Is Summer Over?

I think today it turned October.

I am wondering how in the world that happened and where summer went?
Well, obviously, I haven't been blogging much lately and somehow, in my absense from my computer, Fall has snuck up, and quite frankly, frightened me with this whole OCTOBER thing.

So let me back up and tell you a couple of things we have been up to at the creamery and also give you my "what I did on summer break" report. We can address this Fall "thing" later.

Okay, where did we leave off?
I told you about our fun award from the Fancy Food show in NYC for our new cheese - Belle & The Bees Breakfast Cheese, right? Silver for Outstanding New Product of the Year! Oh, but I didn't tell you that that same cheese got an award too from the American Cheese Society in August. Of course, we were thrilled! Our yummy new cheese getting kudos from our peers is very very flattering!

I didn't tell you about my trip to Greece though. Here is what I told those of you who happened to email me while I was gone. My out of office auto- email response read as follows: Subject- Researching the Joys of Food & Family in Greece. Body - I am sorry to miss your email but I am on a very important business trip in Greece to research, intently, the joys of food and family (some people might call this a vacation). If you need anything at all from Belle Chevre while I am gone - through July 22 - please contact someone who could help you better than I could myself, Kim Maxwell, at the creamery. 256.423.2238kim@bellechevre.com
I promise to return better able to make great cheese!Tasia

I was very disciplined in my research and I ate cheese every day - but all Greeks do this so I really don't think I deserve too much credit.
I did come back better able to make great cheese I believe. I believe this because what I participated in on my trip is the simplest of pleasures - good fresh food and the magic that happens around it.
Of course I didn't have to travel all the way back to the mother-land to do this, to remember this, as it happens every time we sit down at the table with those we love - or like a little. It happens every time we say to our friends, standing around a stove or over a bowl of pasta, "here, taste this! what do you think? isn't it divine?". Those tiny but intense moments of pause that occur as the spoon hits your mouth and you close your eyes and know, with concentrated certainty, that food and the act of sharing it with others is, quite literally, brilliant.

We had a few more of those moments at the creamery this summer. Several were centered around our first recipe contest. We tested those recipes and then brought them into the creamery to share. Delicious! We had some amazing submissions which made it very very difficult to announce winners. I used to hear that all the time: "It was really hard to decide because every entry was so outstanding", and I would always think the judges are only saying that because they are trying to be nice or because they are Southern and are therefore forced into being nice. However, now I know that is probably a truly genuine sentiment. I know this because it happened to us. (I officially apologize to all of those judges or people assuming the role of judge that I, myself, had judged disingenuous). All of the recipe submissions were really really good. So good, we even made up a couple of honorable mentions just to award extra people!! They were that good.
(please click the enter our recipe contest banner on www.bellechevre.com to see the winners and their recipes)

So it sounds like what I am catching you up on is how much I ate all summer. Hmmm....

Yet, I will say, that while good food - especially great cheese - and good friends and family are always my focus they were concentrated under the heat of the Alabama and the Mediterranean sun this summer. And that is how I am rewarded!

But school is back in and summer is over. The lazy days of summer have given way to cooler crisper mornings and the Fall harvest is upon us.

So the last piece of news I have to offer up that I hope will enhance your Fall is.........
BelleChevre.com launched our new online store this week! (we didn't just goof off ALL summer!).
All of our cheeses and some fun compliments too are all now available online. We have ERIC R. KAGERER, web guru extraordinare from E Host solutions, and STEPHANIE SCHAMBAN, fancy food photographer, to thank for their dedication and devotion to delivering outstanding goat cheese to the world.

Oh and did I mention that today it is October?
Enjoy!

Fancy Food?

I have some great news -  one of our newest cheese spreads just got a little medal (a statue actually)!  Belle & The Bees Breakfast Cheese was honored with a Silver Sofi Award at the Fancy Food Show in New York last week for Outstanding New Product.  Of all of the fabulous gourmet food products that we were judged against we were absolutely thrilled that the creative efforts from our small southern creamery were recognized by such a distinguished organization.   

Earlier this year we had a few chefs from a great local restaurant out to the creamery to show them around and let them play with making cheese with us.  We always have great fun hosting chefs when we can.  This particular day I was playing with a couple of new recipes for some spreads and using Savannah Bee's Tupelo honey mixed in gently with our fresh chevre.  Turns out that it was a divine combination!  I walked around the creamery offering cheese from my hands, as I was hand mixing in a 40lb mixer, and getting all kinds of great feedback about the results of my honey experiment.  

