Peggy Smith is the co-founder of Cowgirl Creamery along with Sue Conley. [1] [2]
Both women are credited with their role in developing Northern California's artisan cheese industry. [3] In 2006, with Conley, she won a James Beard award in recognition for "significant and lasting achievements and contributions to the food and beverage industry for ten or more years." [4]
Smith attended the University of Tennessee, where she met Conley. [5] In 1976, the two women moved to San Francisco, where both took jobs in the restaurant industry. [6] Smith worked at Noe Valley Bar and Grill in San Francisco and Mount View Grill in Calistoga before she was hired to cook at the new upstairs cafe at Chez Panisse. [7] She worked at Chez Panisse for 17 years. [8] After leaving Chez Panisse, Smith moved to Point Reyes, California, where she and Conley founded Tomales Bay Foods with the intent of marketing and distributing foods made in the West Marin area. [9]
Smith co-founded Cowgirl Creamery, a manufacturer and distributor of artisan cheese, along with Conley. [10]
They founded the cheese-making company as a way of creating a product which showcased the organic milk produced by Albert Straus at Straus Family Creamery: "We saw the need to showcase great quality organic milk. The farm economy could not survive the state it was in, so we saw a need to preserve land in agriculture." [11]
Smith is a member of the California Artisan Cheese Guild. With Conley, she wrote Cowgirl Creamery Cooks. [12]
In 2016, Smith and Conley sold Cowgirl Creamery to Emmi, a Swiss dairy firm. [13]
Wensleydale is a style of cheese originally produced in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire, England, but now mostly made in large commercial creameries throughout the United Kingdom. The term "Yorkshire Wensleydale" can only be used for cheese that is made in Wensleydale. The style of cheese originated from a monastery of French Cistercian monks who had settled in northern England, and continued to be produced by local farmers after the monastery was dissolved in 1540. Wensleydale cheese fell to low production in the early 1990s, but its popularity was revitalized by frequent references in the Wallace and Gromit series.
Point Reyes Station is a small unincorporated town in western Marin County, California, United States. Point Reyes Station is located 13 miles (21 km) south-southeast of Tomales, at an elevation of 39 feet (12 m). Point Reyes Station is located along State Route 1 and is a gateway to the Point Reyes National Seashore, an extremely popular national preserve. The Point Reyes Station census-designated place (CDP) covers the unincorporated town and adjacent development to the north, with a total population of 895 as of the 2020 census.
The cuisine of California reflects the diverse culture of California and is influenced largely by European American, Hispanic American, East Asian and Oceanian influences, and Western European influences, as well as the food trends and traditions of larger American cuisine.
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine.
California cuisine is a food movement that originated in Northern California. The cuisine focuses on dishes that are driven by local and sustainable ingredients with an attention to seasonality and an emphasis on the bounty of the region.
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California restaurant, known as one of the originators of California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has developed a supply network of direct relationships with local farmers, ranchers and dairies.
California-style pizza is a style of pizza that combines New York and Italian thin crust with toppings from the California cuisine cooking style. Its invention is generally attributed to chef Ed LaDou, and Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. Wolfgang Puck, after meeting LaDou, popularized the style of pizza in the rest of the country. It is served in many California cuisine restaurants. California Pizza Kitchen, Round Table Pizza, Extreme Pizza, and Sammy's Woodfired Pizza are four major pizza franchises associated with California-style pizza.
Marshall is an unincorporated community in Marin County, California. It is located on the northeast shore of Tomales Bay 6 mi (9.7 km) south of Tomales, at an elevation of 25 ft (7.6 m).
Laura Chenel is a cheese maker who was America's first commercial producer of goat cheese, and helped to popularize goat cheese in America. In 1979, she began producing chèvre in the Bay Area town of Sebastopol, California, after a fact-finding trip to visit goat cheese producers in France. After several months of working to sell her product to local markets, she received her first major opportunity when Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California placed a standing order for her cheese in 1980. Waters listed the cheese by name on her menu, which provided Chenel with a great deal of publicity. Eventually, her operation would grow to sell over two million pounds of cheese per year. The company primarily manufactures fresh chèvre, although aged cheeses make up roughly 10% of its business. In 2006, Chenel sold the company to the Rians Groupfr, a French corporation which has purchased multiple small farming operations, while retaining ownership of her herd of five hundred goats.
Cowgirl Creamery is a company located in Point Reyes Station, California, which manufactures artisan cheeses. Founded in 1994, the company manufactures its own cheeses and sells other imported and domestic cheese and fine artisan foods. Its own cheeses include Red Hawk and Mt. Tam. Until April 2021, the company operated a storefront in the Ferry Building of San Francisco. Founders Peggy Smith and Sue Conley worked for years in the kitchens of the Bay Area, and Alice Waters' Chez Panisse, where Peggy worked for many years, is among many Bay Area establishments to incorporate cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery into its menu.
The Gourmet Ghetto is a colloquial name for the business district of the North Berkeley neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California, known as the birthplace of California cuisine. Other developments that can be traced to this neighborhood include specialty coffee, the farm-to-table and local food movements, the rise to popularity in the U.S. of chocolate truffles and baguettes, the popularization of the premium restaurant designed around an open kitchen, and the California pizza made with local produce. After coalescing in the mid-1970s as a culinary destination, the neighborhood received its "Gourmet Ghetto" nickname in the late 1970s from comedian Darryl Henriques. Early, founding influences were Peet's Coffee, Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective. Alice Medrich began her chain of Cocolat chocolate stores there.
The history of California bread as a prominent factor in the field of bread baking dates from the days of the California Gold Rush around 1849, encompassing the development of sourdough bread in San Francisco. It includes the rise of artisan bakeries in the 1980s, which strongly influenced what has been called the "Bread Revolution".
Capricious is an aged goat's milk cheese made by the Achadinha Cheese Company in Petaluma, California. It won "Best in Show" at the 2002 American Cheese Society awards.
Vegan cheese is a category of non-dairy, plant-based cheese analogues. Vegan cheeses range from soft fresh cheeses to aged and cultured hard grateable cheeses like plant-based Parmesan. The defining characteristic of vegan cheese is the exclusion of all animal products.
Sheana Davis is an American cheesemaker, chef, and culinary educator. She is the owner of the Epicurean Connection, in Sonoma, California, and is the creator of Delice de la Vallee cheese, along with other fresh cheeses. Davis is also the author of Buttermonger.
Sue Conley is the co-founder of Cowgirl Creamery along with Peggy Smith.
Miyoko Schinner is an American vegan chef, cookbook author, cooking show host, vegan activist, and social entrepreneur, who appears in the 2024 documentary, You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment. She is currently the host of the YouTube cooking show, The Vegan Good Life with Miyoko, and is working on her next cookbook, The Vegan Creamery, which will be released in 2025.
Namrata Sundaresan is an Indian social entrepreneur, chef and cheesemaker. She won the 2017 Nari Shakti Puraskar with Anuradha Krishnamoorthy.
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