Cheese Shops We Love: The Meat and Cheese Show

The Meat and Cheese Show
1306 E 11th St Suite H
Tulsa, OK 74120

Friends Amanda Simcoe and Joel Bein, opened the city’s only artisan cheese shop, The Meat and Cheese Show, in late 2021, just before the New Year, perched along Historic Route 66 in Tulsa’s Meadow Gold District. They’d been scouting for the perfect place since 2019 but plans to open in June 2020 were sidelined due to the pandemic.

“It was just a long, very strange road to opening,” says Simcoe, although their passion for the store never wavered. The two met while working in the catering business in Tulsa.

Then, a major storm in Tulsa, one that led to a long-term power outage resulting in inventory losses, led to a 17-month closure. The friends pivoted to catering and private events.

Then, in November, the shop reopened, just in time for the holiday rush.

The Shop

What sets this cheese shop apart is that it literally carries cheeses from around the world. Because Tulsa does not have a lot of options for locals to purchase artisan cheese, it’s important for Simcoe and Bein to cover a lot of ground in their selections.

While cheese is a huge focus in what they carry, it’s not the only product—this is part of what makes The Meat and Cheese Show so successful. Customers can grab a variety of artisan grocery items—including hostess gifts—in one swoop. For example, caviar and sparkling wine for hosting a party or a celebratory night in, or cinnamon rolls and quiche as grab-and-go items for a lazy weekend morning at home. They also sell specialty salts, cooking oils, and wine, along with all the fixings for a glam charcuterie board.

As a chef who straddles all kinds of cooking, including plant-based menus, Bein is more “behind the scenes,” says Simcoe, in operating The Meat and Cheese Show but what she thrives at is recommending cheese and wine pairings and writing for local media outlets about food. She’s so well known for her expertise that she was given the nickname “The Cheese Wench.”

Before opening The Meat and Cheese Show, Simcoe was a cheesemonger at Grocer & The Gourmet, a since-shuttered specialty-foods store in Tulsa. “Artisan cheese in Oklahoma was rare, to say the least, at the time,” she says. Due to Oklahoma laws at the time, alcohol and cheese could not be sold in the same place, so Simcoe sent her customers to the wine shop with suggested pairings.

“That’s where ‘The Cheese Wench’ name came in and (it) got printed in the paper,” says Simcoe, who also launched a radio show called “OK Foodie” and co-hosted a television show dubbed Tasting Oklahoma. “It was a way for members of the local community to get to know and see their local chefs on a more personal level. Rather than an elusive name in the back of the kitchen.”

Top Selling Cheeses

Intergalactic

“He’s worked in the business for several years and he buys his milk from family co-ops 45 minutes outside of town,” says Simcoe, about Perrystead Dairy founder Yoav Perry. This creamy cow’s milk cheese is made in Philadelphia and, instead of animal rennet, it is coagulated with Iberian cardoon thistle flowers as was done during the Roman Empire. “It’s phenomenal,” says Simcoe. “No one else in Oklahoma carries it. I like to warm it in the oven a little bit.”

Dorothea

An ideal snacking cheese (instead of munching with potato chips, potato skins are folded in), this goat’s-milk flavored gouda is crafted by the Van Dijk family in Holland. Only 4,000 wheels are made each year. “Potato-chip cheese is what it’s called. It has basil oil, coriander, onion and potato skins,” says Simcoe. “It can be difficult to get my hands on. There have been some years that I just can’t get it.” But she prevails, as she adores its “smooth, creamy texture.”

Shakerag Blue

“One of my favorite, more unique blue cheeses is wrapped in fig leaves and soaked in Tennessee whiskey,” says Simcoe, about this blue cheese from Sequatchie Cove Creamery in Sequatchie, Tennessee “It tastes like a pineapple blew up in your head. It’s my secret weapon when people think they don’t like blue cheese.”

Estero Gold Reserve

Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery is a Northern California creamery specializing in farmstead Italian cheeses. Its owner, Karen Bianchi-Moreda, culls milk from her family’s fourth-generation dairy. Aged for 16 months, this aged Parmesan-style cheese “is very, very well done,” says Simcoe. “(The) raw cow’s milk is from Sonoma County. Like me, she (Bianchi-Moreda) loves antique-ing and she’s got family in Kansas. She’s a very nice person.”