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I'm Tommy, AppyHour's cheesemonger. Here's an insider's look at what you're getting in our Fall Harvest Box — the most anticipated curation of the year.
By
Tommy, AppyHour Cheesemonger | Updated this week
Every year this is the box people ask about before I've even finished building it. The Fall Harvest Box is the one I look forward to most, too. It's warm, a little sweet, heavy on the spice — the closest thing we make all year to New England in October. Let me open it up and show you what's inside.
Adirondacks, New York
Fromage frais is a fresh cheese — no rind, no aging, just drained curd whipped smooth — so every flavor in it was put there by hand. Here that's real pumpkin, honey and maple syrup, then cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove.
What makes it work is the milk. It's goat and cow together: the goat brings bright, tangy acidity, the cow brings fat and a more luscious, creamier body. Most spiced fall spreads go sweet and stay there. This one finishes clean, which is exactly why you keep going back to it.
If you could put the whole season on a spoon, this is it. It comes from an award-winning cheese farm in the Adirondacks that doubles as an animal sanctuary — the retired and rescued animals live out their lives right alongside the working herd. It's back for a limited time, and it's the first thing gone every year.
I don't have to sell anyone on this one. It shows up in members' notes on its own:
Shelburne, Vermont
Shelburne Farms is a nonprofit working farm and education center on Lake Champlain, and they make some of my favorite cheddars in the country. For this one they went across town to Fiddlehead Brewing and used their flagship IPA.
Here's the part I like: the beer goes in twice. First into the vat, where the fresh curds marinate in it before they're ever pressed into blocks. Then again after the block is formed — more beer, sealed in with the cheese so it keeps pulling in hops and aroma across six months of aging.
You get hoppy, floral, faintly yeasty notes running through a sharp, earthy Vermont cheddar — and it's creamier than a cheddar with that much age usually is. Two towns in Vermont, one cheese. It doesn't get much more fall-in-New-England than that.
Vermont
A fennel salami made in Vermont by artisans trained in the salumi traditions of Umbria. Sweet, aromatic fennel seed and garlic lift the richness of the pork, and a long, careful aging gives it a firm-but-tender bite with a subtle tang. The outside is coated in coarse-ground fennel — you'll smell it the moment you open it.
Fennel salami is the kind of thing people think they won't like until it's in front of them. Then this happens:
Lonza is the whole pork loin — one lean muscle, salted and cured until it's firm and silken. Nothing ground, nothing stuffed. Delicate and faintly sweet, and light enough that it never competes with the salami sitting next to it.
Sliced as close to paper-thin as you can manage, it practically dissolves. It's one of the first things gone off the board around here.
Ripe pears cooked down slowly with vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice until the sugars caramelize. That's the whole thing — no shortcut, no thickened fruit syrup.
This is the most nostalgic thing in the box. Warm spice and caramel is the smell of a kitchen in October, and this jam gets there without ever going sweet enough to take over a bite — which is exactly why it works on everything here, the cheddar and the salami and the fromage frais alike. Small batches, made for the season only.
Sweet-tart cranberries wrapped in rich dark chocolate. Tangy fruit, deep cocoa, and just enough bitterness to keep them from being candy. They disappear on their own, but they earn their place next to a spiced cheese.
The Fine Cheese Co. · Bath, England
These come from a company that makes crackers for a living because they sell cheese for a living — and it shows. Ground walnut, a little honey, a little brown sugar and good olive oil, baked golden and snappy. Honestly, they land closer to a cookie than a cracker; the honey-and-brown-sugar thing will remind you of a graham cracker.
They're sturdy, which matters more than people think — you can load one with whipped fromage frais and it won't fold on you. And that faint sweetness sits under every single thing in this box.
Crackers are the part nobody expects to have an opinion about. And then:
This isn't everything. You'll also get a bonus artisan cheese and small-batch jam, matched to each other by us — things like Baked Lemon Ricotta with blackberry balsamic, or Manchego Aurora with caramelized fig and pear. And it isn't a one-time thing — you'll get a bonus cheese and jam pairing in every box, for life.
Every combination in this box is written out for you in your personalized tasting guide. I even throw in wine pairing suggestions so you can make a whole evening out of it.