Dr. Kandice Marchant crafts artisanal cheeses at Marchant Manor, inspired by her time across the pond.
Photos by Rebecca Groynom
In 2018, after a couple of years of making cheese in her basement fridge, she adapted for aging, Dr. Kandice Marchant approached Ohio City Provisions in Cleveland, OH, with samples. She was prepared to find a cheesemaking facility and get a license on her own, but instead, Ohio City Provisions offered her a place to make her cheese.
“They said, ‘We have an interest in Paint Valley Farms (in Beach City, OH), and they’re not using their cheese room fully.’ So, I was able to make cheese under their license,” says Marchant.
This jump-started her small business, while she tested her initial set of cheeses.
She launched Marchant Manor in Cleveland Heights, OH, two years later for a sneak preview, and the shop officially opened to the public, Feb. 4, 2021. Marchant focuses on European-style cheeses, the “stinky, soft, wonderful cheeses” she fell in love with during her travels in France and England.
MEETING HER MATCH
Marchant’s career didn’t begin in cheese. She started at the opposite end of the spectrum, in medicine, following in her father’s footsteps.
She went to Northwestern University for her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and biomedical engineering and then received her Ph.D. in polymer science, in addition to her doctor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University. It was at Case Western Reserve University where she met Englishman Roger Marchant. “We eventually got married and spent a lot of time back and forth to England and Europe and back to the U.S.,” she says.
One of the most impactful trips they took was to Èze, France. During their stay at Hôtel Château de La Chèvre d’Or, on the Mediterranean coast, they had a memorable dinner. “They rolled out this chariot du fromage, which was a three-tiered cheese chariot with cheeses I’d never seen before. It was probably the most transformative meal I’ve ever had, from a cheese perspective. I’ve never seen that many different styles and types of cheese,” she recalls.
Her husband continued his support of her hobby by getting her a ticket to Murray’s Cheese Boot Camp in New York. Over the long weekend, she tasted 75 cheese pairings and learned about the chemistry behind cheesemaking.
She also took an artisan cheese course at Sterling College — a two-week program about the science of cheesemaking, troubleshooting cheeses, and affinage in partnership with Jasper Hill Farm. “That was where I transitioned from only thinking about making cheese at home to thinking about making cheese for a company,” she says.
The more she studied, the more Marchant realized the similarities between cheesemaking and her day job, specifically how milk coagulated similarly to blood, thanks to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. Reading about, and then seeing firsthand, the conversion of casein proteins to cross-linked casein proteins was the “aha” moment for Marchant.
At the time, Marchant worked at Cleveland Clinic as a hematopathologist, specializing in blood clotting disorders. She eventually became the chair of the Institute of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine there — the first woman ever to do so. “I wound up running the whole shebang. I ran all the labs for the clinic over 12 hospitals and 18 family health centers. I helped them organize and build the laboratories in Florida, Akron and Abu Dhabi. So, for many years, I wasn’t able to make much cheese,” she explains.
THE CHEESE DOCTOR
Even though she could not make much cheese at first, she eventually made the time. After 36 years at the Cleveland Clinic, she left to pursue Marchant Manor full time. The relationship she formed with Ohio City Provisions and Paint Valley Farms, coupled with her leadership experience, led to the successful launch of Marchant Manor, where people lovingly call her “the cheese doctor.”
“Cheesemaking was initially a hobby that got totally out of control,” says Marchant.
Customers started latching on to her style of cheeses, especially the ones made with Guernsey milk. “It’s a unique type of milk for cheeses, especially soft cheese like a brie style or washed rind style,” she explains.
Marchant has been able to experiment with cheeses because Paint Valley Farms has access to all different kinds of milk, rather than being limited to a single-animal farm. She has been able to get creative with her cheeses, testing cow (Guernsey and Holstein), goat, and sheep milk-based varieties. Paint Valley Farms also has a cream separator, so she has access to cream for her recipes, too. Currently, Marchant Manor is the only artisan cheesemaker in Ohio to use this variety of milks.
