Alyssa Gilbert likes the taste of a funky cheese. As the executive director of the California Artisan Cheese Guild and the owner of Ollie’s American Cheese and Provisions, Gilbert recommends Tulip Tree Creamery’s double-cream cow’s milk Foxglove. “It will give you that orange-color rind,” Gilbert told me. “It’s sticky and it’s smelly.”
Gilbert describes washed-rind cheeses as the hamburgers of the cheese world. She eats them unadorned, but for those reluctant to try them she recommends pairing these stinky cheeses with hamburger condiments. “Pickles, onion jam or mustard,” she suggested. “Really anything that complements it and will tone it way, way down.”
Ollie’s makes a sandwich of the week, curates a cheese-of-the-month club, and holds events and workshops. At the cheese-pairing classes, Gilbert said she always pairs a washed-rind cheese with mustard and a cornichon. “Ninety nine percent of the time, one person in each class will say, ‘This tastes like a picnic,’ because the combinations really help each other out,” she said.
Even though cheeses are perpetually stocked on supermarket shelves, they are actually a seasonal product. “The milk type essentially is going to be the biggest indicator of seasonality,” Gilbert said. Cows produce milk year round. But small batch artisan goat’s and sheep’s milk cheeses are made in late February and early March. “We have what’s called ‘kidding season,’ which is when all the baby sheep and baby goats are born,” Gilbert said. Thus spring is the best season to buy those fresh, high-quality cheeses.
Goat’s milk, Gilbert said, is bright white. “Cow’s milk cheese, that’s when you’re going to get a bit of yellowing,” she said. Goats don’t process beta carotene in the same way cows do, which accounts for the difference in color. Taste-wise, goat’s milk is more lactic, “fresh-milk tasting,” with bright, lemony notes. “Sometimes the aged goat’s cheeses are going to be on the chalkier side, in terms of mouthfeel,” Gilbert said. “Where cow’s milk cheeses are more buttery, nutty, grassy.”
Gilbert’s grandfather was a farmer by trade. She grew up with “the love of the land and food and where it comes from”—but cheese has always been her favorite food. When she decided to leave her full-time job in 2019, she designed a catering concept to highlight the many varieties of American cheese. In January 2020 she quit her job and began operating out of a commercial kitchen. The timing coincided with the pandemic.
What started as a scary transition as a new business owner turned into Ollie’s silver lining. “We ended up tailoring the offerings to that new way of life,” Gilbert said. “We did a lot of virtual cheeseboard and cheese-tasting workshops.” Ollie’s shipped its products across the country to corporate office teams with corporate budgets. Customers ordered cheeseboards to have them delivered to their houses or as gifts for friends and family.
With the catering business established, Gilbert pursued finding a brick-and-mortar. “I always had this romantic idea of owning a cheese shop,” she said. She found a former coffee shop in downtown Oakland with a kitchen and a retail space. This dual-purpose business model meant she could continue catering while also selling provisions—cheese, sandwiches, cookbooks, condiments and coffee.
“Coming off of the pandemic, I knew that based on our location foot traffic was really, really low and I didn’t anticipate it picking up anytime soon,” Gilbert said. She came up with a lunch menu to encourage people downtown to come in. “A really simple lunch menu and coffee program seemed like the right way to do that.”
Ollie’s American Cheese and Provisions, 396 11th St., Oakland. Open Tue-Fri, 11am to 6pm and Sat, 11am to 3pm. olliesamericancheeseandprovisions.com
