Launched in 1983 by Mary Keehn, Cypress Grove Chèvre began life as a small farmstead creamery with a herd of fifty goats and a local customer base. A single mother of four searching for a good milk source for her family, Keehn acquired her first goats from a neighbor and began making cheese at home as
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This spring, I’ve had a love affair with brainy goat cheeses. They appear this time of year – wrinkly, rumpled, as if they’ve just rolled out of bed – which may explain why I adore them for breakfast. Put on a pot of tea, grab the honey, pop in some toast, and prepare to be awakened with a rise-and-shiny little cheese.
Few cookbooks have revolutionized the dairy realm like Chester Hastings’s The Cheesemonger’s Kitchen (Chronicle Books, 2012). When my copy arrived in the mail this summer, I spent an afternoon leafing through it on my stoop, agog.
Officially, August is National Goat Cheese Month, but let’s agree: we’re past campaigning for goat cheese acceptance. Back in the 1970s, when the first goat-cheese pioneers were emerging from their milking barns in coveralls, Americans found chèvre exotic.
It’s the year of the goat. Everywhere I turn: goat dinners, goat tacos, goat talk. This means I should let you in on a little secret about Leonora. It’s the most luscious Spanish goat cheese on the planet. The texture is gooey-soft, and it comes in a slightly flattened brick that looks like a melting ice cream cake roll. If you’ve sworn off sweets for Lent, you might want to pick up some Leonora for dessert.
