Top: Classic chevre from Lake Erie Creamery, Above: Milking the herd at Cherry Lane Farm, Below: Gerald Onken from Lake Erie Creamery and Teddy West of Cherry Lane Farm, Mantua.

Artisan versus Farmstead
The term artisan, when used to describe cheese, breads or meats, is an unregulated term and has no set in stone definition. In general, you can count on something made or produced on a smaller scale, most often by hand, with plenty of attention to detail, quality ingredients, flavor and craftsmanship. Mariann Janosko also notes that as an artisan producer, she makes sure she is familiar with how the raw materials, in her case the goats that supply the milk, are raised, fed and treated. Products labeled farmstead, mainly cheeses, mean that the product is made on the same farm where the cows or goats are raised and milked. There are no outside ingredients used in the process.


Find Lake Erie Creamery’s goat cheese:

RESTAURANTS
Greater Cleveland:
Fahrenheit
Light Bistro
Delmonico’s
Blue Point
Lola’s
Lolita’s
Sergio’s
One Walnut
Fire Food & Drink
Flying Fig
Bar Cento
Columbus:
Worthington Inn
Rigsby's
Wooster:
South Market Bistro

RETAIL LOCATIONS
Greater Cleveland:
Duet, Rocky River; Rego’s Lake Road Market, Rocky River; Great Lakes Baking Company, Hudson; Annemarie’s Dairy, Westside Market; Coit Road Market, Cleveland

Columbus:
Curds and Whey, North Market

Story by Marilou Suszko
Photos by Barney Taxel


Every day for five years, husband and wife Gerald Onken and Mariann Janosko got up before the sun to prepare for making goat cheese. In all that time, they never once milked a goat or sold an ounce of cheese. Instead they delivered the morning edition of the local newspaper to earn seed money to launch Lake Erie Creamery, a small and quite literally “mom and pop” plant tucked in a corner of a renovated factory on Fulton Road in Cleveland, an urban stretch of road bordering downtown and 40 miles away from the nearest goat.

Making chèvre (which is French for “goat”) is a second career for the tireless couple, he, a retired telecommunications engineer and she, a former educator. It began simply enough with Janosko’s personal penchant for the creamy, tangy fresh cheese. She honed her hobbyist skills for making cheese to an artisan level under the tutelage of Peter Dixon, a highly regarded Vermont cheesemaker. Meanwhile, Onken designed and engineered the modest, pristine 700 square foot creamery to meet Ohio Dairy Association standards as well as Janosko’s. Within two years, everything they needed for making cheese was in place, including the most important component: a steady supply of rich Ohio goats’ milk and a good working relationship with dairy goat farmers.

Janosko and Onken met Ohio Farm Bureau members, Eldon and Teddy West from Cherry Lane, through mutual farming friends. Their 80-acre Portage County farm, named for the rows of cherry trees that once flanked the drive, is home to their herd of 300 Saanen breed registered dairy goats that are milked twice a day, every day of the year. As the largest goats’ milk producer in the state, the Wests collect more than 25,000 pounds of milk each month, the majority of which is brokered to companies that produce goat cheese and related products in neighboring states. But the Wests reserve a precious 50 gallons or more each week for the creamery. Precious indeed, because Lake Erie Creamery is one of a small handful of licensed goat cheese producers in Ohio.

“This is a marriage made in heaven,” said Janosko who prefers making the cheese to raising and milking goats. Teddy West thinks conversely. She would rather farm. “You won’t see a lot of people doing what we’re doing together,” said Teddy of the relationship between the farm and creamery. “It’s hard to do it all,” she said of tending and milking the herd, then making and marketing the cheese. So between the two, they put their skills and labor into what they each do best.

Got goat milk?
While the finished goat cheese is what gets the public’s attention, it all begins with the milk. “We’re fortunate to be so close to a good milk source,” Janosko said, adding, “ the best goats’ milk within 500 miles.”
Most of the Cherry Lane Farm operation is dedicated to the dairy herd and the sale of young stock. The Wests partner with their oldest son, Michael and his wife, Sandy, who grow the hay and small grain, corn and soybeans used exclusively to feed the herd. It’s the bulk of a ration that Teddy has finely tuned nutritionally over the years and credits for the “distinctively” sweet taste and consistent quality in the milk. Their youngest son, Matthew, helps with the operation part-time and his wife, Shannon, is a valued and reliable hand to Teddy during the daily milking routine.

Each week begins with the milk pickup. Onken, a certified hauler, arrives at the farm in the morning and loads the stainless steel milk cans filled with fresh goats’ milk in his new Ford F150, a welcome replacement to the compact station wagon that once served as his “rig.” When the milk arrives back at the creamery, the couple transfers it by bucketfuls into the batch pasteurizer where it is pasteurized, at a lower, gentler heat for a longer period of time, as opposed to flash pasteurizing, which uses higher heat for a shorter time. “We attempt to keep the milk as close to its natural state as possible so the cheese will maintain its natural tang,” Janosko said.

After the milk is pasteurized, Janosko adds the culture. The next day, after the curds have formed, she’ll drain and mix the cheese to create a smooth texture. A portion is salted to make savory chèvre, which is mild and creamy. Another portion will be left unsalted for the creamery’s fromage blanc, a sweeter, silkier version that doesn’t have the depth of flavor as chèvre and is often served as a dessert course. Janosko will also mold some of the fresh cheese into 4-ounce rounds and age them for just over three weeks for a stronger, “goatier” flavor. She calls it “blooma,” which is Swedish for flower and a tribute to the “bloomy rind” it develops.

Friday is delivery day and every ounce of the cheese is destined for more than 24 restaurants or retail locations throughout northeast Ohio. The demand for the snowy white cheese is growing, with a few restaurants in the Columbus area ready to jump on the customer list. So are the customers’ accolades for the quality and taste of the cheese.

“My customers are always asking about the creamery’s goat cheese,” said Annemarie Geffert, owner of Annemarie’s Dairy at Cleveland’s West Side Market who tries to feature local, organic and natural dairy products at her stand. “They may balk at the price the first time they buy it, but never again after they taste it.”

Light Bistro in Cleveland features the chèvre on only one menu item, the goat cheese and arugula flatbread. “And we serve every bit of it,” said executive chef and co-owner, Matthew Mathlage. “The taste has so much character and is amazingly fresh and was recommended to us by other chefs,” he described. “It has the farm fresh taste we look for.”

When the Wests, Janosko and Onken end their working day, they know the cheese they’ve worked together to make is all Ohio in every respect: the labor, the ingredients and the flavor. For “local-vores,” consumers and chefs who buy and eat foods grown, raised or produced closer to home, it’s simply another delicious victory.

Marilou Suszko is a freelance writer from Vermilion.

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Special Note:
To arrange an appointment to visit Lake Erie Creamery, call Mariann Janosko at (216) 961-9222. Note: Cherry Lane Farm is a working farm and because of health and safety reasons cannot accomodate on-farm visitors.

 

Attention teachers and parents: A student activity based on Ohio's academic content standards is available with this article.