Mike Matucheski, master cheesemaker, Satori Cheese, Plymouth, Wis.
First food-related job? The local cannery in Antigo, Wis. It taught me a lot about the good and bad in food processing. I operated the big vacuum cookers, and at the same time, I was also working at the local burger joint—mom-and-pop kind of place.
Where did you learn to make cheese? My grandmother Lucille was the first experience — she made cottage cheese out of spoiled milk. Waste not, want not. Later, we had goats and too much milk and I tried to use a recipe from a cheese book. Not very good. Not much later, I started working at the Antigo cheese plant, and the second-shift cheesemaker gave me some rennet and starter to play with. Much better. I learned on the job, read all that I could on the side and later, took the basic coursework at Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research.