the past month has been a bit of a whirlwind. aside from being the sickest i've been in years (the aforementioned bout of strep turned into some antibiotic-resistant bubonic nightmare, complete with enormous lymph nodes and a raging ear infection), i've finally moved into my new house, making this the first time i've had my own bedroom since december. i've started a new job, which is exhausting and very very scary and has resulted in several mutilated fingers but i love it just the same (more on this later). somewhere amidst all of this, jordan and i took a train up to washington and spent two weeks on a buddhist abbey and organic farm, where we worked in exchange for room and board.
it was idyllic, to say the least. the farm was sandwiched in between mount adams (above) and mount hood, utterly isolated, beautiful and full of weirdos. we spent most of our work hours weeding, thinning plant beds, watering, hauling and spreading compost, transplanting, and nitpicking around the greenhouse. it gave me a deep appreciation for the high prices of organic foods: this particular farm, for example, eschewed herbicides altogether, organic or otherwise, and so eight people would have to spend several days hand-weeding a half acre of field, which might pay off if the crops weren't destroyed by pests.
the farm also had a coop of hens that they kept for eggs, and one of our chores was to "put them to bed" every night. this included, amongst other things, singing to them. a buddhist chant was recommended as lullaby material, but most nights jordan and i brought a guitar into the coop and sang them leonard cohen, or, fittingly, bob dylan's "lay lady lay."
we also met a beautiful family who kept a herd of goats and had a homemade woodburning pizza oven in their back yard. aside from giving me new faith in the nuclear family structure, i've decided that the man i marry will have to build me one of these, no exceptions.
and despite the whole waking-up-at-dawn thing and some uncomfortable questions about organized religion that i was left with, i couldn't help but notice that everybody seems happier in secluded farm territory, in tiny towns where everyone knows everyone, where people work outside all day and don't have time to sit around long enough to get bored, let alone depressed.
oh, and i was fed a phenomenal homemade goat milk cottage cheese, which reminded me that i needed to post about making fresh goat cheese.
after all, isn't it high time we liberate goat cheese? once a peasant food, then nouvelle american cuisine, now achingly bourgeois chèvre--it seems deeply criminal for it to be confined to a purple-stained beet-salad prison. there is so much more to goat cheeses than the aseptic logs of paste we obligingly toss into our shopping carts, with thoughts of elegant herb-crusted hors d'oeuvres served alongside gleaming bowls of grapes. i'm not even talking about aged goat cheeses, those tiny yellow-tinged pungent wheels with pleasingly yielding rinds and pale centers of complex and crumbling creaminess. no, there is a world of fresh chèvre that we have abandoned in favor of convenience.
last summer i tried my hand at making ricotta at home, and was thrilled. turns out, making goat cheese at home is an almost identical process, with results that are equally stunning, if not moreso. but be forewarned: it doesn't taste like the fresh goat cheese you buy at trader joe's. not even close.
it's better. it's more subtle, less tangy, more earthy. it's barely sweet and almost nutty, with a heady, cleanly mammalian taste that far surpasses any i've tried.
don't eat it with beets. eat it smeared on toast, atop pancakes, folded into little pillows of ravioli, spooned over strawberries or figs, mixed with fresh herbs, on pizza, with chocolate, with jam, with honey, kneaded into gnocchi dough, alongside fried eggs and kale. turn it into ice cream or custard. the world is your oyster.
fresh chèvre
adapted from guilty kitchen
pour goat’s milk and buttermilk into a medium sized saucepan with a thermometer attached (alternatively you could take a reading every now and then if you don’t have a clip on thermometer). set heat to medium. bring the milk to between 170°F-185°F. when the milk begins to bubble slightly and begin to curdle, remove it from the heat. add 1 tbsp of the lemon juice and stir. you should see lots of curdle-y goodness now.
return to stove and bring the heat down to 120°F. ladle the curds into the cheesecloth lined colander and drain the whey into the bowl. either save the whey for goat-y protein shakes or toss it.
tie the top of the cheesecloth as tight as possible and secure it with string or an elastic. loop the handle of a long wooden spoon through the knot and use it to suspend the cheesecloth bundle over a tall drinking glass or other cylindrical vessel. place in refrigerator for 2 hours to drain.
remove from fridge, scrape cheese into bowl and season with salt, if desired. stir in 1 tbsp of lemon juice (or don't; your goat-taste will be clearer and cleaner if there's less acid to mask it). use immediately or return to fridge and allow the flavours to intensify over the next 1-2 days. will keep for up to one week in the fridge.
