Maker

Who: Kim and Tyler Malek – these two are cousins!What: Salt and Straw, artisan ice creamWhere: Portland, Oregon If you live in Portland, you know that Salt & Straw is really popular. What started as a small, hand–pushed ice cream cart has turned into a celebrated community hang out with a constant, gigantic line out the door—all within a year’s time.

Who: Suzanne FuocoWhat: Pink Slip JamWhere: Portland, Oregon Suzanne Fuoco’s background in fine art and cooking come together beautifully in her 3-year–old company, Pink Slip Jam. Her products taste like something from a fairy tale, as flowers, local produce, spirits, essential oils and spices collide into the most innovative jam flavors. Once you’ve gone Pink Slip Jam, your toast will never be the same.

Who: Antonio Ramos and Caroline MakWhat: Founders and head juice makers of Brooklyn Soda WorksWhere: Brooklyn, New York It all started on a whim.

Who WhatTwenty-Four Blackbirds ChocolateWhere Santa Barbara has great wine and Mexican food, but have you heard there’s a bean-to-bar chocolate maker producing some insanely good chocolate? Mike Orlando of Twenty-Four Blackbirds is DIY to the nthIn 2010 Mike, his girlfriend Elaine, and his sister Gina started Twenty-Four Blackbirds.

Who: Jana Kinsman What: Bike a Bee Where: Chicago, Illinois Whenever I’m lucky enough to see beekeeper Jana Kinsman, she’s always sharing something with me: half her cookie, knowledge about bikes, butter and bees or an adorable, hand-drawn doodle. Jana is an illustrator, beekeeper and graphic designer in Chicago.

Who: Jon Carpenter What: Sugar & Salt Creamery Where: Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California I’ve spotted a curious blue short bus all over Santa Barbara lately, always surrounded by happy kids munching on ice cream. My curiosity finally got the better of me, and that’s when I discovered Sugar & Salt Creamery and its founder, Jon Carpenter. Jon, together with a small team, creates creamy sorbet from sprouted almond milk and local, organic produce. Yes!

Who: Peggy Smith and Sue Conley, owners of Cowgirl Creamery Where: Petaluma, California On a sunny Thursday morning I got in my car and headed out to the quiet back roads of Petaluma, California. I was on my way to talk to some gals about cheese. Not just any gals, but Peggy Smith and Sue Conley, the well-respected owners of Cowgirl Creamery. You may have heard of Cowgirl Creamery before. Maybe you’ve slathered their popular Mt.

Who: Mike Bancroft of Co-op Sauce What: Hot sauce on a mission! Fifty percent of Co-op Sauce proceeds go to fund nonprofit arts and culinary education programs around Chicago. Where: Chicago, Illinois As someone who likes her chilaquiles soggy with salsa and needs more than cheese on my enchiladas, I was interested when Co-op Hot Sauce starting popping up all over Chicago.

Who: Lynn Shore What: Urban Herbology Where: Amsterdam, The Netherlands As a person who loves cooking and exploring new ingredients, I’m a little ashamed to admit that this city girl can’t tell her daylilly from her damsons or her meadowsweet from her mugwort. (Apparently that’s a plant and not the name of Harry Potter’s school!

Who: Aaron Olson and Kim Anderson What: Handlebar Coffee Where: Santa Barbara, California It’s no accident former competitive cyclists Aaron Olson and Kim Andersen are running a wonderful micro roaster in Santa Barbara: they’re used to training hard, crazy physical demands, and diehard determination. In fact, the qualities that made them star athletes have helped turn them into the star small business owners of Handlebar Coffee.

Name: Teeny Lamothe, pie baker extraordinaire and aspiring small business owner Location: Washington, DC Last month Apartment Therapy introduced you to 29-year-old pie baker Teeny Lamoth and her adorable apartment in Woodley Park. When we learned that Teeny went on a cross-country “pie tour” and apprenticed herself to pie shops along the way, we had to know more!

Who: Francesco Bagnoli What: Cheesemaker Where: Lamporecchio, Tuscany, Italy A few months ago I found myself in Italy at the top of a hill at dusk, surrounded by olive trees and nibbling fresh cheese made by a blonde curly-haired man straight out of a Renaissance painting. “Is this heaven?” I pondered. There is something truly idyllic about I Due Falcetti, a small artisanal cheesemaking operation in Tuscany run by Francesco Bagnoli.

Who: Maria Margolies and Danniel Swatosh What: Heartbeet Juicery, a cold-pressed, organic, raw, locally-sourced juice and smoothie company Where: New York City For the last 12 years former professional dancer Maria Margolies has practiced and taught Ashtanga yoga. During that time that she developed an interest in juicing and began making her own cold-pressed fruit and vegetable juice, which her friends loved.

