{"id":1889,"date":"2024-09-24T04:26:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T04:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/cheese-shops-we-love-beautiful-rind\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T04:26:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T04:26:18","slug":"cheese-shops-we-love-beautiful-rind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/cheese-shops-we-love-beautiful-rind\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheese Shops We Love: Beautiful Rind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor\u2019s note: We are pleased to welcome contributor Elisa Shoenberger and to feature Randall Felts who is not only the owner of Beautiful Rind but was also one of our inaugural judges of the <\/em>NY International Cheese Competition<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Location<\/strong><\/h2>\n

2211 N Milwaukee Ave<\/p>\n

Chicago, IL 60647<\/p>\n

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\"Randell

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Randell Felts photo courtesy of Beautiful Rind<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Good Cheese by Good People<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Randall Felts got his start at a fine dining California Cuisine restaurant in the South with a farm-to-table mentality. For him, he loved the cheese board part of his job and worked in the kitchen for two years. He loved the storytelling aspect of cheese, seeing it as a perfect storm of a liberal arts education: \u201ccheese is as much a product of chemistry and biology, but there’s also so much history and culture intertwined with it.\u201d He decided to take the plunge into cheese retailing working at Whole Foods<\/strong> and later moved to Chicago and worked at Pastoral<\/strong>. However, he was surprised that there wasn\u2019t a bigger cheese scene, especially given Chicago\u2019s proximity to dairies in Wisconsin and Iowa.<\/p>\n

Felts eventually decided to open up his own cheese shop to help educate people about the wonderful world of cheese as well as to try to make cheese mongering a more sustainable profession by paying a higher living wage. Their food inspection was the day before the Illinois Governor ordered the shelter-in-place due to the coronavirus. After soul searching and talking with cheese producers and others in the industry, he decided to open Beautiful Rind<\/a> in April 2020. Dining in-store wasn\u2019t possible but delivery and retail cheese were.<\/p>\n

The philosophy of the shop is \u201cGood cheese by good people.\u201d They want to highlight producers that are doing good work, such as Nettle Meadow Farm<\/a> that also functions as an animal sanctuary. Or cheese producers that treat their employees and animals well. But of course, the cheese has to taste good.<\/p>\n

In addition to making cheese boards and sandwiches, Beautiful Rind has a weekly or bimonthly cheese club and holds both virtual and in-person cheese classes. For Felts, education is a key component of Beautiful Rind since people can be intimidated by cheese, thinking there are lots of rules. The cheese club in particular relishes in silly jokes because people \u201care not going to be as intimidated when the person that’s selling you the fancy food is making jokes,\u201d Felts said.<\/p>\n

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\"Beautiful

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Beautiful Rind interior photo by William Kallenborn<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Shop<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The store is a rectangle with white colored walls and a giant L shaped counter with wooden accents. The long part of the L is made up of the giant cheese case with three shelves of cheeses. Next to the cheese case\u00a0 is a counter with high top chairs for bar seating. The other part of the counter, the short part of the L, is where staff prepare food, like sandwiches. Near the cheese case is a wall with arched shelves that contain an assortment of wines as well as two refrigerators filled with cheese, beer, and other perishables. The bulk of the space is filled with wooden tables for dine-in. <\/p>\n

During Covid, they did take-out and limited delivery and even curbside. Even now, all staff wear masks. Now they are fully open to in-store and sidewalk dining along with in-person cheese classes. <\/p>\n

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Top-selling Cheeses <\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\"Prairie

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Prairie Breeze photo courtesy Milton Creamery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prairie Breeze Cheddar<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This cheddar is Iowa-based Milton Creamery<\/a>\u2019s best-selling cheese. It\u2019s a Mennonite cooperative so it\u2019s supporting a vanishing way of life, Felts said, as well as supporting small-scale farming in the state. It\u2019s on the bigger side of the cheese producers that Beautiful Rind normally has but the story is great. The cheddar has those crunchy crystals, Tyrosine crystals, with a sweet and sour sort of flavor. Felts recommends, \u201cmeil de piloncillo to bring out the citrus notes in the chili and woodsy notes in the cinnamon.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\"Brillat

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Brillat Savarin photo by William Kallenborn<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0Brillat Savarin<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Not many cheeses are named for writers but Brillat-Savarin is named for French writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who is known for the quotation: \u201cTell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.\u201d It\u2019s a triple creme brie that\u2019s gooey. While Prairie Breeze hits that comfort button, Felts said, Brillat-Savarin hits that luxurious button. It accounts for one third of their cheese plates. It\u2019s great spread on bread, or eaten with figs or fig jam, or just by itself.<\/p>\n

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\"Ch\u00e8vre

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Ch\u00e8vre photo credit Jack Li<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blakesville Chevre<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This Wisconsin-based chevre comes from Blakesville Dairy Farm<\/a> using sustainable farming practices. This cheese is the classic soft goat cheese without the gamey taste of goat that some folks may associate with fresh cheese, Felts said. It\u2019s a cheese that melts in your mouth plus its great cheese with great animal husbandry. Felts recommends putting it uncooked on \u201csalads, toast\/bruschetta, or crumbled over grilled\/poached stone fruits\/peaches\u201d because of its great texture.<\/p>\n

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\"Cheese

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Cheese Platter photo courtesy of Beautiful Rind<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also Look For<\/strong><\/h3>\n

They have a nice wall of affordable wines, including a nice selection of sparkling wines. Special mention is their dessert wine Sauternes from the Bordeaux region of France. Also, they\u2019ve got a nice array of crackers and sweets to accompany the cheese. Also, their freshly made fried cheese curds are top-notch. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: We are pleased to welcome contributor Elisa Shoenberger and to feature Randall Felts who is not only the owner of Beautiful Rind but was also one of our inaugural judges of the NY International Cheese Competition. Location 2211 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago, IL 60647 \u00a0 Randell Felts photo courtesy of Beautiful Rind Good … Okumaya devam et “Cheese Shops We Love: Beautiful Rind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}