09/14/06 Ballard cheese wins more awards

Steve and Stacie Ballard have been creating artisan cheese for a couple of years. The Ballard's specialty Idaho pepper cheddar brought home a First Place Award from the American Cheese Society's Annual Conference in Portland. Their Idaho garlic herb cheese curds pulled down a second place prize as well. The Ballards, along with son Travis, produce the cheese from the milk of their Jersey cows at the Gooding dairy. STACEY  " We have our pepper cheddar and then we have our white cheddar, six different varieties of cheese curds, and then we have a new Danish, its kind of a havarti, gouda, baby Swiss combination." The competition this year was stronger than ever with a record breaking 941 entries from 157 producers representing 28 states and two Canadian provinces. The American Cheese Society's goal is to give positive recognition to those cheeses which are of the highest quality in flavor, aroma and texture, as well as the technical expertise of the cheese maker. If you want to learn more about artisan cheese making the Ballards welcome guests to their dairy, be it for a couple of hours or a couple of days. You can get more information about that from the Internet at Ballardcheese.com. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott