Insouciance: Locals we love

by Gustav Ericson

We sat all afternoon on the almost empty patio under the mulberry trees, the bumblebees hovering motionless outside the latticework, a Sarah Vaughn tune, our favorite, hangs in the sultry air. An inky iced coffee, a kir. Fresh goats cheese with a vanilla-scented fig chutney, a suave leek tarte. Something light, please…  The noises of the city remote and oddly comforting, even the sirens…A late day sun shower provides drama and a torrent from the awnings but no relief from the late June heat. A waitress sullenly sets the tables for the night shift. “The clouds were like an alabaster palace, rising to a snowy height.”  The time again for something cool.

Now, in early summer, the young, unaged chèvres and fromages blancs are at their best, hinting of tarragon or thyme and the field on a misty morning.  Over the years we have been most fortunate in finding several local farmers to share their caprine creations with us. These folks are, without exception, a pleasure to do business with, always resourceful and productive, and somehow amused and lighthearted.  Their cheese, in its many permutations, has grown remarkably popular.   This may be due to the purported health benefits of goat milk: it is more readily assimilated and easier on our systems than other milks. There is an increased availability of high quality artisinal goat cheese, often couched in European cheesemaking tradition, and more farmers (or financiers, or philosophers) are willing to take on the laborious enterprise of raising a herd and the scrupulous endeavor of making a fine cheese with the milk.  We also perceive an increased sophistication in taste, and a more adventurous palate in children from eight to, well, eighty-eight.  Goat cheese as a whole has lost the stigma of its past, and its gentle tang and texture is a very yielding ingredient in the kitchen, at least in its youth.   All our customers have their favorite chèvre, of course, so we now carry varieties from local talent like Nettle Meadow Farms, Lazy Lady Farms, Beatrice Berle, Blue Ledge Farm, and Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. Laura Chenel, the doyenne of artisinal goat cheese in America, augments our selection, from way out in California, but we try to keep our chèvre selection local, as it is, in our eyes, unrivalled for quality, and supportive of people that we love to talk to.   Each farm produces a young and creamy “chèvre” which is perfect for lighter summer appetites. The farmers we chatter with have myriad suggestion for hors d’oeuvres, chèvre-based lunches, and effortless suppers.

One thing to remember is that fromage blanc contains little or no salt, rendering it subtler, more given to sweet applications, and palpably smoother, as there is no salt absorbing the cheese’s moisture.  It makes a grand cheesecake, if you want to go that route, and is good to mix with a little cream and toasted walnuts and serve with any fruits except kiwi. Oh go ahead if you must.  Fromage blanc is a perfect substitute for cream cheese, and arguably, better. With the golden glow of good apricot preserves, or the deep amethyst of blackberry jam, on thin slices of dark bread, it summons Nabokovian memories of luxurious breakfasts under elm trees. Ada, or Ardour. Ahhh. Slicing some strawberries, letting them macerate with a little honey, and spooning them over a little mound of fromage blanc is not a bad thing.   Nor is marinating some fresh figs with a vanilla pod, or melting some dried figs with a little water, honey and good vanilla, then serving it cool around your fromage. Laurie Goodhart, our beloved friend and former proprietress of Nettle Meadow Farms up in Thurman, speaks our language when she intones, “…the first thing I leap to do with chèvre or fromage blanc in spring is pick the early dandelions (and d maybe chives).  As they are soaking in the spinner, mash maybe four ounces fromage blanc with one or two ounces of extra virgin olive oil, one or two tablespoons of balsamic, maybe one tablespoon Tamari, and one or two (minced) garlic cloves. Stir in the clean, dryish, chopped leaves so it is a tan and green pâté of sorts.  Ahh, heaven. Life-affirming in the early spring, a complete meal on bread…When tomatoes come in and d’lions are bitter, do pretty much the same with the solar red.” Laurie sure knows here fromage, and also makes the best cassis truffles on this our earth…   You might start to use fromage blanc as a substitute, or along with, the ricotta you typically use in baked dishes like lasagna. So sayeth Sheila Flanagan, who, with her partner Lorraine Lambiasi, have assumed the role of cheese mavens up at Nettle Meadow. She uses FB (as it is referred to on the farm) to top baked apples later in the year, and finds a rapidly growing market for goat cheese in a once skeptical neck of the woods. I have used FB along with ricotta to fill savory crêpes, baking them in a light tomato sauce à la canneloni. Fromage blanc goes well under smoked salmon and other salty comestibles, when you want to downplay the salt. Use a darkest pumpernickel and some dill, and a caper or two, and you may even forget about the salmon. Try a spoon of our new friend Tanna’s fig and lemon chutney on some FB, the all spread on one of our crisp buckwheat ciappini. From the most affable Beatrice Berle, we get a very tasty soft “Crowdy”, that is a good base for most any sweet or savory application you like.  The white cheese, everything that cottage cheese wants to be, is luscious when crowned with the deep scarlet of some of our lingonberry preserves.

