Friday, April 10, 2009

Taste of the Triad

Goat Lady Dairy a wonderful experience -- for most

For years now, people have been urging me to eat at the Goat Lady Dairy south of Climax in Randolph County. After waiting months for reservations, I recently sat down to one of the best banquet-style dinners in memory. My wife? I think she might have enjoyed the optional tour of the farm every bit as much as the food -- petting the goats and seeing which chickens laid those green eggs we get at the farmers’ market (Ameraucana, we were told).

But as we made our way home through the verdant countryside down a winding road, we reflected that neither the meal nor the experience is for everyone.

First the food: The Goat Lady Dairy’s "Dining Adventure" is billed as a five-course meal, and given the generous servings, you won’t go away hungry.

I know all this about the cheeses because we got a running commentary on the various courses as we were eating them delivered by Steve Tate, the head cheesemaker and co-owner of the dairy with his wife, Lee, and his sister, Ginnie.

We also learned that female goats average about 3/4 gallon of milk a day for 300 days a year. And that it takes about 1.3 gallons of milk to make a pound of cheese.

And that the Goat Lady Dairy’s herd, combined with a nearby sister herd, produce about 25,000 gallons of milk a year.

We were also told that the pork entree we ate that night was fed on the whey that’s otherwise a waste product of the cheese-making. Neat, I thought. Then again, for some people it’s enough to know that the food they eat is, in fact, food. Where did it come from? How did it get to the table? Too much detail, they’d say. Those people better bring earplugs or stay at home.

Almost everything that’s served is seasonal and comes from either the Goat Lady Dairy or a surrounding farm. The salad, for instance, was a blend of baby lettuces without any other vegetables, it being way too early, for instance, for tomatoes, cucumbers or green peppers. Almonds, salami and, you guessed it, goat cheese, however, kicked it up a notch.

A complimentary glass of wine is served -- a refreshing Italian Pepestrino from the Haw River Wine Guy, an outlet in Burlington that specializes in importing Italian regional specialties. You’re welcome to bring a bottle of your own, and some people brought several.

The seating is family-style, though the servings are plated individually in the kitchen. Once again, eating with strangers may not be for everyone, but we totally enjoyed sharing wine and stories with our tablemates. The main course was fresh ham, slightly smoked and stuffed with savory sausage. Dumplings and braised greens came on the side. It wasn’t fancy -- but it was comfort food of the first order, prepared by a talented chef. After inhaling mine, I looked around and everyone at our table had cleaned their plate. How often is that the case at banquets prepared by fancy restaurants, hotels or caterers?

My wife, who has a real sweet tooth, pointed out that we’d had three dessert courses. And she was right. First came rosemary-and-grapefruit sorbet between the salad course and the entree. Then for the fifth course, we were served panna cotta, Italian for "cooked cream." It is essentially a custard made with, yes, goat cheese flavored with vanilla and a favorite of mine, sorghum -- with a side of locally canned peaches.

Finally, if you had the will to waddle out onto the porch, you could also have a cup of coffee and some homemade chocolate truffles, enhanced with, of course, goat cheese. And cheeses were for sale for those who hadn’t had quite enough.

What’s not to like? The e-mail reservation system that sort of leaves you dangling but is, in the end, fair in the first-come-first-served category. The farm tour if you don’t want to hear about the benefits of composting or are overly careful about what you step in before you eat. And way too much delicious, fresh food with an interesting back story if you’re on a diet. And, yes, lots of goat cheese -- just in case you don’t care for goat cheese.

Taste of the Triad

Name: Goat Lady Dairy
Address: 3515 Jess Hackett Road, Climax
Phone: (336) 824-2163, reservations via web site: www.goatladydairy.com
Hours: Sunday brunch and dinner
Service: ***
Food: ****
Variety: **

Taste of the Triad is written by a local food critic who, in order to avoid special treatment, prefers to write anonymously. Send comments and suggestions to tasteofthetriad@gmail.com.

The next time you visit the dairy be sure to look for a new painting hanging in our hospitality room. Entitled, "A Day In The Life Of A Goat" the large work (pictured above) was painted by local artist Linda Tavernise and funded by a HUB grant from the United Arts Council of Greensboro.

