Gratitude

by Gustav

Miss Goodhart and I are peeling garlic on a startlingly beautiful September afternoon. We have peeled a lot of garlic in our days, and the bowl of peels fills quickly, as we talk about the early Mediterranean civilizations that we both love and that so often haunt her paintings. The Minoans, peaceful and creative, might well have spent such peaceful hours in similar rooms, filled with art and comfort. The three- year unease of crystalline early September days is somehow quelled as the bowl of silvery peels overflows.

We peel garlic for the chēvre with olive oil and garlic, or the chēvre with herbs, black pepper and garlic, two of Nettle Meadow’s most popular varieties. It is organic, hard-necked garlic from a local farmer friend, and will be paired with the best Greek olive oil, or Telicherry black pepper and an array of home- grown, organic herbs. As with all Nettle Meadow creations, there is ardent attention to quality and detail, accomplished with a particular tranquility. This permeates Miss Goodhart’s art as well as the goat cheeses that she and her consort, Raynald Hebert, have created for so long up at Nettle Meadow Farm. Nettle Meadow is fromagerie, atelier, oasis: an enclave of creation and, to me, a celebration of the beauties of the world, gustatory and optic. We sit peeling garlic in a high- ceilinged room amidst a profusion of Miss G’s paintings and screens and masks and fabrics, a splendid blaze of color and form. On the way up the mountain, I noted that some of the sumac was already tinged with its elegant September red. Now, as we peel garlic, the sun is surely dappling the walls of the outbuildings and barns. Perhaps, as we murmur on about Crete and Cyprus, a prematurely yellowed leaf spins soundlessly to the forest floor outside, and a dog barks half-heartedly. Perhaps not, but I like to think so, now that November is full on. There are seventy goats out in the barn, cynically observing their environs and chewing in that unique, caprine manner. Monsieur Hebert, fromagiēre and affineur, transforms their milk into a lot of folks’ favorite chēvres, fromages blanc, and, more recently, Kunik. In Inuit, Kunik means either “snow” or “kiss”. How perfect a name, as this cheese melts like light snow, or a fleeting kiss. It is a bloomy-rind, luxuriant amalgam of goat milk and cow cream, and everyone who tries it, buys it. They all feel, like yours truly, that it is in a league with the best French triple crēmes, like Chaource or Brillat Savarin. These are cheeses for an indulgent breakfast with that perfect croissant or crisp toast, or at the end of a dinner with sweet fruits like fresh figs or, quintessentially, red raspberries. Or, very simply with some local honey and toasted nuts whenever you feel you deserve it.

Outside on the front porch, there are several large paintings, all peaceful microcosms unto themselves. There are gorgeous spectra of color and tone, but there is in every canvas a meticulous attention to pattern and allusion to the ancient civilizations we speak of as we peel garlic. One particular work is an array of golden oncidium orchids against a scintillating screen of black and scarlet silk. These are the orchids that tremble delicately in even the vaguest breeze but seem to last forever, and their depiction here is breathtaking. Miss G. Has apparently found the time in her life to create such masterpieces, as well as gather wild roses, lavender, rose geranium, and pink peppercorns for the mixed herb chēvre, and to deliver the cheese to the best restaurants in the area, and to raise an exquisite daughter, Camille, and to carve out an afternoon to indulge a dolt like me with conversation and lunch.

Monsieur Hebert joins us for lunch, which is an immense salad of late tomatoes and another Nettle Meadow masterwork, Crane Mountain chēvre, nestled in a jazzy array of coarse organic greens and herbs. Monsieur is the epitome of deference and dedication, and embraces detail and creativity like Miss G. He does not dally, as his agenda of milking and forming and affinage is endless. The output at Nettle Meadow is prodigious, as they provide chēvres and fromages blancs and Kunik to most of the better, well-thought-out restaurants around here, delivering all over Lake George and Saratoga and down to Woodstock. (On the way into Woodstock, at New World Home Cooking on Route 212, you can dine in rooms sumptuously filled with Laurie’s works, while partaking of Nettle Meadow fromage blanc. And Mr. Orlando, the proprietor, is nothing if not discerning.) Bear in mind as you eat these or any other goat cheeses that it takes about nine pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese-this is not nonchalant work. The affinage room, where the cheeses age, is meticulous, orderly, cool and silent. In stark contrast to the riot of color and texture in the studio and on the porch, regimented rows of Kunik sit placid in perfect rows. They exhibit every subtle gradation of non-color- from the stark blue-white of January snow to the warm ivory of old piano keys. I think of them in their cool elegance, and the profound pleasure they invariably provide once their affinage is complete. M. Hebert returns to his caprine charges without a grumble. A gentle, indulgent Libra with a herd of Capricorns…

I have, on a green wall in Saratoga, a spectacular Goodhart of three persimmons and two pears. In the cheese case at our beloved Honest Weight, we try to keep a profusion of Nettle Meadow cheeses in their various forms. (We will be featuring Kunik, the snow/kiss cheese, during the month of November, as it is to us the quintessential Thanksgiving cheese. Ask for a sample.) With a memory of cocoa on a languorous September afternoon and the infinite nature of creativity, in its forms, we are filled with wonder and thankfulness.

Back to index

CoopScoop Home
CoopScoop Archives
Behind the Scoop
Guidelines for Article
     Submission