Who: Greg D’Alesandre of Dandelion Chocolate What: Bean-to-bar chocolate bars and pastries Where: Mission District, San Francisco, California What happens when a few friends, former engineers and tech industry pros come together over their love of chocolate? They create Dandelion Chocolate Company, a bean-to-bar chocolate factory in San Francisco.

Who: Charlie and Helen Robb of Robb Farm Sugar House What: Makers of pure Vermont maple syrup Where: Brattleboro, Vermont Early April is mud season in Vermont, as I discovered when I drove up there last week. Powering through the wet, muddy roads (yay for all-wheel drive!) and seriously questioning Apple’s GPS navigation, I’d almost given up when I saw the plume of smoke rising from a wooded house in the distance. Wood burning fire?

Yesterday I showed you how maple syrup is made on the Robb family farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. While I was touring the farm, I learned a few surprising things about maple syrup. Did you know, for example, that you don’t have to throw away maple syrup if it gets a little mold on it? Here’s what you should do instead, and other surprising facts about this sweet syrup. If you’re wondering why pure maple syrup is pricey, here’s your answer.

Who: Mary Ting Hyatt What: Bagelsaurus, a twice-a-week micro bagel-bakery currently selling out of sandwich shop Cutty’s in Brookline Where: Boston, Massachusetts Ask Mary Ting Hyatt what makes a good bagel, and she’ll give you a very specific answer: “A shiny, crisp, crackly crust that has great chew, but not necessarily dense.

Who: The village of Sa Chau What: Fish sauce Where: Sa Chau, Nam Dinh, Vietnam In Vietnam, it’s common for entire villages to be occupied in making one thing. Bat Trang village makes pottery. Chuong village makes the famous conical hats called “non.” Phu Do is the home of rice noodles. And, as we saw yesterday in a profile of fish sauce makers Vu Thi Hoa and Vu Van Hai, Sa Chau, a small town off the coast of northern Vietnam, makes fish sauce.

Giant wheels of Comté cheese measure three feet across and clock in at 80 pounds by the time they’ve made it through months of aging and are ready to eat. But each one of those hefty rounds starts out right here, with these lovely ladies. These are Montbéliardes, the main breed of cow responsible for producing all the milk that goes into a wheel of Comté cheese. If they look a bit confused, it’s only because we interrupted their breakfast.

Making Comté isn’t all chomping on wildflowers and gazing dreamily at the yonder rolling hillsides. Every twenty-four hours, the milk from those happy cows goes off to the cheesemaker — called a fruitière in this part of France — to be made into fresh wheels of Comté. This, my cheese-loving friends, is where the magic happens. You have to get up early if you want to make Comté cheese.

We’ve talked about the milk used to make Comté and we’ve talked about how that milk is turned into cheese. Now we’re at the end of the journey: the mighty cheese caves, where rounds of Comté are aged for anywhere from four months to several years. Walking into the affineur, I was struck by two things: the pungent, earthy aroma of gracefully aging Comté and the floor to ceiling vista of nothing but cheese. Cheese as far as the eye could see. This was heaven.

Who: Greg Laketek of West Loop Salumi What: Salumi Where: Chicago, IL Greg Laketek grew up spending his summers in northern Italy surrounded by family, beautiful scenery and all the other things that make you wonder why you haven’t packed your bags and played out your own version of Under the Tuscan Sun. “My grandfather would take me around to his friends’ farms where they would make salumi, cheese, bread, wine — that’s what I remember growing up.

Who: Greg Laketek of West Loop Salumi What: Salumi Where: Chicago, IL Yesterday we talked with Greg Laketek of West Loop Salumi in Chicago. Greg left his job and made a flying leap into making authentic Italian salumi right in Chicago. Here’s a look at how West Loop makes their salumi, and how they think about the process. Much of West Loop Salumi is made with one hundred percent certified Heritage Berkshire pigs. Grass fed beef is imported from California for year-round access.

Who: Hoang Tra My and Chuong Sy Chi What: Vietnamese tofu Where: Mo village in southeastern Hanoi, Vietnam In the southeast of Hanoi, not too far from the banks of the Red River, there’s a little village famous for its tofu. Bags of soybeans grown in Russia, the U.S,, and China come in, and wrinkly blocks of rich, flavorful tofu leave by the wide-mouthed basketful for restaurants, wet markets, and street corners around the city.

What: Vietnamese tofu Where: Mo village in southeastern Hanoi, Vietnam Read the first post: The Ingenious Way That Tofu Is Made in Vietnam Tofu seems to get a bad rap in the Western world. People see it as a pitiful meat substitute reserved for sallow-skinned vegetarians, who must be lacking nutrition and other options to eat mushy white tastelessness. I hate to admit it, but even as a vegetarian, I kind of agreed with them, because I didn’t know how to cook it.