Linda feels inspired by our farm (and our cheese!) and she has created many beautiful paintings using our goats as her subject. Linda teaches art at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and buys our cheese each week at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market on Yanceyville Street. Thank you Linda and the United Arts Council of Greensboro for this creative addition to our dairy now in place for all our visitors to enjoy!

Gouda going! Goat Lady has its way with the competition

Date: August 3, 2005 Edition(s): News & Record
Page: D1 Section: D
Column: SHORT ORDERS Melissa Turner

Steve Tate pulls open the heavy door and steps inside a small room. The air is cool and pungent. "This is our cave," he says. It looks more industrial cooler than cave, but it serves the necessary purpose. Inside three climate-controlled chambers are rows of cheese, large and small, fresh and aged, each at a different stage in the careful, deliberate cheese-making process. The collection includes smooth rounds of Gouda, the cheese that captured first-place at the American Cheese Society's annual convention and competition for Goat Lady Dairy (3515 Jess Hackett Road, Climax; 824-2163.)

It's not the dairy's first prize at the competition, but it's a significant one. The event included more than 700 cheeses, and cheeses must not only beat out others in their categories, but also they are required to score a certain number of points based on taste and aesthetics to place in the rankings. And Gouda is a much more demanding cheese to make than, say, chevre, says Tate, who with cheesemaker associate Carrie Bradds and his sister, Ginnie Tate, produces chevre, feta, Taleggio and other cheeses.

They weren't always making such involved cheeses. When Tate and his wife, Lee, joined Ginnie Tate on their Randolph County farm, they had to start with the basics. "You can start a business with a very simple chevre and then learn about the more complicated cheeses," says Steve Tate, a former therapist.

As he describes the gouda-making process, it becomes clear what he's talking about. Separating the raw milk curds from the whey is a lengthy process that involves stirring curds for an hour and a half, first by hand, when they're soft and delicate, then with a long paddle as they release their milky liquid and solidify.

"What the cheesemaker does to the curd is really the art of it because that's how you determine the texture." After the curds are molded into cheese, the Gouda is coated and aged for three to six months in a climate-controlled setting.

"I never imagined I would get into cheese-making," Tate says. He saw himself as the gardener, instead. "I think it's because it's like gardening, you're trying to figure out how to grow these things by giving them what they need." And he's found fulfillment in the long hours, twice-a-day milking and stirring curds for hours.

"Having a rhythm of life that ties us down to this pretty farm isn't so hard. "There's a spirituality to the work. I often think about the monks and the nuns who live in work communities. They always talk about their work as a sacred thing ... that really is true when you live close to the land."

Goat Lady Dairy cheeses, including the Gouda, are available at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market on Saturdays and the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market.

All rights reserved. No part of this story may be sold, published or included in any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher.

Copyright ©
The Greensboro News & Record
and Landmark Communications, Inc.

The article below appeared in the Greensboro News & Record on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2004

Lorraine Ahearn: Craft cheese: Post-tobacco face of farming


CLIMAX -- No matter how you slice it, nothing is fast about Camembert.

Here at Goat Lady Dairy, the pungent, mold-ripened cheese takes three weeks to age. Each wheel has to be turned by hand -- daily -- and today is the day Steve Tate moves the new batch from the 54-degree walk-in cooler to another set at 41.

All told, from milking parlor to cheese room to final destination -- local farmer's markets and cheese carts at your more discriminating restaurants -- it's the classic slow-food journey. In other words, it's a long way from the dirt-cheap family pack of individually wrapped Kraft Singles "cheese product."

"You don't even have to slice it yourself," Tate says, recoiling at the idea. "But remember to tell your kids to peel off the plastic. Because they wouldn't taste the difference."

As he labors over feta curd and silky-smooth chevre cheese, Tate might not look like the face of post-tobacco Piedmont farming, wearing his muddy Birkenstock garden clogs and disposable shower cap for sanitation.

But look again. It's been less than 10 years since the ordained minister and trained psychotherapist moved here with his wife, a teacher, and his sister, a retired hospital administrator, to transform an eroding, soil-poor tobacco farm into a thriving goat dairy that's a model of a local food movement taking shape.

