New York City trip

Well it's been a while since I last posted as I traveled to New York City to visit cheese shops and get together with some long missed friends. While there I had the unusual treat, for me anyway since I don't get off the farm much, to dine at Momofuku noodle bar. Having seen the chef making his well-known steamed buns on Martha Stewart I was intrigued to try them. Little did I know that it would only be a few weeks later! They were better than I had imagined, just right thickness, perfectly done, and oozing with the heritage breed pork juices from the meat inside. As heritage pork raisers ourselves, I was thrilled to see New York city chefs spreading the word, just from a taste standpoint alone. Fun!

After dinner, my friends from Cheese by Hand took me a few blocks away to meet up with Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers, a fantastic cheese booth in the Essex Street Market on the lower East side. She had just done a tasting to die for............my favorite foods! Beer, cheese and BACON! What is not good with bacon? The pub hosting, Jimmy's No.43, is on East 7th Street. Walking down a set of stairs I entered an underground small pub with low lighting graced with the smoky smell of hearty bacon-and of course, beer. What a great time! And fantastic place to host.

While in NY I also required bringing home bialys and lox. Those in hand in my cooler bag, I returned home on the train to another week of meals courted by lox. Oh............and did I mention the Patriots did get creamed by New York? Much to the chagrin of my husband.

Super Bowl Sunday!

The New England Patriots are unbeaten and about to play in the Super Bowl today. After a long day at farmers market yesterday and another long day of cheese making and shipping tomorrow, Monday morning, I decided to play it easy and forgo all the planning for junk foods and fatty pupus (that's appetizer in Hawaiian) and just keep it simple and grill some of our own grass fed beef and bake some potatoes from the garden. And for dessert, dark chocolate gelato and to gild the lily, it IS the Super Bowl after all, some liqueur soaked cherries and fresh bakery-made cannoli. Go team!

Ulterior motive? Brewing some more beer. What's this contraption?

This is a wort chiller. It enables me to cool down the wort (the liquid that later becomes beer) quickly so I can pitch (throw in) the yeast to get the thing fermentatin'! Next up? A pilsner style. I definitely will be re-creating the Belgian Style Pale Ale for the husband has them almost all gone before their time! The last Belgian Pale Ale below...crisp, refreshing and effervescent.

One More Farmers Market...

Despite a nasty pre-market storm to include a half inch of ice, sleet, freezing rain and snow, the show was to go on. I battled the interstate thru chunks of ice causing rough road conditions and getting behind and oh-so slow Fed Ex Custom Critical truck. Wait. Aren't those the ones that are supposed to deliver critical boxes in the same day such as organs etc? At least the driver was driving carefully.

I arrived late and was later greeted by some familiar faces from another farmers market. Nice to know that folks will drive well over an hour to buy our cheeses and meats. "Buy Local" is truly becoming a movement in Vermont!

At the end of the market a frequent cheese buyer from Pete's Greens came over and handed me a jar of canned tomato sauce. What a nice ending to a long day to be able to come home and make some spaghetti with sauce ready to go. Thanks Roger at Pete's Greens!

Obsession Revisited

Once upon a time I heard someone call the art of cheese making "controlled fermentation." It would be fair to say that I am obsessed, then, with all things fermentation. I am a cheese maker, I bake slow fermented hearth breads, especially in the winter when my schedule allows and now, I am revisiting the quest for good homebrew. My husband, back in the early 90's, used to brew beer at home. Me, partial to wine, I paid not much attention. Now with worldwide grain crops causing skyrocketing prices for microbrewery beers as well as the unavailability of hops, I felt compelled to save money on his beer purchases and decided to do homebrew. Somehow he has not quickly picked up the equipment and taken over, but I have. I ran to the local brew shop, Vermont Homebrew Supply, and picked up some malt, hops, corn sugar, and several more books we probably didn't need to add to our beer library........at this point.

On the fast track I first made an English Ale, also known as a bitter. And while it was still happily bubbling away (fermenting) I travelled again to the brew shop and bought more! For my next brew I decided to try, with the shop owner's help, a Belgian Style Pale Ale made with honey. Today it still is fermenting and we patiently await the English Ale to carbonate in their bottles.

