Get Your Goat

Until very recently, I was not a huge fan of goat cheese, finding it a bit too gamey for my taste. But as any true food lover should, I decided to give it another chance. So when I heard about Redwood Hill Farm's creamery tours, I organized my fellow foodies on an outing to this family-owned business up in Sebastapol.

As we walked into the creamery, we were treated to a tasting of Redwood Hill's variety of cheeses, yogurt and goat cheese spreads. My favorite cheese was the California Crottin, with it's robust, slightly sharp flavor that would go nicely in a salad or a puff pastry tart. Also of note was their peppercorn spread with a light, fluffy texture and a spicy, peppery finish. These cheeses opened my eyes (and stomach) to the many complex flavors goat cheese can have... it doesn't always have to be gamey.

A staff member guided us through the facilities and explained how their yogurt and cheeses are made. Seeing the rows and rows of cheese drying everywhere made me want to sit in a corner someplace with a big box of crackers and a bottle of wine.

After the tour was over, we headed over to their farm to see where all this great goat cheese comes from. Redwood Hill has five different varieties of goats (Alpine, LaMancha, Nubian, Saanen and Toggenburg), all of whom contribute to milk production. The milk of each breed can take on a slightly different flavor or composition (for instance, the Nubian breed's milk has is highest butterfat content and amount of milk solids). I wondered how the flavor of the milk or cheese would be altered by changing the ratios of the breeds.

We also tried our hand (no pun intended) at milking goats. While I did not try it myself, apparently it's not as easy as it looks! Leave it to the cityfolk to expect point-and-squirt models of goats.

We were also fortunate to be able to play with the many baby goats at the farm, ranging from several months old to only a few weeks old.

Deciding to leave the food production to the professionals, we headed to the local town of Graton to the Willow Wood Market, which came highly recommended by a Redwood Hill Farm employee.

The fact that this place had an entire section of the menu devoted to polenta made it worth having lunch there. I chose the roasted vegatable ragout with polenta, but for a couple of minutes I seriously considered getting the polenta with goat cheese to stay in the theme of the day. The vegetable ragout and polenta was an excellent second choice.

After this day of tasting goat cheese, seeing how it's made and being around goats, you would think that you wouldn't need to eat goat cheese for a while.

That's pretty much what was running through my head the following morning when I found myself at the local Andronico's desperately searching for Redwood Hill Farm goat cheese.