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Love at First Bleat (and Bite) for Goat Cheese Makers
June 24, 2009
Love at First Bleat (and Bite) for Goat Cheese Makers
Editor's note: During growing season, Denise Miller of the New Mexico Farmers' Marketing Association spotlights local growers and their crops.
By Denise Miller
For the Albuquerque Journal
Say "goat cheese" and most people think of chevre, a soft, French-style goat cheese that is similar to cream cheese with a bit of tang.
Certainly it is one of the most popular ways to enjoy goat cheese, but it is by no means the only way.
How about cheddar, blue or feta from a goat? What about superb hard cheeses like a Reserve or Tazon de Llanto?
At growers' markets in central and northern New Mexico (Albuquerque, Santa Fe and beyond) you can find exceptional, locally produced goat cheese that is worth going out of your way to find.
While each of the featured dairies is carving out a specialty, all have a few things in common beyond their phenomenal products and love of goats. Most important, all are Grade A dairies, meaning they pass monthly USDA inspections and must be extremely clean, "in the microscopic sense," as one producer described.
Each dairy enjoys its share of exhausting work, including breeding, milking and handcrafting its products. And for each, taking care of the animals and making cheese have become all-consuming ways of life.
But something else they have in common is that each dairy is a small center of economic vitality and agricultural sustainability, from the local feed each buys for its animals to the part-time people each employs.
The dairies featured aren't a complete list of the goat dairies here, but they do represent some of the state's best goat cheese products.
Be bold, try new cheeses and support your local food artisans. Bon appetit!
Old Windmill Dairy
After 16 years with the Marriott Corp., Michael Lobaugh said he knew it was time to pursue something he had long been interested in: agriculture. He and his partner, Ed Lobaugh, chose to raise goats and produce handcrafted cheese.
In 2002, they bought five-plus acres just north of Estancia and got their first two goats, Jessie and Brownie. By July 2007 they received their Grade A certification and were ready to officially go into business.
"It's awesome, but you have to love the work," Michael said of his new profession. And that may be an understatement considering the hours and demands, particularly during the high season when goats are birthing, babies are being bottle fed, mothers are being milked twice daily and cheese is constantly in production.
"The coolest part is seeing what you created, knowing that people love it and that it's super-nutritonal," Michael said.
While their soft chevre that comes in multiple flavors, including pesto, dill and chipotle, tends to be a bestseller, the semi-soft, fresh feta is a standout. Be careful if you try it in salads or atop pizza -- you may get hooked.
The cheddar and Reserve are also fantastic. While the cheddar is a little harder than traditional ones, the Reserve's flavor begs for a cracker and dark beer. This hard cheese, which has been aged six to 12 weeks, has a taste somewhere between a Parmesan and brie. It is great on salads, pasta or crackers.
Blue cheese fans should try Manzo Blue Moon, a creamy Gorgonzola-like cheese. The Lobaughs made their first batch in 2005. They entered the American Goat Dairy Association cheese contest where they earned their first national blue ribbon.
Made in small batches for quality control, it is not always available and can be purchased only at the local farmers' markets. It is a must for a cranberry-walnut spinach salad.
The Lobaughs' favorite way to eat it? With a baguette and a glass of merlot or cabernet sauvignon, of course.
Windmill Dairy also offers cheese-making classes at the farm and a cheese club. Visit theoldwindmilldairy.com.
South Mountain Dairy
"Cheese is fascinating to make," Marge Petersen of South Mountain Dairy said. She owns the dairy with Donna Lockridge.
One taste of their flavorful offerings and you know these cheese enthusiasts know the business as well as the art.
The South Mountain Dairy in Edgewood has a tagline encapsulating its philosophy: "It's ALL about the girls."
The dairy is in its fourth year of production. All of South Mountain's products are pasteurized and/or aged. The chevre is made two to three times a week, and the creators credit the highgrade feed they give the girls with the consistent, slightly sour flavor.
One unique product is the Chevarti, a Danish, Havarti-style semi-soft cheese traditionally made with cow's milk. Ripened at a constant atmosphere, humidity and temperature, this cheese has a smooth and aromatic flavor.
"The aging of Chevarti is difficult to do in New Mexico because there is supposed to be 85 percent humidity," Petersen said.
Chevarti flavors include chipolte, green chile, dill, plain and caraway seed.
When it comes to feta, South Mountain also has a few tricks. The fresh feta is hand-rubbed with kosher salt, rather than brined and aged for several months. It has an exceptionally smooth and creamy texture and mild flavor. It also isn't as salty as traditional feta. This cheese earned an American Cheese Society Award in 2007.