With events like today's open house from 1 to 5 p.m., and twice-a-month "farm dinners" that sell out a year in advance, Goat Lady has carved out a following that includes not only farmer's market customers, but chefs in the most chic and trendy kitchens -- J. Basul Noble's, 223 South Elm, Green Valley Grill, Le Petit Market, Liberty Oak, Bert's Seafood -- you get the picture.

Trendy, yes, but from the agricultural perspective, a long-term, upward trend. At the same time that North Carolina farmers are looking at thousands of acres of land that for generations grew tobacco, there are millions of dollars in trust fund and Golden Leaf money to help them shift to other crops.

Thus, you find a Reidsville farmer planting acres of echinacea and other medicinal herbs where rows of tobacco used to be. Growers use their skills to cultivate vegetables for the organic market. It's a curious mix of farm wisdom and science, and at Goat Lady, it's small-scale.

For Tate, whose family worried about too much success, small is good. Fewer livestock puts less stress on the animals and on the pastures. Smaller operations don't create the unmanageable waste problems typified by the hog lagoons of eastern North Carolina, where entire dead zones in the estuary are the result.

And then there is the human factor -- working conditions at the large poultry processing plants, for example, or living conditions for migrants who harvest supermarket produce.

"Local food isn't cheap," says Tate, who grew up on a farm, "but 'cheap' food has all those hidden costs."

And like the three-packs of tomatoes in cellophane, or individually wrapped Kraft Singles, it isn't as tasty or as satisfying. It's the difference between bluegrass and elevator music, and in Tate's view it creates a void for "slow food" to fill.

So as he and his family show visitors around the dairy, explaining the difference between white chicken eggs and brown ones, pointing out goats with names like Heather, Peppermint and Bootie, identifying the herbs tended by Tate's 85-year-old mother, are they cultivating more than customers? Are they offering nourishment of another kind?

"Yeah, they eat the cheese in the plastic slices," Tate says. "Then they come to my table and taste my cheese, and I tell them the story about my goats. Then they know me, and I become their cheese-maker."


Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com

From the Winston-Salem Journal, 3/29/2000...

Good Goats

Tate farm brings up goats and puts out farmstead cheeses for sure control of quality and taste

By Michael Hastings

JOURNAL FOOD EDITOR

CLIMAX -- Ginnie Tate isn't joking when she says she spent the last month kidding.

Tate, known as ''the Goat Lady,'' is a partner in The Goat Lady Dairy, south of Greensboro in Randolph County. She, her brother Steve and sister-in-law

Lee have just finished helping their 32 does give birth.

''We delivered 70 babies in 10 days,'' she said.

The Tates' dairy is one of the few in the state making fresh goat cheese. Unlike aged cheese, fresh cheese is ready to eat after ripening a few weeks or less.

Also, unlike most cheeses, this is farmstead cheese, meaning that all the cheese is made from goats that the Tates raise on their farm. That gives the Tates a lot of control over the flavor and texture of the cheese, because they control its prime ingredient, the milk.

Tate said that cheesemaking for her is as much about breeding goats as anything else.

''The cheese will be what the cheese will be,'' she said, explaining that it all starts with the milk.

Much of the Tates' time is spent breeding, feeding and otherwise caring for the goats. The Tates raise four breeds, all carefully selected to produce a large quantity of quality milk with high butter fat and protein.

Floppy-eared Nubians are desirable for the high butter fat. White Saanens produce a large volume of milk. ''We have goats that produce two gallons a day, which is phenomenal for a small animal,'' Tate said.

The milk of the multicolored French Alpine goats gives cheese a nice smooth texture. And La Mancha goats, distinguished by their lack of ears, provide an all-around good combination of desirable features.

''Genetics, food, health makes good milk -- and cleanliness. We spend a a lot of time cleaning,'' Tate said.

In addition to the 32 does for milking, the Tates keep a handful of bucks for breeding. As of two weeks ago, they also had 20 babies left to sell from kidding season.

IT TAKES ABOUT 1 1/2 gallons of milk to make 1 pound of cheese. The Goat Lady Dairy produces about 7,500 pounds of cheese a year, from March to December, following the goats' lead.

''Our cheese is seasonal cheese,'' Tate said. ''We get the goats pregnant in September -- their natural season. You can tell when they're ready to mate, because they holler and wave their tails for the boys.''

