Shinglehouse Cheese

What's happening at Cook'n by the Creek?  Not a lot today, one of those take a rest and get ready for a couple days of hitting it hard again.  Another row of potatoes dug and spread out to season for a few days (Dick did all the digging).  I fixed sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast, cleaned a little and worked on #6 quilt with a vengeance to have it completed by Tuesday.  Then it will be on to starting #7.  By the time I get one quilted I am about sick of the colors.  Red, white and blue for the next one (Boston Red Sox).  By 11/19/2014 I will have completed 9 quilts for the 9 grandchildren.  Unfortunately I bought 2 spools of thread on sale at the Amish store and I'm on a mission to find material to match!  Love the colors and I already have a name for the quilt, It's 5 o'clock Somewhere, dedicated to our 2013 Florida Keys Dream Vacation.  That is because the blue reminds me of the water and the creamy/gold color of the sunset.

While drinking my Lime Cooler today and quilting I started thinking........oh no, not thinking.  I was thinking some cheese and crackers would taste pretty good about now.  If I hadn't been so settled in I would have drove up to New Horizons Creamery in Coneville which is maybe 3 minutes from us.  Now that's lazy.  They have some very good homemade cheese and word around it's the same method as Olson's used at the Shinglehouse Cheese Factory.  I know my family loved their cheese and I can remember going there to get cheese.  I was very young and the smell of that place made me hold my breath.  It reminded me of what the warm buckets of milk smelled like on our farm, icky.  I've never liked milk but cheese, ice cream, yogurt and whip cream, I can eat with no problem.  Back to the cheese factory.  I remember my mom telling Mrs. Olson how much she wanted.  It was a big wheel of cheese and Mrs. Olson would take a lever, pull it down a few times.  Thinking about it I bet each time the lever was pulled down it measured the cheese by an 1/8 or 1/4 pound.  Once she had it measured she would bring the lever all the way through the cheese to cut the wedge off and wrap it in paper.  That's my memory but then again it could wrong.

Shinglehouse Cheese has always been a follow up with strangers when they asked us where we are from.  As soon as we say Shinglehouse if they had lived or visited the area they would say, "Oh Shinglehouse Cheese, do they still make it?"  In 1982 while traveling through New Mexico we stopped at a gift shop.  Even back then I was a conversationalist!  Before long we all were laughing.  The guy that owned the store was from Bolivar, NY.  He had retired from the Air Force Out there and stayed.  He wanted to know about Shinglehouse Cheese and got that dreamy, hungry look wishing he could get some.  Then a few years back we took the bike and a 2 man tent ending up in Smoke Hole, WV.  I blogged a while back about the adventure. Smoke Hole is way back in the mountains next to NO WHERE.  Well, we did see 3 men that were on a fly fishing trip from Morgantown,WV.  Of course we struck up a conversation on that dusty old country store front porch.  Ya never know when a good story might develop.  It did, one of the men in his 70's was so excited when we told him where we were from.  Shinglehouse Cheese, do they still make it?  His story......he had his first teaching job in Coudersport!  He taught 3 years there and then moved back to Pittsburgh and on to Morgantown, WV where he retired from teaching.  He asked us if we knew of a Lou Schaub a guy with one arm from Coudersport.  Of course, everyone that went to our local basketball games knew Lou.  He told his friends he should have stayed in Potter County, it is one of the most beautiful places he had lived and oh that Shinglehouse Cheese.  What a great feeling to hear positive memories of our area.  Shinglehouse is famous for Olson' wonderful Shinglehouse Cheese ♡  What's your Shinglehouse Cheese story?

Della's Lime Cooler recipe:  Juice of one lime, save a slice to cut in half and put in each glass.  3 cups of crushed ice, 2 cups of simple syrup and gin (amount to your liking, 2 shooters here).  Shake or put in blender.

My mom made Lime Coolers at the Biergarten during the
summer months.

Alright, I talked myself into getting out of my comfort zone, my hair was ok, no make-up and garden clothes on I headed up to New Horizon Creamery for...........yes, cheese.  Of course I had to snap a couple pictures just in case some long distant cheese lovers ever get this way.   It's only a couple skips from Coneville towards Oswayo. The Torrey family makes all of their cheese on premises.  As you can see there is a wide variety of flavors plus the regulars of mild, sharp and extra sharp.  I bought the mild but I do like the tang of an extra sharp.  I can't remember the taste of the cheese made by the Olson family (way to long ago)  but I do know I really liked it.  Just like the New Horizon Creamery Cheese, I really like it.  They also have homemade ice cream and pizza with a nice clean area to eat.  Tonight was just a cheese purchase, we had ice cream at Dick and Cheryl's Tasty Freeze in Andover, NY last Tuesday.  Refrain.....

Top photo New Horizon Creamery.
Middle photo, all of their specialty cheese.
Bottom, my purchase.

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As I was putting the cheese on the plate it made me wonder.
How many times this plate held a piece of my mom's
apple pie and a slice of cheese from Olson's.
One of our favorite ways to eat cheese, with apple pie.