On a February morning when the thermometer reads 12 below zero, the work of dairying doesn’t slow down—it intensifies. “Cows actually do better in the cold,” says farmer and cheesemaker Becky Collins Brooks of Hilltop Farm in Accord. “But in order to keep their body heat up, you have to keep food in their system.” That means constant feeding and vigilance on the farm. For Collins Brooks, the rhythms of winter chores—checking animals, hauling feed, managing the fermentation engine of a cow’s rumen—are simply the background conditions of a life organized around milk.
That milk, in turn, sits at the center of an upcoming event she’s helping bring to Rosendale. On March 21, the Rosendale will host Cheese the Day, a daylong gathering of cheesemakers, affineurs (expert cheese ager), distributors, and enthusiasts from across the region. The event is both a celebration of artisan cheese and a fundraiser supporting two organizations working to strengthen the state’s dairy ecosystem: the New York State Cheese Council and the Meeting of the Milkmaids, a network Collins Brooks founded to connect and support women in the cheese industry.
The day unfolds in two parts. In the morning, cheese professionals from across New York will convene at the Rosendale Municipal Center for the New York State Cheese Council’s annual conference, including panel discussions about the craft, business, and distribution of artisan cheese. In the afternoon, the focus shifts to the Rosendale Theater, where attendees will watch the documentary Shelf Life, a contemplative film that explores the parallels between aging cheese and the passage of human time. Each ticket holder will receive a curated cheese tasting box to enjoy during the screening, followed by a panel discussion featuring experts from across the cheese world.
For Collins Brooks, the event represents more than a pleasant afternoon of dairy appreciation. It is part of a broader effort to build community and infrastructure around artisan cheesemaking—an industry that, despite its romantic image, requires extraordinary technical skill, capital, and regulatory navigation.
“It’s incredibly complicated from the minute the milk hits the pail or the vat,” she says. “How the milk is handled, the cultures that are added, the rennet, the salt—all of those things affect the final product.” Even a simple wedge of cheese carries a complex chain of decisions: microbial cultures that guide fermentation, molds that shape flavor and texture, and aging environments carefully managed for temperature and humidity.
Cheese also carries deep historical roots. For millennia it served as a durable source of nutrition in places where fresh food was scarce—among nomadic herders on the Mongolian plains, desert pastoralists making camel milk cheeses, and farmers throughout Europe. The craft became embedded in regional food cultures, giving rise to iconic products tied to specific landscapes. Roquefort must age in caves in southern France where a particular mold thrives; Parmigiano Reggiano can only be produced in a defined region of northern Italy.
That relationship between food and place, terroir, is part of what draws modern cheesemakers to the craft. “Everything has a unique flavor because of where it comes from,” Collins Brooks says. “Cheese captures that.”
Her own path into organizing the cheese community began unexpectedly. In 2022, she underwent major ankle surgery that required a long recovery away from farm work. Looking for a way to stay connected to the world she loved, she began reaching out to women cheesemakers she admired online. What emerged was the first Meeting of the Milkmaids, hosted on her farm in 2023 and attended by 36 women working across the cheese profession.
The gathering quickly grew. By the following year it had moved to High Lawn Farm in Lee, Massachusetts—a historic dairy operation founded by a member of the Vanderbilt family and still run by women today. The annual event now draws cheesemakers, farmers, retailers, and educators from across North America for a day of talks, tours, and a communal tasting in which each participant brings a cheese made by or connected to women in the industry.
The Milkmaids initiative also helped spark another development: the formation of the New York State Cheese Council. During that first gathering, cheesemaker Rachel Banks of Eden Valley Creamery circulated sign-up sheets to gauge interest in a statewide guild. Within a year the organization had launched, creating a network designed to support training, marketing, and knowledge-sharing among cheese professionals across the state.
The partnership behind Cheese the Day reflects the natural overlap between the two efforts. “When you work together, really great things can happen,” Collins Brooks says.
The event’s speaker lineup reflects the diversity of the cheese world. Participants include Josh Windsor of Murray’s Cheese, known for his work in the company’s famed aging caves; Amye Gulezian of High Lawn Farm, who oversees both cheesemaking and business operations; Olivia Haver, an affineur managing the caves at Vermont’s Von Trapp Farmstead; journalist and World Cheese Awards judge Christine Jannuzzi; and cheesemaker Steve Messmer of Lively Run Dairy in the Finger Lakes. Taken together, the group represents the many stages of cheese’s journey—from milk production and fermentation to aging, distribution, and retail.
For Collins Brooks, the hope is that attendees will come away with a deeper appreciation for the community behind a familiar food. “People will realize how many knowledgeable and creative people are right around them,” she says. “The person behind the cheese counter at a shop might have an incredible amount of knowledge.”
In other words, Cheese the Day isn’t just about tasting good cheese. It’s about recognizing the network of farmers, makers, retailers, and educators who sustain an ancient craft—and discovering that many of them are closer to home than you might think.
