From Conservationists to Cheesemakers: Tomales Farmstead Creamery & Daily Driver

Toluma Farm photo credit Frankie Frankeny

When San Francisco based Tamara Hicks and her husband David Jablons decided to invest in land in rural West Marin just North of San Francisco, they were interested in preserving the land and had no plans to make cheese, but as the saying goes, one thing led to another.  Not only did they end up making award-winning cheese in Tomales, but are now also partners in the only creamery producing cheese in the city of San Francisco. 

Tomales Farmstead Creamery cheeses

After purchasing the 160-acre Toluma Farms property in Tomales in 2003 it was only a few years later that they were milking hundreds of goats. After goats, came sheep. The milk was initially sold to a local dairy but as time went by they decided to try using the milk themselves to make cheese. Sound advice came from Sue Conley of Cowgirl Creamery who told them to “Make what you like, make something different from what everyone else is making and don’t make round cheeses.” It’s advice that stuck and to this day, most of their cheeses are square. As to why they shouldn’t make round cheeses, it’s anyone’s guess, but worth noting that most of Cowgirl Creamery’s cheeses are round. The award-winning cheeses from Tomales Farmstead Creamery are made from goat, sheep and cow’s milk and have Miwok language names, reflecting the heritage of the region. While sometimes inspired or reminiscent of other cheeses, they are all unique.

Tamara Hicks photo credit Emmy Opal

“We knew absolutely nothing about farming when we started,” says Hicks, but as the saga of one thing leads to another, they connected with a neighbor of theirs Marissa Silva, a 6th generation Tomales rancher who grew up on a dairy farm was raising Jersey cows and they decided to use her milk to make cream cheese. Initially, the cheese was more like the lower fat Neufchatel, but it too evolved over time to be a richer style product. They were inspired to make mixed milk cheeses after having tried the famous French cheese La Tur, made from sheep, goat, and cow’s milk. Their mixed milk cheese Teleeka won a Good Food award in 2016. They found that cow’s milk was easier to work with than goat’s milk and the addition of a cream separator led to their ability to make cultured butter as well as cheese. In addition to Taleeka, the Tomales Farmstead Creamery line up today includes Kenne, a luscious soft-ripened cheese made with goat’s milk that won a Good Food award in 2019, Assa, a 3-9 month aged goat cheese, Atika, an American Cheese Society and Good Food award-winning 3-9 month aged sheep and goat mixed milk firm cheese, Kolo’la an aged feta style goat cheese, and Liwa, a fresh farmer’s style goat cheese with a lovely tang. 

Daily Driver creamery photo credit: Frankie Frankeny

As the farm took more and more time and effort, Hadley Kreitz who had worked with Jersey cows in Vermont became part of the team. A friendship between Kreitz, her husband David, Hicks and Jablons and a desire to keep innovating and evolving led to a partnership that brought the farm to San Francisco in a new way. Jablons who grew up in New York missed bagels and David Kreitz, an industrial designer who made wood-fired ovens, began perfecting a bagel recipe. And with bagels and cheese came the concept of Daily Driver, a combination bakery, cafe and creamery near where Hicks and Jablons live in San Francisco, where Kreitz could bring the cow’s milk to make cheese. 

In San Francisco, Daily Driver occupies a large industrial space in the Dogpatch area that is home to many artisanal food companies. In addition to being a cafe and bagel bakery, the on-site creamery produces exquisite cultured butter and cream cheese that is notable for its yellow color thanks to high fat Jersey milk as well as quark. Daily Driver has expanded with a second location in the San Francisco Ferry Building, a hub of some the region’s most well-known artisanal food businesses including Cowgirl Creamery.

Daily Driver cheeses and butter

Daily Driver Jackie, is the most recent cheese, their version of jack cheese, a semi-hard American cheese made from cow’s milk. It is typically mild, slightly sweet, and is also sold in an aged version called dry jack. Originally developed by Franciscan friars, it’s the most popular cheese invented in California, according to the California Milk Advisory Board. Jackie was created during the pandemic to use an excess of milk, and Kreitz has experimented with rubbing the cheese with used coffee grounds from Daily Driver. A double-cream style gouda, it is cultured with their own buttermilk. It’s a cheese that makes a “round trip” from Tomales. The milk comes to San Francisco where it’s made into cheese, then it’s sent back to the Tomales creamery to age. An expensive cheese to make, it’s currently being used on the menu at Daily Driver.

Always innovating, adapting, and creating new things, Tomales Farmstead Creamery and Daily Driver are launching holiday boxes filled with cheeses from both Tomales Farmstead Creamery and Daily Driver, and are thinking about the possibility of cave aging cheese. If there’s one thing that is for certain, it’s that there’s really no telling what will happen next.