's do this thing.

[crowd applauds] [gentle music] One of the things about this dinner that I'm so excited to represent is this connection.

And this glass cabin in the forest, it's all about bringing the elements of the forest into the plate.

- Right.

- Which is why we're actually gonna plate it on a glass block.

But amazingly, the universe has provided us an opportunity.

There are oyster mushrooms right outside the cabin.

- Kyle: Oh, no way.

- Luke: I'd love to go check 'em out and see if we can't harvest 'em and incorporate 'em into the dinner.

- Kyle: Absolutely, let's go get 'em.

- Luke: Great.

- Kyle: Oh, yeah, look at all those.

- Luke: Oh, man.

Oh, these are gorgeous.

- Yeah, these are perfect.

- So when you come across something like this in the woods, how much of this do you know how to sustainably harvest?

I mean, is there a point where you leave some to repropagate?

- Especially with mushrooms, there's not as much of a concern.

'Cause all of the mycelium network is actually in these logs.

So anytime we're removing one of these, we're cutting off basically just the fruit.

So it's like picking an apple from an apple tree.

At that point, you're not really affecting the tree.

You're not harming it.

Obviously, this is dead wood.

So all that mycelium that's still in the tree, that's gonna fruit right out of that same spot, if not nearby the next time it flushes.

- Amazing, here, I'll take that.

We'll put it in the hat.

- Fancy little foraging hat.

- [laughs] Exactly, I knew I got it for a good reason.

- There's that one, and I can hold that if you wanna get that one down there.

- This, get my shot here, come right along there.

- Yeah, that's perfect.

- Pops right off.

Oh man, that's beautiful.

Well, this is incredible.

And I can't wait to put elements of this forest into this dinner to represent this cabin behind me.

All right, let's head back.

- Let's do it.

Let's go cook some food.

[jazzy, upbeat music] - Luke: Good evening.

Welcome to this wonderful estate, The Anaway Place.

This has been a culmination of a long journey for us.

We knew that preparing this dinner, we wanted to have all the spaces here that were available at Anaway Place, represented in courses.

And the architecture represented in courses.

But fortunately tonight, we have the best chefs in the game back here in this kitchen.

They are going to amaze you with some of the food that we are kicking out.

This is gonna be incredible.

All right, here we go.

[all applauding] [jazzy, upbeat music] The smoked Monroe on cedar.

So this Monroe cheese will come with the cheesemaker, who will arrive at 6:00 p.m.

Her name is Madeline Kuhn.

This cheese we are taking early.

It's a young cheese from the cellars of Emmi Roth, located in Monroe, Wisconsin.

We are gonna throw it on a cedar plank.

We're gonna brulee that with a little bit of sugar.

We're gonna torch it.

It's going to smoke, that cedar has been soaked in brandy, so it smells, you get all these aromatic, caramel notes.

And then we're serving that with a little bit of a shard of buttermilk biscuit from Organic Valley, and last but not least, a rhubarb and strawberry jam that we put together yesterday.

♪ Diamond wristlets Woolworth's doesn't sell ♪ ♪ Baby until that lucky day you know darn well ♪ So this is the Meadow House course.

The Meadow House course for me, waking up here in a winter morning, you couldn't tell where the sky stopped and the ground started.

And this cabin is just all glass.

So you felt like you were in the clouds.

I wanted to do a course that represented my stay here in the clouds.

And that's exactly what this represents.

So this is a white pine box.

We have a little bit of a saffron aioli, pickled red onions, but then we took some walleye from the Red Cliff Band of Chippewa.

And we've whipped that into a mousseline.

We poached it very, very gently.

So it stays nice and fluffy, just like the clouds in the morning that I woke up here.

That, actually, was the entire inspiration for this whole dinner.

That, and the ability to share this place with you.

♪ Baby I can't give you anything ♪ One of the reasons I love cooking outside is it really brings out this instinct in chefs.

Either you get it, or you don't.

The courses so far have been really refined and articulate.

And I'm so excited that they're being executed.

The Emmi Roth cheese, though, I think so far has secretly been the star of the show.

It's hard to overcome greatness, you know what I mean?

So what we have here, these are the next two courses getting ready to be served.

I have some organic prairie beef; it's magical.

But this, this is the forest coming to life.

This is part of the glass house.

This is venison that has been harvested in my home valley in La Farge.

And we are grilling it quickly.

We've sous vided it to about 105 degrees.

So it's nice and rare.

We're gonna get just a little bit of smoked jus on it.

We're gonna slice it up and we're gonna serve it with a lot of those foraged items that we found over the course of the shoot.

This venison is so tender.

I get just a little bit of that smoke on there, but the peppercorns, it's so floral and so deep, it kind of takes me to a different place, honestly.

This is some of the best venison I've ever had.

Beautiful lacinato kale.

This, I think, is like one of the unsung heroes of our restaurant.

Just a little bit of lemon, salt, black pepper, sometimes some chili flake, forget about it.

This is like the culmination of the entire dinner.

So the glass house, where we pulled elements of the forest in, these are those oyster mushrooms.

We're giving 'em a quick tempura dip and into the fryer.

This is gonna be accompanied with that beautiful venison, and some fried milkweed blossoms that Chef John's got coming out of the fryer over here, also tempura-dipped.

So this course is all about the glass house here, which, if you haven't been familiar with Anaway Place, they have a cabin in the forest that's all glass.

It sounds a little intimidating, but it's not.

It's the essence of forest bathing.

And so what we wanted to do for this course is bring all the elements of the forest onto the plate.

So we have some mustard greens here, but then everything else is foraged.

The venison, the milkweed blossoms, the oyster mushroom.

But my favorite part is we're plating this on construction glass block.

It's a whimsical note to kinda end the dinner a little bit.

Hey, before we go any further, I wanna give a round of applause to these wonderful people.

[guests applauding and cheering] You give us the ability to flex what we do and what we love to do, and tell stories, and create great food, and hopefully amazing memories.

So we love you, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good job, chefs.

[mellow music] [upbeat music] - My very first cheese memory?

Probably, probably was just a fresh cheese curd.

- Narrator: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wi sconsin 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.

- Yeehaw!

- 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 onsite, 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.

Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Still hungry for more?

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you'll find past episodes and special segments just for you.