In April I attended the fun and inspiring GEL conference organized by my good friend Mark Hurst. On the first day (aka Day 1), a small group of conference goers headed out to Valley Shepherd Creamery in the wilds of New Jersey, in Long Valley to be specific. I had never been to a creamery and so naturally peppered our hosts from Saxelby Cheesemongers with a gazillion questions about the cheese making process.
That day I learned how hard it is to keep a population of sheep in fighting, or milking, trim. They can be very delicate and the wrong kind of bacteria could wipe out half the farm’s population in a matter of days! Valley Shepherd raises sheep and goats in wide open spaces with lots of good stuff to eat.
Um, how cute is she?
The cheese shop at the farm is a dream. You can choose from dozens of cheese types, which is unusual for a single creamery. Can you believe how gorgeous these are? And they taste incredible. If you see them at a green market in the New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, snap some up. It’s worth it!
Now you’re about to see the only rotating goat milker on the continent.
They only make these wackadoo machines in Europe but the rather eccentric owner of Valley Shepherd, Eran Wojswol, made sure to have one on the premises. The goats don’t seem to mind it. They chow down as the machine yanks their udders.
All of this dairy cheer inspired me to make my own cheese with the help of the fabulous How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman.
The recipe is so easy it’s almost a joke. Actually, the joke is that despite how easy it is, I still managed to screw up the order because I pulled my usual stunt of not reading the recipe through before I started. But it actually didn’t matter because the it’s completely idiot proof. I won’t even say what I did wrong because I don’t want anyone to get source amnesia and think that the dumb way I did it is correct.
The recipe calls for milk, buttermilk and salt. Yep, that’s it. And you can add all sorts of goodies, like peppers and herbs, which I’m going to do next time.
Next time I’ll use more salt than the recipe calls for, but I’ll tell you, this is a revelation. You can make your own queso fresco and it’s super healthy, assuming dairy doesn’t make you sick. I crumbled some over my morning toast, in a salad and on this roasted zucchini. How pretty is that, even with my lame-o camera skillz?
