Cheese Sauce for Vegetables
Back in the 1980’s; Jean Ortgies, wrote us about her delicious vegetable Cream Sauce: Cream Sauce made with your cheddar cheese is the best in the world. My friends all agree –
Equipment
- a saucepan
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp Butter
- 3 Tbsp Flour
- 2 cups Milk
- ½ to ¾ pound of Harman’s Really-Aged Cheddar
- steamed vegetables your favorites
Instructions
- In a saucepan, melt butter.
- Add flour, stirring until blended.
- Slowly add milk, stirring occasionally until thickened.
- Add chunks of Harman’s Cheddar, stir until melted.
- Add more milk if seems too thick or more cheese, to taste.
- Serve over cooked vegetables - broccoli, cauliflower, mixed vegetables. Wunderbar!
Notes
Your card; request for stories and recipes struck a chord in me, since we almost feel a part of the Harman family, lo, these many years. …read the rest of Robin’s memory on the next page.
Recipe from:
Jean’s daughter, Robin Mayne – Fort Worth, Texas
She’s been a customer since 1986 and her Mom since 1960
My Father, Howard Ortgies, used to vacation in Sugar Hill in the early days of the Twentieth Century (1900-1915). He took my mother, Jean, to see the area in the 1960’s and they discovered Harman’s Cheese Store. They (and we, the children) have been loyal customers for years. Mother ordered “tons” of cheese near Christmas to give as gifts. She “hooked” many others who joyfully anticipated the Christmas treat of that snappy-sharp delight. Mother always felt at ease with your family. She was impressed with your trustfulness. When she would call to place an order and ask how much to send the check for, she was told just to wait for the arrival and pay then. In this day and age, that is quite extraordinary. Your cheese visited every Thanksgiving and Christmas meal with my family. It adorned some vegetable (cauliflower, broccoli, etc.) in the form of a scrumptious cheese sauce. I have included a reasonable facsimile since the recipe was essentially one of feel and taste. We also adored an open-face toasted-cheese sandwich, bubbling and crisp from the broiler, sometimes with added tomato or bacon. Yum! And, as a special treat, we would put some on top of a favorite family casserole (macaroni, ground beef, onions and stewed tomatoes). Jean, now 97, still savors the taste of your wonderful cheese and has imparted that love to the rest of the family. You will always be a part of our lives and especially our holiday get-togethers. Thank you! Memory from: Robin Mayne – Fort Worth, Texas
She’s been a customer since 1986 and her Mom since 1960 Over the years, Robin’s mother, Jean, has remembered us with notes of greetings and encouragement. One of recent favorites:
My tall, red-headed grandson from Boston shopped in your store last weekend. Thank you very much for the cheese. I checked the 1955 hand-written accounts to see if Jean & Howard Ortgies were customers then, they weren’t. But I found Robin’s “Uncle Jack” and notations of customers “introduced by Jack Ortgies”
When Mr. Harman started his Cheddar mail-order business, the first mail-order letter was sent to his New York advertising associates. Robin’s “Uncle Jack,” worked in advertising for Harper-Atlantic, Inc Jack Ortgies started ordering in 1955 and continued to order regularly for many years. Back in 1955, 4 pounds of Cheese shipped to New York cost the grand total of $4.75! In April of 1956, Jack needed the cheese in a hurry and Mr. Harman shipped it special delivery which cost 94¢ in postage rather than the normal postage of 49¢; but Mr. Harman only charged Jack an extra 25¢. I shared this information with Robin Mayne and she shared it with her cousin who added more to the memory on the next page. I do remember having wonderful cheese at various times in the 50's and I also remember the Harmon’s name; I know they're connected! Jack worked for Harper’s-Atlantic all right. Jack was good at his job and had a framed award on the wall at home citing him for having written the company's biggest space (advertising pages, not the outer kind of space) contract in company history. It would surprise me not in the least that he would have used some of Harmon's wonderful cheese as gifts to various decision makers in the advertising world. It was very much the way things worked in those days. Advertising people entertained clients or potential clients at "three martini" lunches and plied them with various gifts of one sort or another. I can well imagine that Jack would have given away a lot of
Harmon's cheese because it would have been a memorable gift, made a deliciously good impression and he, and Harper's-Atlantic,
would be remembered kindly. . I'm quite certain Jack consumed a generous amount of that cheese
himself, too. He and June liked good food. You may recall that in
later years Jack used to prepare dinner because June's arthritis
prevented her from doing that task anymore. June used to say, "Jack's in the kitchen assembling dinner." (His meals were always presented very artfully.) A favorite meal was chili, over which he'd grate a generous amount of cheese. This would be served with hot, buttered cornbread and a side salad. Very yummy! A typical Christmas gift from Jack would consist of a lovely chunk of
Harmon's cheese and a box of roasted and salted pecans. Jack would start working in the late fall and spend many evenings carefully cracking pecans and extracting the meats WHOLE. This can be tricky, try it some time and you'll get an appreciation for the patience he had to have to do this job. He would then roast and salt these perfect pecans and pack them carefully in boxes to send to all of us as an accompaniment to that wonderful cheese. They tasted lovely together. I do remember that the cheese never lasted very long in our household because everyone nibbled it whenever they opened the refrigerator door. I'm sorry I cannot recall any particular recipe in which Mother used the cheese but I know she did do things like make cheese sauce for vegetables. Mostly though I know everyone liked the cheese best just as is, unadorned. It rarely lasted long enough to get into any recipe! Now I'm absolutely salivating from recalling that cheese! It's fun putting together something to celebrate their 50 years of exceptional cheese. Here's to 50 more years for the world to enjoy Harmon’s cheese! Memory from: Sue Ortgies Dusinberre Hodgson, I got all the names!
