Garden Variety Cheese

Rebecca King is the founder and owner of Garden Variety Cheese. She became interested in dairying and cheesemaking in college with a job on a small goat cheese dairy in Santa Cruz County. After college she worked on a number of small organic farms and then went on to attend the California Culinary Academy and work as a chef. In 2007 she purchased 50 dairy ewes from Wisconsin and started developing her sheep cheese business. Garden Variety Cheese in Northern Monterey County became a licensed and inspected dairy in early 2009. Since then Rebecca King and her small crew have been milking about 100 sheep and making raw milk cheese, sheep yogurt and fresh cheeses for sale in the Bay Area through farmers markets and small stores and restaurants. They use only fresh milk from their flock, so the production of yogurt and fresh cheeses is limited to about 10 months of the year with a break in late fall when the sheep are dry. Fresh production begins again with the birth of new lambs starting in November and December each year.

For more information see www.gardenvarietycheese.com