Sherrington Grange Cheese

Only trouble with having farm animals as tame as ours is that some think they're entitled to sit anywhere - including on the back deck.

February is festival season. We've got food and beverage events coming out our ears, cruise ships are lining up to enter Picton and restaurants are in full swing. For a cheese-maker, things can get kind of busy as a result. Here are some highlights from this week.

Sunday started as usual, packing for the farmer's market in the dark, before waking the goats for milking, followed by the sleepy cows and then the drive into town. But after the market this Sunday, spent the afternoon helping match cheese to beer and wine at the new craft beer festival. As it was hugely popular with the locals, it looks like being an annual event from now on.

Then yesterday, dashed up to Waterfall Bay, where a chef was expecting a large order of feta for the Seresin dinners. Only trouble was someone forgot to unpadlock the gate, so faced with a six foot wooden barrier, I ended up sliding the tray of cheese under the gate and swinging myself round the gatepost, without slipping down the bank into the sea in the process. Felt like Peter Rabbit sneaking into the vegetable garden. Marched the cheese up the driveway, arrived breathlessly at the kitchen where I managed to get out some last minute instructions about how to adjust salt content in feta, before running back to the car for the drive into town, where two food tours where waiting for a cheese-making class and cheese-wine matching with Cloudy Bay. Phew. Breathless again just thinking about it.

Today on the other hand is leisurely. Have already made a little feta and soft goat's cheese. Now just thinking about the soft curd cheeses that have been ordered for Friday; need 10kg of curd by then for a favourite chef to use at this weekend's Wine & Food festival. That's festival week for you.

Just bought a bull. Have been trying to avoid this as bulls are notoriously difficult, but finally submitted to the inevitable and started looking some weeks ago. Temperament was the top priority. It's a bit like buying a used car, sight unseen. You have no real idea of what it's like until you take it for a drive, or in this case try milking a frisky cow with the bull just outside the shed. All the signs are good though. The first thing the truck driver said was 'you've got a quiet one'. Mum was sweet talking the new edition before it got off the truck and once in the paddock, he came straight up to the fence and licked her hand. Then proceeded to follow us along the fence line as we walked home, communcating the cow equivalent of 'don't leave me on my own'. Once he realised there was a steer for company, he took off, as did the truck driver with a parting shot of 'look after my mate'. I think we'll be alright with this one.

The run up to Christmas was bedlam as usual, delivering orders to all and sundry, from restaurants preparing for the holiday rush to people wanting blue cheese to give to Dad or supplies to take to the bach. A lot of fun. Managed to keep everyone happy, but the cheese chillers were nearly bare by Christmas eve and am now busy refilling them.

Just done an interview for Radio NZ. Link here

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon

Highlight of this last week was helping with the wine & cheese masterclass at Cloudy Bay winery, for 250 or so people, during the food and wine indulgence that is the annual Wine Weekend. Had a lot of fun and met some lovely fellow foodies. Made cheeses especially for that weekend, my favourite being the goat curd (which takes 24hrs to ferment, is soft and silky) to pair with asparagus for the dinner on friday. Spring on a plate.

Coming up for breath after the usual spring deluge of work. All expected offspring have arrived and are now down to twice-a-day feeds. Quite triumphant at managing to run both cows & goats through the same milking shed, which I've never done before (and don't know anyone who does, probably for good reason). We're getting quicker and quicker at making the adjustments to equipment in between (changing 2 to 4 cups & altering the suction mainly). In the lead-up to spring, I had been having nightmares about mixing loud, impatient goats with skittish cows who flinch if even a rabbit makes a sudden move in the corner of their vision. But finally, order has been established; goats first, everybody else second.

Baby goats are appearing under bushes everywhere. Which means goats cheeses won't be far away...

Getting ready for the new cheese-making season to start. Have been scrubbing the cheese room, checking the water filters and paperwork. Discovered that detergent can give you a headache, when using it at close quarters, lying upsidedown under the pasteuriser!

Love the excitement of this time of year, assessing the bulging stomachs of various animals to see how long I've got before we're away milking. And calculating how much longer the winter cheese stocks will last before we eat our way through them.

In the meantime, have done a lot of teaching this week, including an ozzie tv travel programme filming at Brancott Winery and a couple for local tour operators near Blenheim.

One of the pleasures of winter, at least as far as I'm concerned, is mining the freezer for gems. Produce comes in thick and fast in summer and anything that can't be pickled, bottled or eaten on the spot is frozen. The farm has a couple of big freezers, full to the brim with bags of fruit and veg. This week's favourite find was green tomatoes, a heritage variety that looks like short, fat green fingers, with lines of gold down the sides, as if someone had sat, patiently painting each one. Anyway, we now have a rather nice line of green tomato sauce, thanks to a recipe from one of Grandma's old books, whose most popular pages tend to be stained with butter splotches, cocoa powder or tomato juice. I think every household in NZ has one of those books!