What: Vietnamese tofu Where: Mo village in southeastern Hanoi, Vietnam Read the series → Part One and Part Two Hoang Tra My has eaten tofu every day since she married into a tofu-making family 27 years ago, and she hasn’t gotten sick of it yet. Tofu is a versatile and delicious high-protein food that can be made from just three ingredients. Here are four reasons you should try to make your own tofu at home.

Who: Happy Leaf Kombucha What: Organic, small-batch kombucha and taproom Where: Denver, Colorado’s River North Art District Read the series: Part One Do you remember your first impression of kombucha, that famous fermented tea? Or perhaps you haven’t tried it yet and have a few questions: What’s it made of? What does it taste like? And — what everyone always wants to know — what exactly is that hazy blob suspended within the drink?

Who: Jenni Lyons and Mike Burns of Happy Leaf Kombucha What: Organic, small-batch kombucha and taproom Where: Denver, Colorado’s River North Art District Read the series: Part One and Part Two Maybe you haven’t tasted it, but at least you’ve heard about kombucha by now. Some of us are even brewing it at home. Emma shared a detailed tutorial on how to make kombucha that gave me a little more confidence to try making it myself.

Who: Happy Leaf Kombucha What: Organic, small-batch kombucha and taproom Where: Denver, Colorado’s River North Art District Read the series → Part One, Part Two, Part Three Last week I visited Happy Leaf Kombucha, a small-batch kombucha brewery in Denver. Over the course of my visit I learned a few things about kombucha that I hadn’t known before, including the fact that you can eat scobys! (Say what? Yes, it’s true.) Here’s what I learned from visiting the pros.

Advice from: Mike Burns and Jenni Lyons of Happy Leaf Kombucha Read the series → Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four I sat down with Mike and Jenni of Happy Leaf Kombucha and asked them how they creatively use kombucha in their kitchen. Which foods naturally pair best with its flavor profile? How did they incorporate kombucha into recipes? Their eyes immediately lit up as they shared their favorite ways to use kombucha. Kombucha-braised chuck roast? Kombucha frozen yogurt floats?

Who: Mach Thi Hien and Ng Tun Tam What: Bún, Vietnamese rice vermicelli noodles Where: Phú Đô village in southwest Hanoi In Hanoi, food is typically named based on the form of rice it’s served with: cơm for simple steamed rice, phở for thick rice noodles, or bún for vermicelli-sized white rice noodles. Bún (pronounced something like “boon?

Who: Hanson Watkins, owner of Indie Candy What: Big-Eight Allergen-Free Confectioners Where: Birmingham, Alabama Hanson Watkins knows a thing or two about the candy business. “There used to be a candy maker in every town in the United States – maybe two,” she explains, as we walk through the triple-storefront workspace of her company, Indie Candy. “Now most of the candy in the US is made by one of three companies, and it’s all done on an industrial scale.

Who: Hanson Watkins What: Indie Candy, allergen-free confectioner Where: Birmingham, Alabama At Indie Candy, the brainchild of Birmingham’s Hanson Watkins, “nothing is simple,” due to the many restrictions placed on her Big Eight allergen-free candy line. These allergens include milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans and shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy — with sesame thrown in for good measure.

Who: Hanson Watkins, Confectioner What: Indie Candy, Big-Eight Allergen-Free Confectionary Where: Birmingham, Alabama Hanson Watkins, proprietress of Indie Candy, knows her way around a confectionary shop. And unlike a large commercial operation — with super-speed computerized equipment that turns out 25,000 pounds of chocolate per run — she makes highly specialized, limited-quantity candy, and prefers to work with equipment that has stood the test of time.

Who: Tucker Pecan Company What: Southern Pecans Where: Montgomery, Alabama In 1952 Monroe Tucker started selling in-shell pecans alongside fresh produce at a curb stand in Montgomery, Alabama, writing the first lines of Tucker Pecan Company’s “nutty” story.

Who: Tucker Pecan Company What: Southern Pecans Where: Montgomery, Alabama For more than 60 years, Montgomery’s Tucker Pecan Company has been providing people all over the South and the country with premium pecans and pecan products. It all begins with a bright-green orb hanging from a tree branch. Tracts of land lined with rows of pecan trees — their leaf-covered branches forming a canopy that blocks out most of the sun — are common sights on rural highways in the South.

Who: Tucker Pecan Company What: Southern Pecans Where: Montgomery, Alabama Tucker Pecan Company scouts out the best Southeastern pecans to buy, and then shells them and sells them plain. But it also roasts and salts them, smothers them in chocolate, glazes them with honey, uses them to make crunchy coatings for candies, bakes them up in pies, and more.

Who: Tucker Pecan Company What: Southern pecans Where: Montgomery, Alabama Whether you pronounce it pee-can or puh-con, there’s a good chance you’ll be enjoying this nut, native to the South, in at least a few sweet treats as we approach the holiday season. Pecans and chocolate (or caramel, or honey) are great together. At Tucker Pecan Company, they’re a match made in heaven.