Passion-driven pursuit
Calling my interest in food, and its tradition and culture, a passion is, I think, an adequate description. If passion is “a strong or extravagant fondness or desire,” then that is my bent toward food. I learned early that food meant love. I learned this from my grandmother (as a lot of us do, no doubt). I dotted my early life’s landscape with food-centric thoughts: cooking for my boyfriends’ families— winning not just the boy’s heart but the entire clan’s— reading food-centric books, and following chefs and food writers in the same way that some teenagers follow rock stars. Yet I never thought about food as a career choice. I just didn’t think that my “interest” could be coined as anything like a passion or a calling.
Now I am at home, both literally and figuratively, with my pursuit of food, with how it shapes my life and the lives around me, with the friends I have made, and how I have settled into this interest, this self-proclaimed passion. Beyond being comfortable with it, I hold sacred the power of food; how we share it shapes our world in ineffable ways. Through my journey I have become not only a mother concerned with her child’s food traditions— like saying the Three Things— but a producer of a food item that is served at tables across the country. What a responsibility! What a beautiful responsibility.
When I first became a cheesemaker, I was asked what I ultimately wanted to achieve: what was my five-year plan, what was my goal? Those were great questions and ones that took a good deal of thought to answer, because I had to ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” I became a cheesemaker primarily because it is fun. I find immense joy in it because it feeds me— both literally and figuratively— and because I get to share that joy with so many people through the products I create. Those are the same reasons I cook and share food at my table. At the beginning of a meal or even before, as I start cooking, I think of that wonderful gift.
The why in cooking is the most important starting point in choosing what to cook. The reasons are plentiful if you think about it— to romance, to love, to celebrate, to honor, to sustain, to share ideas. And then I ask myself which foods and settings will help me to arrive at that destination. My feelings about cooking are perfectly described in the Story People artists’ collective “Real Reason” prints: “There are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good.”
I start my days now in contemplation of foods and traditions that I— Southern first, American second, and somewhere in there Greek, too— enjoy. I also think about how you might start your day, what will happen around your table, and how I, the products I make and the recipes I share, get to participate in that. It is a magnificent thought that I may extend myself into your life and enjoyment of food just by crafting a product or sharing a recipe.
Before my tradition of Three Things, I still had a propensity for beginning a meal with some form of reverence. I would often read a poem at big, over-flowing meals at the lake, particularly “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo. Harjo depicts every great moment of our lives taking place over a table. She shows how a table can bring people together in joy and sadness and closes with my favorite line: “Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.”
From the beginning of my day to the “last sweet bite,” I will share with you in this book more than the traditions at my table, more than my stories of how I believe food shapes our lives: I offer you my life history through some of my favorite recipes. As you can imagine, quite a few of my creations will feature cheese, but as importantly, they will feature the region that I once couldn’t wait to escape but eventually embraced wholly: it’s my grandmother’s legacy on my hands and now on your table.
Lastly, I am thankful for “you, me, and the beautiful day.”
Bon appétit.
My favorite T. S. Eliot poem, “Four Quartets,” which had no small part in luring me to where I am today, states in the most beautiful of ways that the exploration which seems like the end is really the beginning, “costing not less than everything.”
Homemade Goat Cheese
I submitted a recipe to ReadyMade magazine for making goat cheese at home. It truly is a fun thing to do. My goal with this cookbook is to have you realize how lovely and healthy and versatile goat cheese is— whether you make your own or use one of Belle Chèvre’s goat cheese or any other goat cheese. I want you to enjoy and feel at home with this beautiful cheese! Note: Don’t toss out the whey when you are done. Whey contains milk sugar, albuminous protein, and minerals. Leftover whey can be used as a liquid substitute in bread-making. Additionally it can be frozen to use at a later time.
Serves 2
1 quart goat milk
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
Fresh chives, chopped
Cheesecloth or cotton kitchen towel
In a heavy-bottomed pot, bring goat milk to a boil over medium heat. Take off the heat. Immediately stir the lemon juice into the milk. Let stand for a couple of minutes, so the milk can curdle.
Lay out a cheesecloth (or a cotton kitchen towel) in a bowl. Pour in the milk-lemon mixture. The curds simply resemble curdled milk at this point so don’t worry that they will pour right through the cheesecloth— it will catch them. Tie the ends of the cloth together so it becomes a bag. Hang it on a wooden spoon over the bowl or over your sink and let the bag hang free. The whey should strain out of the cheesecloth for at least two hours.
Before taking the cheese out of the cloth, squeeze the cloth to extract more liquid from the cheese. Transfer the cheese from the cloth to a bowl and season it with salt and pepper and fresh chives. Ready to serve.
A NOTE ON TECHNIQUE
My Food Rules
I have a friend that I fussed at so continually about “technique” that he now says, instinctively, after any recipe question, “I know, I know, it is technique!” Another friend will roll her eyes at me when she asks, “How long do I leave it in the oven?” She is searching for an exact time, and I will undoubtedly respond with, “Until it is done.”
I am a firm believer that if one masters a few solid techniques then recipes will forevermore take a back seat to that concept of technique. If you know the technique for a great omelet, for instance, then you don’t need a recipe— just creativity to put in whatever strikes your fancy. The same is true for techniques and principles of grilling, sautéing, braising, poaching, pickling, soup making, etc.
This book is a collection of some of my favorite things that I like to bring to the table to share with family and friends. It is my hope that if you learn how to make one of the frittatas in this book that you will have learned the “technique” to make any kind of frittata, limited only by your own creativity and availability of ingredients. My favorite cornbread recipe is a foundation for you to understand how you can improve it or make it your own by adding jalapeños, cheddar, or, of course, goat cheese.
My philosophy is Food Is Fun— being playful in the kitchen is a requisite to creating great memories at the table. Experiment with these recipes and have fun!
EASY SUBSTITUTIONS
How I Use Goat Cheese at My House
Goat cheese is one of the most versatile cheeses on the planet. It’s soft, easy to