We all agreed that the honey goat cheese would be incredible on a bagel for breakfast.  So we happened to have some bagels on hand and in the name of serious culinary research we determined that our hypothesis was not only correct by inspirationally brilliant.   The honey spread was perfect on a toasted bagel!  And as you all already know, goat cheese is a much much healthier alternative to cream cheese (and tastier) making our not yet named Belle & The Bees Breakfast Cheese THE new bagel preference.  We were certain we were on to a masterpiece, a life-changing new concept in yumminess!

We had fun coming up with the name as all at Belle Chevre have cemented our lives around the fact that food is the center of fun, the orbit in which we are all entranced.  You could argue that we are quite literal (probably wouldn't win) or are just plain silly (a much better bet) as we were playing with words for the name of our new masterpiece - Belle is our mascot, the Bees were our muse, and well we want people to associate this cheese for breakfast or as an alternative/replacement to bland and unhealthy cream cheese sooo......Belle & The Bees Breakfast Cheese it was!

Fast forward a few months and we are in New York with a Sofi award at the Fancy Food Show. 

You never knew that the best cheese and the world's greatest culinary masterminds were tucked away in sleepy Elkmont, Alabama did you?! 

 

I will say though that as thrilled as we are for the award and the attention we are anything but fancy.  Belle Chevre is made in the most humble of settings by the most incredibly unpretentious women - we don't sip our tea with our little finger up in the air.   We treat our craft as an exercise in demonstrating that food IS love, and friendship, and family.  

Our goal is that everyone feels like this seemingly fancy food - french style goat's milk cheese, chevres - is an everyday, commonplace, feel-good food.  The fact that we are artisan, and we hand-craft  should be the most welcoming and inviting part of who we are and not reserved as a treat for splurging on once a year.

Did I tell you that our cheeses are now available at the local Elkmont Piggly Wiggly and the Bethel Grocery/Gas station just down the street?  I am beyond happy about that!  These locations have never offered goat cheese before - and not much more than American Cheese slices or Velveeta - but now are bringing a "fancy" food to their customers every day.  Not because it is fancy but because it is GOOD and handmade in their local community.  

 I am ever so proud that our cheeses are available in fine retailers in Beverly Hills but doubly ecstatic  that a once regarded stuffy cheese, slow food,  is becoming every day good ol' cheese.

Cannot wait for you to try our Belle & The Bees and tell us what you think.  Oh, and let me know if you got it at Piggly Wiggly or at Whole Foods!

Tasia

p.s. I am off to Greece for a little more food and family reserach.  No rest for the weary! ;)

Get in the Kitchen!

Now that you know that cheese is so good for you - making you happier, thinner, sexier and smarter - you need to know how easy it is to incorporate cheese into your daily cooking and snacking routines to take advantage of all that great taste AND great health!

The great news about this directive to eat more Belle Chevre is that goat cheese is one of the most versatile cheeses available. With its mild yet distinctive flavor it is a delicious ingredient in so many dishes - from breakfast to dessert. The creamy texture ensures that it mixes well and melts well leaving your recipes richer for its addition.

I use Belle Chevre in my eggs (baked with spinach or in frittatas) or on a bagel instead of cream cheeses for breakfast, spread on sandwiches instead of mayonnaise, in salads, on pizzas, even as a topping on a grilled steak similar to a compound butter. And for a healthier and more delicious dessert make a goat cheese cheese cake or tart with fresh berries!
Oh my, now I am starving!!

A few of my dear friends and Belle Chevre fans have even started a post on 100 of the greatest things to do with Fromage Blanc (our freshest goat cheese that is creamy and spreadable) which includes putting it on a grilled hamburger - outrageously good!
The point I am trying to get across is to feel free to play with goat cheese as there are so many ways to enjoy it besides on crackers with fruit (not that that is a bad idea).

We have just begun a recipe contest on our web site as I want to learn from you about how YOU use belle chevre and even how you creatively add it to old stand by recipes like your mac & cheese for instance. The contest isn't just about full fledged recipes but can include serving suggestions.
I hope you will play in your kitchen, and play and engage in our contest as well. It is my time to hear from you and who knows..... maybe we will host you at the creamery soon to make cheese with us!
Looking forward to hearing and testing all of your grand creations.