Given the obsession with all things fermented I also relish lacto fermented vegetables such as true kimchi and sauerkraut. One great tangy, crunchy fabulous brand in Vermont is Flack Family Farm's version I just purchased at Healthy Living down in Burlington. The health benefits are well-documented and known but what's also a boon is their taste! It's like no other. You get the salt, the crunch, the umami? That unidentified '5th' taste sensation. The 4 tastes we were educated about in school, that the human tongue has receptors on to send messages to the brain. You know, bitter, sour, salty, sweet. And now added.....umami. It's the unknown taste, you get it in true Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, fish sauce, anchovy, wild mushrooms and other foods that are good for you. Happily, they also make our meals take on so much more depth!

Foodies Rejoice!

Foodies Rejoice! The all-new huge spacious Healthy Living Market on Dorset Street in Burlington, Vermont is now open and welcoming all in a fantastic space. From the well-organized local produce section to the hot deli, artisan bread, soup, sandwich and panini pressers panel to pastry purgatory, I confess I am enamored by this new store. What can be more comforting than a PB and Choc panini? (peanut butter and chocolate-a perfect match)

The cheese department is all-new too and its size reflects the knowledge and experience of its cheesemonger, Lydia, who is committed to cut-to-order should the customer desire but also offers on-the-fly purchases as well. Her new selection is perhaps the largest in Burlington and definitely on par with well-known shops in New York City and Boston.......

What is 'cut-to-order?' This is when a customer does not know which cheese to buy or what it tastes like. Although curious, he/she does not venture to ask......Then comes 'cut to order.' The customer should ask for a taste or several tastes and then can better decide which he/she prefers to buy. A relationship develops between the seller and the buyer and true customer service is actually, had. I recommend to all lovers of cheese to relinquish your shyness and ASK for a cut of cheese. After all, you are the customer and cheesemongers want you to buy what you will enjoy. As for Lydia, she and her experienced staff are excited to show you what's available!

Kat's International Plate

Well today I had to say farewell to my intern/employee/assistant cheese maker/good friend. It all began when she wrote me a note to ask for a job in eighth grade, I reluctantly hired her due to her age but on a farm you take what you can for help. Nobody wants to do this kind of work and labor is always the limiting factor to not only success but any type of expansion. She came to me with an innate work ethic not normally seen in this era of cell phones, instant messaging and trips to the mall. As she came and went with each new passing school year I watched her grow up until she went to college and now off to Europe for a semester abroad. What will be an excellent opportunity for open-mindedness, culture, growth and some serious immersion language studies will also mean for me a bittersweet loss of what my husband termed "an incredible asset to our farm."

These days it is an exceptional young person that can work with fervor, initiative and intuition-we should all strive to enhance our work environments like she does-naturally. So let's all make a New Year's resolution to enjoy our work, whatever we 'do' and also laugh a LOT. That's what we did. Hats off to Kat and many many thanks for great years of attention to detail in the cheese room and making me laugh- a lot.

Mark your bookmarks to Kat's International Plate to see her travels thru Spain and great food to boot! Buena Suerte, Kat!

Happy New Year!

Good things come to those who wait. That's what I say! 2008, that is. After a challenging 2007 on the farm with everything electronic or electric breaking I relish the entry of 2008. It began with my husband and I attempting to 'finish' the two and a half year cheese house construction project by ourselves. Especially since the old one was completely disassembled and unusable. Then all of a sudden, it seemed each and every compressor, condensing unit, bulk tank, motor and engine broke here on the farm. For those unfamiliar with these terms, they are all related to refrigeration. The kind that keeps cheese, meats and blueberries cold. Refrigeration costs are expensive and always break down on a Sunday, when charges to fix them double. This mostly affects those small delicate soft cheeses and not the larger natural rinds in our cave.

Due to the ever lengthy construction project, we also were unable to produce the normal volume of our award winning natural rind cheeses which age in the caves: Autumn Oak, Mountain Tomme and Blue Moon. Hopefully we will be back on track for 2008. I look forward to this year as one friend said recently "the 2007 curse has broken."

Great things that happened in 2007? We released a new washed rind cheese appropriately called 'Paniolo' which means 'cowboy' in Hawaiian. This, in honor of at least 10 generations of familial lines of those Paniolos who have worked the cattle and land on our family ranch in Hawaii. As their numbers are on the decline we felt it a propos to pay homage to them. This one is a stronger cheese, what some call 'stinky cheese.' I prefer aromatic. It is creamy and mild when young, maturing into a luscious texture and unctuous character-like a true cowboy. Complex in nature, it deserves to be served with an Alsatian Riesling or a big Belgian beer.