South Mountain also makes marinated feta, and these aromatic cheeses are soaked with a variety of tasty herbs and spices. The owners also produce various other delicacies, including Queso de Cabra, a fresh, New Mexican-style queso blanco.
South Mountain also sells goat's milk that is "low batch pasteurized," heat treated at the lowest allowable temperature. It can be picked up at several area growers' markets if ordered from Lockridge at (505) 280-5210.
Sweetwoods Farmstead Creamery
According to Patrice Harrison-Inglis, matriarch of this local artisan goat cheese dairy, there is no such thing as a goat cheese recipe.
"The more you learn, the more you realize what you don't know," she said, explaining how the complex process of making goat cheese and other products has kept her family engaged for nearly two decades.
Sweetwoods' most recognizable product is its Red Ribbon chevre. But as the farm evolves from work done primarily by Harrison-Inglis and her husband to the next generation, she sees Sweetwoods carving out a niche that specializes in raw milk products including its Tazon de Llanto and raw goat milk. (Cheeses made with raw milk are aged a minimum of 60 days, and selling raw goat's milk requires extra inspections.)
The Tazon de Llanto is Sweetwoods' newest cheese, and according to Harrison-Inglis, the "most flavorful and most enduring" since it keeps well. It is made from a mixture of raw sheep and goat milk.
Tazon de Llanto is made with fresh goat and sheep milk that has been filtered and chilled but otherwise unprocessed, helping it retain maximum nutrition along with a bit of unpredictability and seasonal variation inherent in a "living" food, according to Sweetwood's brochure.
It is cultured and curdled in small batches, handdipped and formed into wheels of 6 to 9 pounds. After being pressed overnight, the cheese spends the next 24 hours immersed in a cold brine of sea salt.
Each Tazon is aged 60 days or more at the farm, but the owners also encourage buyers to try their hand at affinage de maison (finishing at home). The cheese only improves with a deepening golden color, intensified flavor and a more pronounced buttery finish, Harrison-Inglis said. Sweetwoods' best advice: Keep a wedge of Tazon and a vegetable peeler on the table for curling slivers of this cheese onto each plate.
PASTA WITH GOAT CHEESE AND GREENS
Serves 4-6
1 pound penne pasta 5 ounces chevre 5 tablespoons butter 2 cups oyster mushrooms, sliced 3 scallions, chopped 4 cups of cooking greens (spinach, chard, etc.) 2 tablespoons dill, chopped ½ fresh lemon, juiced ¼ cup white wine Handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved Hard goat cheese (like Old Windmill Dairy's Reserve) or Parmesan, grated to taste
Boil the pasta until it is al dente. Sauté mushrooms and scallions in butter. Once mushrooms are tender, add cooking greens. When greens are wilted, add dill, lemon juice and white wine. Rinse pasta quickly so it retains heat. Crumble or scoop spoonfuls of the chevre in a big bowl. Mix pasta and cheese so the cheese melts. Add mushroom mixture with pasta and cheese, stir. Add tomato halves. Grate hard goat cheese (or Parmesan) on top. Goat cheese producers
Old Windmill Dairy, Estancia
WHO: Michael and Ed Lobaugh
WHAT: chevre, feta, cheddar, Gouda, Reserve and Manzano Blue
WHEN/WHERE: From April through November, their products are at: Santa Fe Farmers' Market, Eldorado Farmers' Market, Edgewood Farmers' Market, La Montanita Co-op, Cids in Taos, Kaunes in Santa Fe, Socorro Grocery Store, B Street Mountain Air, Triangle market on N.M. 14, Nelson's in Southwest Albuquerque
South Mountain Dairy, Cedar Grove
WHO: Donna Lockridge and Marge Petersen
WHAT: varieties of chevre, marinated feta and Chevarti, fresh feta, Chebrie, South Mountain Ash Mounds, Lizette's Crottins, Queso de Cabra, yogurt drinks with probiotics and "low batch" pasteurized goat milk
WHEN/WHERE: From April through October, their products are at: Village of Los Ranchos Growers' Market, Corrales Growers' Market, Santa Fe Farmers' Market, Triangle market on N.M. 14, Mountainair B Street Market, La Montanita Co-op
Sweetwoods Farmstead Creamery, Peña Blanca
WHO: The Harrison-Inglis family
WHAT: Red Ribbon soft chevre (variety of flavors), Snow Rose Camembert, feta, Tazon de Llanto, fresh, raw goat milk, breakfast cheese/ traditional queso, goat milk fudge and caramel desert sauce
WHEN/WHERE: From June through October, their products are at: Santa Fe Farmers' Market, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Sunflower Market, La Montanita Co-op, and Kaune's.