Winfield, Illinois
Jean’s daughter, Robin Mayne – Fort Worth, Texas
She’s been a customer since 1986 and her Mom since 1960
My Father, Howard Ortgies, used to vacation in Sugar Hill in the early days of the Twentieth Century (1900-1915). He took my mother, Jean, to see the area in the 1960’s and they discovered Harman’s Cheese Store. They (and we, the children) have been loyal customers for years. Mother ordered “tons” of cheese near Christmas to give as gifts. She “hooked” many others who joyfully anticipated the Christmas treat of that snappy-sharp delight. Mother always felt at ease with your family. She was impressed with your trustfulness. When she would call to place an order and ask how much to send the check for, she was told just to wait for the arrival and pay then. In this day and age, that is quite extraordinary. Your cheese visited every Thanksgiving and Christmas meal with my family. It adorned some vegetable (cauliflower, broccoli, etc.) in the form of a scrumptious cheese sauce. I have included a reasonable facsimile since the recipe was essentially one of feel and taste. We also adored an open-face toasted-cheese sandwich, bubbling and crisp from the broiler, sometimes with added tomato or bacon. Yum! And, as a special treat, we would put some on top of a favorite family casserole (macaroni, ground beef, onions and stewed tomatoes). Jean, now 97, still savors the taste of your wonderful cheese and has imparted that love to the rest of the family. You will always be a part of our lives and especially our holiday get-togethers. Thank you! Memory from: Robin Mayne – Fort Worth, Texas
She’s been a customer since 1986 and her Mom since 1960 Over the years, Robin’s mother, Jean, has remembered us with notes of greetings and encouragement. One of recent favorites:
My tall, red-headed grandson from Boston shopped in your store last weekend. Thank you very much for the cheese. I checked the 1955 hand-written accounts to see if Jean & Howard Ortgies were customers then, they weren’t. But I found Robin’s “Uncle Jack” and notations of customers “introduced by Jack Ortgies”
When Mr. Harman started his Cheddar mail-order business, the first mail-order letter was sent to his New York advertising associates. Robin’s “Uncle Jack,” worked in advertising for Harper-Atlantic, Inc Jack Ortgies started ordering in 1955 and continued to order regularly for many years. Back in 1955, 4 pounds of Cheese shipped to New York cost the grand total of $4.75! In April of 1956, Jack needed the cheese in a hurry and Mr. Harman shipped it special delivery which cost 94¢ in postage rather than the normal postage of 49¢; but Mr. Harman only charged Jack an extra 25¢. I shared this information with Robin Mayne and she shared it with her cousin who added more to the memory on the next page. I do remember having wonderful cheese at various times in the 50's and I also remember the Harmon’s name; I know they're connected! Jack worked for Harper’s-Atlantic all right. Jack was good at his job and had a framed award on the wall at home citing him for having written the company's biggest space (advertising pages, not the outer kind of space) contract in company history. It would surprise me not in the least that he would have used some of Harmon's wonderful cheese as gifts to various decision makers in the advertising world. It was very much the way things worked in those days. Advertising people entertained clients or potential clients at "three martini" lunches and plied them with various gifts of one sort or another. I can well imagine that Jack would have given away a lot of
Harmon's cheese because it would have been a memorable gift, made a deliciously good impression and he, and Harper's-Atlantic,
would be remembered kindly. . I'm quite certain Jack consumed a generous amount of that cheese
himself, too. He and June liked good food. You may recall that in
later years Jack used to prepare dinner because June's arthritis
prevented her from doing that task anymore. June used to say, "Jack's in the kitchen assembling dinner." (His meals were always presented very artfully.) A favorite meal was chili, over which he'd grate a generous amount of cheese. This would be served with hot, buttered cornbread and a side salad. Very yummy! A typical Christmas gift from Jack would consist of a lovely chunk of
Harmon's cheese and a box of roasted and salted pecans. Jack would start working in the late fall and spend many evenings carefully cracking pecans and extracting the meats WHOLE. This can be tricky, try it some time and you'll get an appreciation for the patience he had to have to do this job. He would then roast and salt these perfect pecans and pack them carefully in boxes to send to all of us as an accompaniment to that wonderful cheese. They tasted lovely together. I do remember that the cheese never lasted very long in our household because everyone nibbled it whenever they opened the refrigerator door. I'm sorry I cannot recall any particular recipe in which Mother used the cheese but I know she did do things like make cheese sauce for vegetables. Mostly though I know everyone liked the cheese best just as is, unadorned. It rarely lasted long enough to get into any recipe! Now I'm absolutely salivating from recalling that cheese! It's fun putting together something to celebrate their 50 years of exceptional cheese. Here's to 50 more years for the world to enjoy Harmon’s cheese! Memory from: Sue Ortgies Dusinberre Hodgson, I got all the names!
Winfield, Illinois