Making cheese and soap is much like having children. Well, minus all stressful things like nap time and the constant fight to behave. Our cheese changes throughout the season. Can you tell? Probably not as much as I can but it does change composition. It's much like a baby human's life but smashed into 9 short months instead of 3 years. About the only thing that doesn't change in goat milk during a normal lactation is the amount of casein or allergenic protein. That is what lactose intolerant people are allergic to. These numbers are lower in goat milk than any other animals' milk besides human beings. Science beside, the milk changes throughout the season and so does the cheese making procedures.
So a cheese maker is pretty darn smart if you ask me. I'm partial but there is so much work that goes into this 'simple' process as someone exclaimed to me last week. Simple? SIMPLE!? Sure, knowing nutritional value of feed, pasture, forage and then knowing how it comes out of an animal into milk and then how it transforms into cheese - pretty simple yo. Also, comparing our business to any other farm in the county is pointless. We are, in our own market here. We are doing something that no one has done here before. We are producing an artisanal product from humanely raised animals and selling through local retailers to give back to our community and local economy. We love using the word locavorial because it the true meaning behind our products. We could say local, we could say fresh, we could say 'natural' but most of the time those words are marketing gimmicks. Much like 'organic certified' is a marketing gimmick. Did you know it would cost us $2,000 just to have the 'organic' logo on our products yet we could still spray our pastures with Round Up.... ?
Change is good and we hope to have opened a door for many other people wanting to produce and provide local products at a reasonable price to promote local economy and community. Because that's where it's at: community.
Happy cheese eating!
Small rounds and personal sized buttons of Kick Ash at Day 7 in the cheese cave. Kick Ash Goat Cheese is packaged in two ply cheese paper at one week of age and sold young. If kept in the packaging it will further age into a teenager of gooey goodness.
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