Her flagship cheese, Elmstead Ash, is a bloomy rind cheese she primarily makes with Guernsey milk, adding a richer, buttery flavor. She also makes Elmstead Ash with goat’s milk — a kind of “cheese terroir,” as Marchant describes. “Part of my business plan was to try to develop cheeses that are essentially the same recipe but with different milks,” she says.
Marchant’s next step is mixed-milk cheeses, perhaps a Robiola style. She hopes to launch that venture in spring of 2025, needing to wait for certain milks to be in season. “That’s the thing I probably didn’t appreciate, not coming from a dairy background, is the seasonality of milk,” Marchant reflects.
No matter which cheeses she produces, Marchant considers herself lucky to have a dedicated staff, many of whom have been with her since Marchant Manor opened.
“I think we’ve been very lucky in the climate now. People are really hurting for employees, especially during COVID and after. I have the luxury of people coming to me and saying, ‘Can I work with you?’ which was really nice. A lot of them weren’t cheese people when they started, and I always felt like if you’ve got the enthusiasm and you’ve got the interest to work with me, I’ll teach you,” explains Marchant.
Marchant Manor also teaches the public with events ranging from cheese board classes to wine tastings, focusing on pairings. They have a small, elegant event space (up to 12 people) for private cheesemaking courses or parties.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
In addition to being grateful for her staff and patrons, Marchant feels thankful for the way she was raised, despite the lack of artisan cheese. “I’m from Milwaukee. I suppose cheese was always a part of my life, but when I grew up in the 1960s, cheese in Wisconsin was not what it is today. It was very much Cheese Whiz and Kraft Singles,” says Marchant.
Her love of cheese expanded during her college days as Gruyere and Emmentaler fondue grew in popularity. In medical school, she fell in love with after-dinner cheese courses in Europe with Camembert, Pont-l’Évêque, Époisses, and the cloth-bound cheddars of England.
“I remember smuggling those raw milk cheeses home from Europe at that time in my suitcase,” she says.
Even though Marchant enjoys trying new cheeses, she especially appreciates the cheeses she has created herself. “My favorite of my cheeses is High Heaven, one of the washed rind cheeses. I especially like the one that’s washed in bourbon and chipotle.”
Although High Heaven, a triple cream aged cheese, is inspired by Époisses, it is not as runny to make it more palatable for a wider audience, but it still carries some of the same funk. After not being able to find a suitable Époisses in Ohio, High Heaven was her solution.
Floral Lapworth Lavender Camembert, fresh Hathaway Cottage Cheese, and wrinkly-rinded Henley are just three of the other styles you can procure at her shop.
Marchant did not always have as much luck with cheesemaking. In fact, her first major mistake was using ultra-pasteurized goat’s milk in an attempt to create goat cheese … and it got tossed after two days of sitting in the fridge. This experiment prompted her to read more and try different recipes.
“I started doing the Julie/Julia thing and bought a cheesemaking book by Gianclis Caldwell [called Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers]. It’s a really great cheesemaking book. It tells you a lot of why this works or why this wouldn’t work,” says Marchant.
Her husband, Roger, was able to taste-test some of these early trials before he passed away in 2014, but she still carries his support with her to this day, knowing he would be thrilled with her cheesemaking prowess.
Marchant Manor produces about 5,000 pounds of cheese per year at Paint Valley Farms, which Marchant completely creates herself on occasional trips there.
“Ohio is sort of an unsung cheese state. There are a lot of great cheesemakers in Ohio,” Marchant says, specifically pointing to the Ohio Cheese Guild as a local driving force. Her shop at 2211 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, has expanded to carry not only her cheeses, but other artisan cheeses and cheese accompaniments as well, truly embracing her belief: “Cheese is a vat of endless possibilities.”
