Boss Mouse Cheese in March 2015 Traverse Magazine

The March 2015 edition of Traverse Magazine has a very nice feature by Tom Carr on Sue Kurta and Boss Mouse Cheese. It begins:

Sue Kurta’s farm could easily serve as inspiration for a Beatrix Potter illustration. Here, at this peaceful, 150-year-old homestead near Kingsley, cats romp through the green grass, and a phalanx of hens serves as a roaming entourage for Roosty, the 
proud rooster who rules the coop. And here is where Kurta, a self-proclaimed punk/farm girl hybrid who grew up in the Detroit suburbs, makes Boss Mouse cheese. Find the original story in the March 2015 issue ofTraverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine.

Kurta’s cheeses are a hit at the farmers markets in Traverse City and are sold at the Blue Goat, Oryana, and other gourmet and natural food stores nearby. Brewery Vivant in Grand Rapids lists Boss Mouse cheese on its menu, and The Produce Station in Ann Arbor sells her smoked butter. Just in the past year, increased sales have allowed Kurta to quit her job as a secretary at an insurance company and make cheese full time. And she’s even hired a couple of part-time employees to help.

And at the moment, she’s also doing her own part to keep up with demand. She unloads 12-gallon cans of Moomers milk—pasteurized but not homogenized—and moves them around with an electric ceiling winch her father, Mike Kurta, designed for her.

In a white and stainless steel kitchen, deploying the alchemy of enzymes, select microbes and heat, she turns the milk into the curds for cheddar, Swiss and montasio cheeses, or Brie if the spirit moves her. Montasio is a mild Italian cheese she uses as the base for most of her flavored cheeses, including herbs de Provence, black pepper or Sriracha Jack.

Read on for lots more and some great photos!