A Visit to Tomales Farmstead: When a Guild Class Means Baby Goats

Early December I had the lucky opportunity to visit this dear kid above. Just as snuggly as she looks, Sweet Pea (whose given name I may have forgotten) pranced up to the fence to demand head scratches and nibble on my fingers. Only a year or two from now, Sweet Pea will not only give snuggles, she will be a valuable milk supplier to Tomales Farmstead Creamery.

Classes at Tomales Farmstead mean baby goats.

This post is a photo dairy of my recent visit to Tomales Farmstead, where I taught a class to some amazing cheese lovers who bid on a class with me at the creamery to raise money for the California Cheese Guild. Bless you, cheese lovers.

After a farm tour and tasting (which anyone can arrange) I taught the class how to make cheese: whole-milk ricotta from the farm's goat milk and Straus cow's milk, traditional ricotta from leftover whey, and queso fresco with milk from the creamery's goat herd. Raw milk, ya'll. This was one of my favorite classes to teach.

Not only did I get to team up with Hadley, one of the Tomales Farmstead cheesemakers (below) and ask her geeky cheese questions, I got to cuddle with her baby between culturing and pressing the queso fresco. Classes at Tomales Farmstead can mean human babies, too.

We visited the growing babes, attempted to herd some goats to the pastures after being milked, peeked in the creamery, and made and likely each ate more cheese in three hours than one should in a week. That's all to say that we left very happy.

Thanks for the opportunity, Tomales Farmstead! I look forward to joining you again soon.

Baby Tomales Farmstead Atika

As a heads up, if you, like me love the combo tour and class events, I'll be teaching a Cheesemaking 101 class nearby at Point Reyes Creamery's The Fork on Saturday, January 13th. We'll tour the farm, visit the creamery, taste Point Reyes's lineup, have lunch, then make cheese with the same milk and cream used for beauties like Bay Blue. Queso fresco, creme fraiche, cultured butter, and ricotta. Tickets up.

French Cheese & Wine Tour: Provence!

A tour here, a class there, a little bubbly sipping everywhere, planning events for SF Beer Week- how's one to keep in all in straight? I have no idea. With battling visions of spring in Provence and winter cheese classes in my head, I'm a little in need of an organizer. Or a calendar. Or someone to put things in my organizer and calendar (l pay in cheese?).

Either way, I'm loving what the busyness is bringing. December and wine buying season hit like a glittery, icy, hammer at the wine shop I work at, we're shipping wine all over the place, and things are in motion all around me. I'm a little tired, but feeling very blessed.

I'll be featuring different cheeses on my blog throughout December and will have a lot of news to share in the upcoming weeks, so please keep posted!

Today, there's something I want to share with you dear readers that I'm very excited about. My first tour! I'm heading to Provence with the UC Alumni Association! Yup, you're invited, too.

Flavors of Provence: A 9-Day Infusion of Wine, Food and Culture:

I'm honored to announce that I'm the guest lecturer on an upcoming UC Berkeley Alumni trip to Provence this May. Did I mention I love to travel? I'll be joining the Cal Travel team as one of their hosts to provide further enrichment and education on the tour by talking about... you guessed it! Cheese, culture and wine. Though it sounds like its just for alumni, anyone can actually join the group after joining the association (which is open to the general public). I'm pretty ecstatic. We'll be staying for seven nights in a farmhouse chateau, watching cooking demonstrations from Michelin starred chef Edouard Loubet, visiting markets, and... more. At the moment, spots are still open. Let me know if you have any questions- if I can't answer them, I'll direct you to someone who can.

I'm very excited and hope some of you can make, but if you can't, rest assured they'll be more opportunities go eat cheese with me, many of them at future classes, or, just with me in general. I eat a lot of it.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

(I'm working on the comments issue on the blog at the moment. I can read them and appreciate the love, but I know that you can't. I hope to have it back to normal soon! Thanks for holding tight, your support, and reading!)