The does have a five-month gestation cycle. Toward the end of the goats' pregnancies, the Tates get a break. ''They need to be dry eight weeks before delivery,'' Tate said. ''so we shut everything down for Christmas to give the goats and us a rest.''

Once the kidding season ends, the Tates start making cheese.

The Goat Lady makes seven types of fresh goat cheese, from a fromage that is ready to eat as soon as the curd is separated from the whey to a goat's-milk version of French Camembert that is aged three weeks.

The basic process for all the cheeses is the same.

When the goats are milked, the milk is fed from the milking parlor through a pipe into the adjacent cheesemaking room. There, it is placed in a specially made machine to pasteurize it for 30 minutes.

The Tates add cultures, for flavor, and rennet, for texture, and let the milk sit 14 hours to curdle and set.

Then the curds are set in porous muslin bags for 24 hours to drain out the whey.

Once the whey has been discarded, salt and any flavorings, such as herbs, are added to the curd. At this point the fromage, the dairy's freshest cheese, is ready to be packaged.

TO MAKE A cured cheese, such as Camembert, the Tates add penicillin mold to the fromage to help produce a rind, and let it cure for a week or more, depending on the type of cheese.

''Cheesemaking is controlled spoilage,'' Tate said.

The Tates have had their dairy license only since 1996, but they have made a name among cheese connoisseurs in the Triad. In Winston-Salem, Wellspring Whole Foods Market and Poplar Street Country Store carry Goat Lady Dairy cheese, and the Tates sell it at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market in Colfax.

In addition, it is regularly served at Lucky 32 restaurants, Fabian's and Jim Noble's three restaurants, including Noble's Grille in Winston-Salem.

Fabian Botta, the chef and owner of Fabian's, has been cooking with cheese from the Goat Lady Dairy for about 2 1/2 years, after a tour of Tate's farm.

''We met her and I said, 'Hey, just bring us cheese every week.' ''

He said he uses the cheese in salads and strudels, with crab and shrimp appetizers, and in a dish of scallops and beets. ''Beets and goat cheese work great together. It's wonderful,'' he said.

He likes the cheese's mildness, which makes it versatile and good for introducing people to goat cheese. ''It's very mild, very creamy, great for people who are lactose intolerant. It's a lot leaner (than most cheeses) as well.''

Chef Cino Donati at Noble's Grille has been getting cheese from the Goat Lady dairy almost since the dairy opened.

''We use it all over the place -- in pizza; a fried chef's salad, encrusted with hazelnuts; salad; pastas; risottos,'' Donati said. ''One of the biggest things we like about it is it's local, and the quality is about as good as we can get.''

CHEF TOBIN REIFSCHNEIDER of Lucky 32 said he uses the cheese in a dish of smoked chicken tenders and roasted vegetables with a white-wine cheese sauce, melted on a spicy tomato fondue and as a topping for pizza.

The American Cheese Society has honored the dairy twice in its annual awards. Smokey Mountain Round won third place from the society in 1998.

The plain Fromage won first place from the society in '99. ''That was really nice,'' Tate said, ''because it's the cheese that all our other cheeses are based on.''

The idea to raise goats came from the Tates' discussion of how to keep the family together and take care of each other as they got older.

''We decided I would take care of my mother and my brother would take care of me,'' Tate said.

Once those decisions were made, they decided that their plan would be easier to carry out if they lived and worked together.

When they started considering what kind of business they could have, it didn't take much to steer them toward farming, because Steve and Ginnie Tate's late father was a corn, grain and soybean farmer in Illinois.

''I was experimenting with goats, chickens, herbs, goats -- we finally came up with goats,'' Tate said.

Steve and Lee Tate and their two sons moved from Minnesota to North Carolina, where Ginnie Tate had already bought an old tobacco farm.

Now they live in separate houses on the 60-acre farm, one of which is an old farmhouse that they estimate to be at least 150 years old. They plan to build a third house this year, for Tate's mother. ''We'll call it the Elder House -- because it will be for whichever one of us needs it,'' Tate said. ''It'll have hand rails in the bathroom and everything.''

The other building is where the cheese is made. The building includes a 1,500-square-foot hospitality room, which the dairy rents out and where the Tates regularly hold dinners for 30 people at a time.