Re-cover The Skin!

After 2 years of staring at our winter sheep housing that had been seriously vandalized (slashed from one end to the other resulting in two animals' deaths) we managed to re-cover the skin with Dave's father's assistance just in time for a Nor'easter headed our way! Photos were taken on the wind calm sunny day a couple Sundays ago.



Then this taken this morning on December 2 right before a major storm is approaching rapidly. As I look across the lake towards New York state I can see the lake effects white clouds forming in preparation for perhaps 14+ inches! Amazing that about two weeks ago I could still dig radishes and the last kohlrabi from the garden.

Wild Wanderer

A lone wanderer wild turkey graced us with his presence all day today on Thanksgiving day right at our house. He was sadly thin and strangely alone. I tossed out some ripening tomatoes and zucchini from our garden in case he wanted it. On this day it seemed to be a message of gratitude for our health and the food we now are about to consume, on this, very commercialized day of over-consumption.

We see a lot of wildlife here on our farm, since we have many habitats that remain undisturbed by 'people-kind'. There are pheasants, wild turkeys (sometimes so many one must stop the car on our farm road to wait for them to cross), and lots of deer. Not to mention raccoons, foxes and owls. And the ever-mysterious sand piper, which makes her nest in the spring and squawks and shrieks when approached while pretending to be wounded-just to protect her stash of babies. Clever! Every spring when I spot them I actually worry if the bird is all right. Only to remember in the next instant that it's a ruse!

As an icy rain was predicted here today, I decided to bake some hearth breads

and brine my bird for the meal. I have brined turkey for years before it became a trend only because I am food-obsessed and always playing with different techniques of preparation-sort of like my cheese. Brining meat is simple.
Some Rules to Abide By:
Do not use kosher or saline-injected turkeys. They already have a salt solution in them and will not work well.
It must be fully submerged. An easy to remember guide is for every 1 gallon of water you use, combine 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of sweetener of your choice (be it honey, brown sugar, molasses, cane sugar etc), and herbs, spices, fruit...........then heat it all up in a stockpot so the salt and sweetener dissolves into solution and then chill down. After this add the meat and cool undisturbed (in a fridge or if meat is too large in an insulated cooler) for the required time.

The choices really are endless! It's so much fun to brine meat that once tried, the user never goes back. Sounds like an addiction to me! The real plus though is the most moist meat ever. For cuts known to get dry upon cooking, like chicken breasts, turkey breasts, pork chops and other thin cuts of meat. The rule of thumb is one hour for every pound of meat. For instance, a six pound turkey breast would be about 6 hours brined. For a quick dinner party of chicken breasts or pork chops the brine time dependent on weight could be as short as a half-hour. Visit www.foodnetwork.com for more info on brining meats......... Always rinse the meat after brining in several changes of water to prevent an overly salty taste. Any cooking method can be used after brining too: roasting, grilling, baking, even sauteeing.

The science behind it, I believe, is that osmotic pressure causes the moisture to come out of the meat and then with the sodium (from the salt) it must come to equilibrium and returns inside. I am no scientist, in fact, I even make cheese from my heart not from my mind. As Shirley O. Corriher states in her book Cookwise, "Brining makes meat juicier by increasing the amount of liquid inside the meat cells." Try it once and be convinced. And surely after eating it, you WILL be thankful for that which you eat. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Winter has Wandered In

Well about one month after I claimed Fall in a past post, winter has wandered in. As such the light levels wane and we must shorten our viewing room hours. Our new hours 'for now', we will be open every day including holidays from 9-4pm. There you will find seasonally available cheeses in a self-serve setting. For special orders of lamb, please contact us ahead to pre-arrange pickup.


The farm was quietly blanketed in snow two days ago with a not-so quiet snowstorm. It began with hard rain and then slowly transitioned to sleet and then slick snow. Located at an altitude of 1200 feet, we get snow when most in the village have barely a dusting.

As we are mitigated by all things 'weather' here on the farm, happily for me as our season slows I get to cook a lot more and get together with friends. Having a penchant for baking hearth breads and low and slow barbeque this time allows me to rejuvenate my soul through food after a hectic spring, summer and fall.