Lassa Skinner
Lassa fell into cheese in the early '80s and almost didn't complete college because of it. She worked at a start-up gourmet market in Brookline, MA and, by chance, was put in the cheese shop alongside a woman who had made cheese in the Loire. Raw milk, aged goat cheese! Love at first bite. She later worked at Formaggio Kitchen. Lassa then moved west, landed in the Napa Valley, and started up the cheese program at Tra Vigne restaurant in St. Helena. She is currently the General Manager of the Oxbow Cheese Merchant in downtown Napa and co-founder of culture magazine: the word on cheese.