Uses for young chèvres are myriad. The little fresh chèvres that we bring in from Blue Ledge Farm over in Leicester, Vermont, weigh about three ounces, and come rolled in lovely lemony herbs, rosy mixed peppercorns, or in their natural, alabaster state (remember that Mademoiselle Chèvre’s milk contains no carotene, so is always an unsullied, stark white). They are the perfect size for an elegant little supper for two or three.  In France, people buy such chèvres under the name “crottins”, whose etymology is a little startling (crottin means horse turd) but they purchase them aged, at least a month or so, or they resolutely age the chèvres themselves.  Steve Jenkins serves them with a head of softly roasted garlic and crusty bread.  The French age them in a jar with olive oil and plenty of provenςale herbs, like thyme, bay leaves, coriander and fennel, leaving them to age in there oily and resinous bath for up to six months.  We like the younger chèvres gilded under the broiler on little slices of toasted baguette (toast one side only), and served with a tart raw beet or fennel salad. You can always slice a cylindrical log of chèvre into two-ounce portions, place them on your baguette slices, and then broil, if you cannot find the “crottin” configuration.  Goat cheese has a special affinity for apricots, we feel, and it is nice to glaze the grilled croûtes with a little apricot preserves that have been strained and then melted with a splash of white wine and a little mustard.  Use whole grain if you have some.  Our esteemed chef friend Joe Salonia creates a soigné salad of young goat cheese, lightly poached apricots and a salad of watercress leaves dressed only with olive oil and a few drops of champagne vinegar. Dondi Ahearn, our most diplomatic and patient culinary pal, layers heirloom tomatoes with creamy chèvre and bakes the terrine…. I’d probably splatter the plate with a basil vinaigrette and call it dinner. You can marinate your little crottins in olive oil and herbs overnight, grill them on your croûtes the next day, and serve them surrounded with curly endive leaves and arugula dressed with walnut oil and a few drops of lemon juice, thus making “salade d’endive frisée au cabridou grillé”, and why wouldn’t you want to do that?  (Cabri is the old Provençale term for young goat or kid, and cabridou, from cabri and doux (sweet) is the name for little cylindrical goat’s cheeses in Provence). You may certainly scatter some marigold petals over the whole affair, and back in the day I would garnish this sort of salad with nasturtium leaves and flowers, the curious, Klimtian leaves imparting their unique, peppery piquancy.  Young goat cheese is crucial to hors d’oeuvres that involve crusty bread and tapenade, and it is one of the few instances when we prefer a green olive tapenade. A “pesto” of sundried tomatoes and green peppercorns is a natural accouterment.  Young chèvre is also good for breakfast this time of year with tart cherry jam and black bread and it makes a simple, sensible lunch with raw vegetables or fruit. I remember Sophie’s very luxe goat cheese baked in puff pastry, the steam vent on top servicing as a well for a dramatic sprig of rosemary as it would arrive at the table, surrounded by a perfect concentricity of paper thin pear slices, the merest smattering of fresh black pepper ground overall. 

I learned only recently to roast asparagus. Lamentable, that. It’s simple: preheat the oven to 425◦, break off the tough ends of the fattest asparagus you can find, coarsely chop four big shallots, and toss the asparagus, the shallots, some good sea salt, and several grinds of black pepper with a goodly amount of (really) goodly olive oil. Be generous with the oil as it will take on the deep flavor of the shallots and the pale emerald of the asparagus, and you will certainly wanna dip your ciabbata in that! Spread out on a baking sheet, not a flimsy one, and bake for about fourteen minutes until the spears start to bend when you lift one with your tongues. Notice  how the lavender of the shallots is just a shade paler than  the phylloclades of the asparagus.  Those are those peculiar leaf-like bracts here and there on the stalk that cluster around the point of the spear.  You might have noticed that already, and you’ve probably been roasting asparagus for years now, (I am not necessarily too swift, you probably ascertained that, too) but, anyhow, serve them on a distinctive plate, about six to a guest, with a nice gilded goat cheese (sur croûte, bien sur-“on toast, for sure”) in the middle, and maybe drizzle the asparagus with a bit of your best balsamic or just a hint of lemon. Lemon zest is nice under such circumstances, as is the cooing of a mourning dove that you never hear in the winter when all the windows are closed. Simplest, and most carefree, is a little log of chèvre on a platter lined with grape or oak leaves, a few glistening black niçoise olives, and some sweet yellow pear tomatoes. A drizzle of a fruity Provenςale olive oil, black or mixed pepper from the mill.   Have something crisp, something cool, alongside.  That seasonal need for cool is back. “Each star its own aurora borealis…”

Our growing selection of local goat’s cheese is definitely worth investigating this time of year, and the produce department is rife with the season’s

bounty. We are always happy to provide recipes and suggestions.  We bid you a breezy summer, with mulberries, gauzy dawns, sultry evenings…and peace.