Off the hospitality room is a deck next to a goldfish pond that overlooks a garden. On the other is the barn, so that the goats can march straight from the barn into the milking parlor.

The dairy offers two dinners during one weekend a month. Each dinner is for 30 people. The evening begins with a tour of the farm, followed by a four- or five-course meal. The dishes include meats, vegetables and herbs from the Tates' and other area farms, as well as Goat Lady Dairy cheese.

''Dinner at the Dairy'' is popular; all the spring dates have sold out, and the dairy is now taking reservations for September through December.

A typical day at the dairy starts at 5 a.m. with feeding the kids. Then comes the morning milking, which lasts from about 6 to 9:30. The day continues with cheesemaking, cleaning, feedings, deliveries and other chores till 4 p.m., when the Tates get an hour's rest.

Then it's time to feed the babies and milk the does again, which keeps them busy till 8 p.m.

Ginnie, Steve and Lee Tate split the various duties, but it's still a lot of work. On top of that Tate, 60, works 30 hours a week at Moses Cone Hospital as a registered nurse on the weekends. Steve Tate also works off the farm as a pastoral counselor.

''I hope to retire (from the hospital) in a couple years,'' Ginnie Tate said. ''I've said I want to milk goats till I'm 80. I'm not sure about that now.

''But I hope to be doing it at least another 10 years.''

Chocolate Goat Cheese Truffles

The Goat Lady Dairy serves these with coffee on the deck as the finish to its dinners.

4 ounces excellent quality bittersweet chocolate chips

5 ounces fresh goat cheese (plain fromage)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract Unsweetened cocoa powder for coating truffles

1. Melt the chocolate chips in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring until it is smooth and completely melted. Remove chocolate from heat and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile lightly whip goat cheese and vanilla until fluffy and light. And chocolate and continue mixing until well combined. Chill mixture, covered, for 1 hour, or until firm.

2. Form heaping teaspoons of the chilled mixture into balls (1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter). If the texture is too crumbly, allow it to warm at room temperature for a few minutes until it is workable. Chill balls and roll in cocoa powder to finish. Truffles should be kept chilled in an airtight container.

Makes 15 truffles.

Baked Chevre

The Goat Lady Dairy also has served this appetizer at its dinners.

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup fine bread crumbs

2 5-ounce rounds (logs) Chevre, sliced crosswise into thirds

Place olive oil and bread crumbs in separate bowls. Coat cheese pieces in oil, then in bread crumbs to cover thickly. Place on cookie sheet and refrigerate 1 hour. Bake breaded chevre slices in a preheated 400-degree oven until lightly brown, warm and beginning to soften, about 5 to 10 minutes. Be careful not to bake too long as cheese will melt. Serve on top of your favorite salad greens with a vinaigrette dressing or your favorite salsa. (If using salsa, first drain it slightly in a sieve.)

Makes 6 servings.

Spicy Tomato Fondue With Goat Cheese

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, minced

3 fresh garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes (puree)

1 stalk celery

4 sprigs fresh parsley

4 sprigs fresh thyme

4 sprigs fresh oregano(or marjoram)

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 teaspoons Tabasco Jalapeno Sauce

1 teaspoon Tabasco Sauce

Salt to Taste

8 to 10 ounces fresh goat cheese

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley

Crackers and toast rounds for serving

1. In a large saucepot, combine the oil, onion and garlic. Stir to coat with the oil. Saute over medium heat until onions are tender and garlic is golden. (Do not brown the garlic or it will add a bitter flavor to the sauce.) Add the tomatoes. Stir to blend. Using clean string, tie the celery, parsley, thyme, oregano (or marjoram) and bay leaves into a bundle to form a bouquet garni; add to pot. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, until the sauce begins to thicken, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, discard bouquet garni, and add Tabasco sauces. Taste for seasoning and add salt as needed. The sauce should be spicy.

2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slice goat cheese into 3/4 -inch slices. Place spicy tomato fondue sauce in a large casserole dish. Arrange goat cheese on top of sauce. Put in oven and bake until sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top. Serve with crackers and toast rounds.

Makes 4 to 6 first-course servings.

Published: March 29, 2000