Victoria Cosford
Her personal favourites are Claude, the Brie and the Romano. Deb Allard, talented cheese-maker for nearly twenty years, is the owner of Cheeses Loves You and has been a familiar face at farmers’ markets for most of that time.
Made from the milk of her very own Jersey cows at Upper Burringbar, the range covers around 22 different products, including milk, butter and kefir. Deb paints a beautiful image of her ‘office’; the cheese factory on the property where, from the window as she works, she ‘can see exactly what is going on with the cows.’
For all that variety of cheeses she produces, she continues to be asked if it includes a buffalo milk burrata. ‘So sick of that question!’ she tells me. ‘I don’t think people realise to get buffalo cheese you need to milk a buffalo!’ – an animal they have yet to add to their team. That whole obsession with burrata – the Pugliese cheese whose exterior is solid mozzarella encasing an oozy centre of stracciatella and clotted cream – has long mystified me; I find it cloyingly rich. Deb tells me that the only time she attempted to make it ‘it looked like a big white dog poo!’. Give me plain old mozzarella anytime, although Deb tells me it’s the most technically challenging to make. Furthermore, ‘now that Heather is back with the magnificent Coopers Shoot tomatoes I have to make a double batch of mozzarella three times a week!’.
Her most successful creation, apparently, is the milk kefir, a fermented beverage similar to yoghurt. ‘The health benefits’, she says, ‘are amazing, and I do have the knack of making kefir thick, creamy and delicious.’
Cheeses Loves You are at New Brighton Farmers Markets every Tuesday, 8–11am and at Mullumbimby Farmers Markets every Friday 7–11am.
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