Lessons From a Fondue Fête with Two Wisconsin Cheesemakers

Don’t fear the dinner party! Hosting is so much more fun when guests are welcomed into the kitchen. This is Dinner at Kat’s—our series wherein SAVEUR’s editor-in-chief Kat Craddock invites buzzy chefs, cookbook authors, and wine and spirits pros into her home for a day of cooking and connection. There’s no mystery behind throwing a successful dinner party. Find the menus, recipes, drinks, shopping tips, and tricks to make it happen right here.

It’s no secret that I will travel for cheese. I’m an editor, art director, and stylist, and my first media job was with Culture, a magazine all about cheese and the people who make it. Since then, I’ve styled bite-sized skewers for a futuristic cheeseboard in Boston, served as a judge at a Cheesemonger Invitational in San Francisco, and trekked out to The State of Cheese to interview Wisconsin cheesemakers. And this season, it was cheese that brought me to New York, where I wheeled a suitcase full of platters and fondue forks through the East Village—to SAVEUR editor-in-chief Kat Craddock’s Alphabet City apartment.

This is also where Orphee Paillotin and Paula Heimerl—two young Wisconsin-based cheesemakers—come in. For one of the two co-founders of Alpinage Cheese, a career in dairy was a somewhat unexpected pivot. Paula comes from six generations of cheesemakers. Her parents were the original founders of Saxon Creamery in Malone, and she spent much of her childhood helping her family on the farm, at the creamery, and in the aging cave. But up until recently, Orphee, who was born and raised in France, had been working in Milwaukee as an IT manager for a manufacturer of off-road hydraulics motors. A chance dive bar meet-cute brought the two together, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Orphee’s homesick cravings inspired the couple to start their own cheese business in 2020, and these days, in their new Oak Creek facility, they together churn out 11-pound wheels of Mount Raclette, a nutty, Alpine-style raw milk cheese. “Now that we have our own company,” Paula says, “what makes me happiest is knowing I'm carrying on my family’s legacy and the tradition of Wisconsin cheesemaking.”

When enjoying their flagship cheese, the pair gravitates toward classic, European-inspired preparations like fondue and raclette (the latter of which is both the word for the cheese itself and for the dish—molten raclette cheese, “raked” over potatoes, onions, and cornichons). “Watching raclette melt is like a theater performance,” says Paula. “It's just a beautiful way to gather around the dinner table and share the love of good food with your friends and family.” Coincidentally, Alpine dishes like these are inherently cozy (hello, après-ski) and they’re ideal for cold-weather entertaining. And because an abundance of cheese is as good a reason as any for a winter dinner party, Kat decided to throw one.

I wheeled my suitcase up to Kat’s place in the morning to start setting up for the party with chef and SAVEUR contributing editor Fatima Khawaja. Fatima threw on an apron and unloaded the bounty of local bread she’d picked up from a local bakery, while I started pulling plates, cheese boards, and linens from Kat’s collection. Meanwhile, Kat, Paula, and Orphee met up at the Union Square Greenmarket to run some last-minute errands. You can never have too many fondue dippers, so they grabbed assorted root vegetables, mushrooms, and brussels sprouts from Norwich Meadows Farm, Ramble Creek Farm, and Halal Pastures. A dairy-heavy meal is best balanced with a leafy green salad, so they also stopped by Campo Rosso Farm for a few winter chicories and edible flowers. 

On their way back to the apartment, Kat brought the cheesemakers into the Bedford Cheese Shop so that Orphee and Paula could spread the word about Mount Raclette. Bedfords’ mongers shared a few house favorites, and Kat grabbed some olives, pickles, and a wedge of Deer Creek Rattlesnake for pre-dinner snacking. 

By the time they arrived at Kat’s apartment, Fatima and I were in full-on party prep mode. Paula and Orphee got right to work in the kitchen, grating up a mix of their Mount Raclette and Roth’s Grand Cru Reserve for an Alpine-style fondue, while Kat melted down her own British-inspired version with zippy Carr Valley Cave Aged Cheddar, Worcestershire sauce, and a can of Sixpoint lager. 

While the rest of the gang put their finishing touches on dinner, I arranged a buffet station along Kat’s cookbook library using an assortment of new Boska and vintage Dansk fondue pots, teak and cabbageware platters, and my own vintage fondue fork collection. Orphee set up an impressive electric raclette iron on the breakfast bar, popped a quarter wheel of Mount Raclette under the melter, and portioned out bowls of boiled potatoes, gherkins, and pearl onions for serving. “You can't go wrong with melted cheese!” Orphee laughed.

With the savory components well underway, it was time to focus on dessert: “I’m South Asian and I have a certification in Latin American food, so I wanted to spice up traditional chocolate fondue with a little bit of heat,” Fatima—who previously worked at Cosme as chef Daniella Soto-Innes’ sous chef—explained. She melted down a mix of milk and dark chocolate with velvety Crave Brothers mascarpone, ground chiles, and cinnamon while I piled the dessert station with toasted brioche, strawberries, cookies, dried fruit, and the creamiest, sweetest dates I’ve ever tasted from Rancho Meladuco.

One of Kat’s friends had tipped her off about Copper Crow, a Bayfield, Wisconsin-based, Indigenous-owned distillery that’s making vodka and gin from whey, a byproduct of the cheesemaking process that’s extra-abundant in The State of Cheese. I’d heard of whey-based beverages before, but never whey-based distillates, so I was eager to learn more. Copper Crow co-owners Curt and Linda Basina couldn’t make it to our soirée because they were in peak production mode after a last-minute trip to Milwaukee where they’d won Business of the Year at the 2023 Indigenous Business Con (Copper Crow is the first Native American-owned distillery in the United States). So instead, I hopped on a call with Curt to get a few tips for mixing the bottles he’d kindly sent ahead for the party.

The Basinas started making vodka using whey from Burnett Dairy in Grantsburg, Wisconsin after a friend and local distiller encouraged Curt to pursue the old-school, environmentally friendly avenue. “Anytime that you can take what is essentially a waste product and turn it into something value-added, the whole sustainability aspect of it just falls right into place” says Curt. With a hint of lactic sweetness and a buttery mouthfeel, whey vodka makes an excellent base for all manner of food-friendly cocktails. Kat loves a dirty martini, so she mixed up a party-sized batch while I stuffed jumbo Castelvetrano olives with blue cheese for garnish.

As we put the finishing touches on dinner prep, we also iced down a case of natural wine from Kat’s favorite local shop, and some dry pet-nat cider from New York’s Breezy Hill Orchard. When it was time for dessert, we took Curt’s advice and shook up espresso martinis—the whey vodka made this already smooth cocktail even more luxurious.

Alpinage Mount Raclette
Roth Cheese Grand Cru Reserve
Carr Valley Cave-Aged Cheddar
Crave Brothers Mascarpone
Hook’s Ewe Calf to be Kidding Blue Cheese
Castelvetrano Olives
Rancho Meladuco Medjool Dates
Bordallo Pinheiro Cabbage Oval Platter
Crow Canyon Home Catalina Small Rectangle Tray
Dusen Dusen Pattern Napkins

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Get the recipe >

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