it was idyllic, to say the least. the farm was sandwiched in between mount adams (above) and mount hood, utterly isolated, beautiful and full of weirdos. we spent most of our work hours weeding, thinning plant beds, watering, hauling and spreading compost, transplanting, and nitpicking around the greenhouse. it gave me a deep appreciation for the high prices of organic foods: this particular farm, for example, eschewed herbicides altogether, organic or otherwise, and so eight people would have to spend several days hand-weeding a half acre of field, which might pay off if the crops weren't destroyed by pests.
the farm also had a coop of hens that they kept for eggs, and one of our chores was to "put them to bed" every night. this included, amongst other things, singing to them. a buddhist chant was recommended as lullaby material, but most nights jordan and i brought a guitar into the coop and sang them leonard cohen, or, fittingly, bob dylan's "lay lady lay."
we also met a beautiful family who kept a herd of goats and had a homemade woodburning pizza oven in their back yard. aside from giving me new faith in the nuclear family structure, i've decided that the man i marry will have to build me one of these, no exceptions.
and despite the whole waking-up-at-dawn thing and some uncomfortable questions about organized religion that i was left with, i couldn't help but notice that everybody seems happier in secluded farm territory, in tiny towns where everyone knows everyone, where people work outside all day and don't have time to sit around long enough to get bored, let alone depressed.
oh, and i was fed a phenomenal homemade goat milk cottage cheese, which reminded me that i needed to post about making fresh goat cheese.
after all, isn't it high time we liberate goat cheese? once a peasant food, then nouvelle american cuisine, now achingly bourgeois chèvre--it seems deeply criminal for it to be confined to a purple-stained beet-salad prison. there is so much more to goat cheeses than the aseptic logs of paste we obligingly toss into our shopping carts, with thoughts of elegant herb-crusted hors d'oeuvres served alongside gleaming bowls of grapes. i'm not even talking about aged goat cheeses, those tiny yellow-tinged pungent wheels with pleasingly yielding rinds and pale centers of complex and crumbling creaminess. no, there is a world of fresh chèvre that we have abandoned in favor of convenience.
it's better. it's more subtle, less tangy, more earthy. it's barely sweet and almost nutty, with a heady, cleanly mammalian taste that far surpasses any i've tried.
don't eat it with beets. eat it smeared on toast, atop pancakes, folded into little pillows of ravioli, spooned over strawberries or figs, mixed with fresh herbs, on pizza, with chocolate, with jam, with honey, kneaded into gnocchi dough, alongside fried eggs and kale. turn it into ice cream or custard. the world is your oyster.
fresh chèvre
adapted from guilty kitchen
- 1 litre goat milk
- 1 cup buttermilk
- juice of 1 lemon (2 tbsp, divided)
- 1/2 tsp sea salt (optional)
pour goat’s milk and buttermilk into a medium sized saucepan with a thermometer attached (alternatively you could take a reading every now and then if you don’t have a clip on thermometer). set heat to medium. bring the milk to between 170°F-185°F. when the milk begins to bubble slightly and begin to curdle, remove it from the heat. add 1 tbsp of the lemon juice and stir. you should see lots of curdle-y goodness now.
return to stove and bring the heat down to 120°F. ladle the curds into the cheesecloth lined colander and drain the whey into the bowl. either save the whey for goat-y protein shakes or toss it.
tie the top of the cheesecloth as tight as possible and secure it with string or an elastic. loop the handle of a long wooden spoon through the knot and use it to suspend the cheesecloth bundle over a tall drinking glass or other cylindrical vessel. place in refrigerator for 2 hours to drain.
remove from fridge, scrape cheese into bowl and season with salt, if desired. stir in 1 tbsp of lemon juice (or don't; your goat-taste will be clearer and cleaner if there's less acid to mask it). use immediately or return to fridge and allow the flavours to intensify over the next 1-2 days. will keep for up to one week in the fridge.
Also an appropriate choice, it seems: "In 1994, Cohen retreated to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, beginning what became five years of seclusion at the center.[25] In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name Jikan, meaning "silence". He served as personal assistant to Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi. Japanese songwriter and poet Masato Tomobe stated he admires Cohen and this made him better recognized in Japan around this time." (If you believe Wikipedia.)
ReplyDeleteAlong with the Leonard CoHEN, Jordan could have done a few Jimmy HENdricks licks on the guitar?
ReplyDeleteCHICK Corea?
ReplyDelete