Ewenity

Lovely as it is to indulge in a French brie, a Greek feta or a Spanish manchego, imported isn't necessarily better when it comes to cheese. Look closely, and you'll find some wonderful stuff made close to home.

A good place to start if you're looking for a lovely Ontario cheese is with some of the great sheep milk stuff made by Ewenity Dairy Co-operative and Best Baa Dairy. Though based in Conn, Ontario, just outside of Arthur, the dairy's plant and store -- where you'll find their full repertoire of cheese (as well as milk, ice cream and yogurt) -- are just up the road in Fergus.

The milk itself comes from seven or eight farmers who together make up the Ewenity co-op. Many are Mennonite farmers from the Kincardine area. The co-op formed seven or eight years ago when Elisabeth and Eric Bzikot, English farmers by way of Manitoba, moved to the Conn area to milk sheep and settle into "semi-retirement."

So much for that. Now, they're running a busy little operation along with the help of their son Peter and his wife Nicole, a self-professed city girl who bought cheese from her husband at the St. Lawrence Market until he finally asked her out -- "Then I sold my little condo and here I am," she tells me over the phone from their home in Conn.

Though the farmers in the co-op are clearly interested in selling their milk, they're not necessarily interested in the production, marketing and sales of the product. So the processing and development is left to Best Baa Dairy, the Bzikots themselves. Elisabeth is the cheesemaker (she and Eric also look after the flock, even growing their own feed); Peter and Nicole handle the business side of things.

"My mother-in-law is Swiss-German and my father-in-law is Polish," explains Nicole. "They both have family memories of making cheeses. Elisabeth is very adventurous. She's developed such a great product line. Some things have fallen by the wayside along the way because they're not excellent, and others have really stood strong."

Among the cleverly-named products available: Ramembert (a camembert-style cheese), Sheep in the Meadow (a gorgeous fresh cheese rolled in herbes de provence), Eweda, an aged, semi-hard cheese and a Greek-style feta. Most cheeses are available either in raw milk or pasteurized form. Interestingly, Bzikot says people often opt for raw milk given the choice.

Nicole's personal favourite is Mouton Rouge, a firm, washed-rind, raw milk cheese aged 60 days. "It's caught on all over the place," she says. "It's kind of a comfort cheese, but not stinky. You don't have to be tough to enjoy it. It's palatable for a variety of people."

As for farming philosophy, Elisabeth, says Nicole, "treats her livestock like family. Even though we're not certified organic, we're really good to our animals. They have an excellent life. The boys' lives aren't as long, unfortunately, because they end up going for meat."

Next on the agenda for the folks at Best Baa is to delve further into ice cream. Before, it was more of a passive project but they recently received a grant, invested in a machine, and are experimenting with new flavours. "It's really good," Nicole says. "There's a huge market of people who are intolerant of cow's milk, so we're excited about it."

Despite the tightening of budgets, Nicole says they've found that "cheese is one of those things people don't skimp on." Indeed, she says, they remain as popular as ever at farmers markets (they're at several across Toronto, as well as in Guelph), which they particularly enjoy because "it's an opportunity for us to chat with people and visit with friends."

Though they're not yet selling at the markets in Waterloo region, the Kitchener market, Nicole says, is one they "might consider."

And though you'd have to head up to Fergus to find the full scope of Ewenity's products, you can find select items at several locations in the area, including Vincenzo's and Nougat Bakery and Delicatessen, both in Kitchener, and a handful of health food stores.

Check out www.ewenity.com and click on Where to Buy for a more extensive list.
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