Thanks for playing!
Tasia

Feeling Sad? I have Just the Thing......

I had a wonderfully busy week last week that hit its high notes in Atlanta at Atlanta Foods International's (AFI) Institut du Fromage.  The Institut was an educational 3 day course on my favorite topic..... Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

  

For me it was a treat especially to spend time and be in the company of so many talented cheesemakers and  fromage authorities.  The roster included Peggy Smith of Cowgirl Creamery, Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill, Max McCalman - the esteemed Maitre Fromager - from Artisanal Cheese in NYC, as well as Laura Werlin and Jessica Little of Sweet Grass Dairy.

American Artisan cheesemakers are doing such fabulous things these days and consumers are falling in love with it.  We are no longer a culture of pre-packaged slices of products that vaguely resemble cheese.   American cheeses are winning world awards against their European originators - A California Brie won the World competition against a French Brie for example -  and that is exciting as well as telling about us as an evolving food culture! 

Even large commodity cheese producers are getting involved in the Slow Food movement - Jasper Hill is aging a cloth wrapped Cheddar for Cabot Creamery!  And the results are literally and figuratively divine! 

But besides the great taste of cheese and the fact that it has a great friend in wine .....Cheese is actually quite good for you.  Perhaps even the perfect food.

The highlight of the 3 day Institut for me was being on a panel that Max McCalman led with a presentation on the glories and virtues of cheese.  

Cheese IS the perfect food Max extoled.  Cheese is a healthy source of calories, is easily digested because of its aging - especially goats milk cheeses that are dramatically lower in lactose,  and Max even claims (with some amount of proof I might add) that it makes you younger, healthier, and better looking!;)

One of the most important ingredients in cheese is Tyrosine.  Tyrosine is an amino acid that has some very interesting benefits.  Tyrosine suppresses appetite and helps reduce body fat.  It helps calm the body, reduce anxiety and increase libido.  And even helps the body combat the harmful effects of dangerous UV rays.  So not only is it a cure for the blues but also for Global Warming! 

Does it get much better than that?!

Somehow, intuitively, I knew that cheese was more than just a beautifully delicious food. Perhaps you have sensed that as well.  But now you know that cheese not only tastes great but it can do all sorts of wonderful things for you..... in return for your adoration.  

 

So whether you are sad or sunny.......Eat Cheese!!  

Nesting

Have I mentioned that Spring is my favorite season????!!!!

  Alabama is still displaying her colors - some of the earliest show-offs of the season are waning and giving way to that gorgeous, tender yet just a little wild, new green.  Everything is Green it seems.  (Even my son - as it is Earth Day today and he was allowed to lose the uniform and wear a green shirt to school!)  Now is when everything is filling out and is lush.

I was taking a jog yesterday morning - a spring time activity for me that is brought on by the season and, like the blooms of the forsythia, never really lasts very long - and saw a Robin with a big mess (southern speak meaning: a lot) of weeds and straw in her mouth.  Of course I knew what she was up to - preparing for new life in her own way by constructing, one branch and twig and weed at a time, a new home for her eggs that ultimately give way to baby birds.

I couldn't help but want to write about how she and I are alike this Spring.  And, no I am not laying eggs!

But.... Belle Chevre IS in the middle of planning and gathering sticks and even pennies :) for a new creamery.  This will bring new creations/cheeses/life to who we are today.  

In this process I have encountered and find myself honored to work with so many talented and brilliant people. We are so very fortunate to be working, during this planning phase, with one of the countries most highly recognized and celebrated Architects (who, as it turns out, is from Alabama as well!) - Keith Summerour.  It is extremely flattering that he would even choose to work with us on this project as he is quite literally an artist - no exaggeration!

Keith and I met in his office/studio in Atlanta a few weeks ago and discussed the vision and the values of Belle Chevre and how to articulate that in a physical, tangible form.  

He immediately "got it" and literally within a week I had back in my hands some schematic plans - including 6 outrageously beautiful ink-washes which are really pieces of art in and  of themselves.  I was so overwhelmed with how well Keith was able to place our vision for and our values of how great food can/should/must envelope people with warmth with a drawing.  It is uniquely Southern but honestly it is a universal, close to the land and to the heart concept.  

(That little Robin may not only be a great architect and builder herself but she would count herself lucky to have Keith on her team!)

Our "nest" now cannot accommodate guests, nevertheless we do our best.  The new farm would give us, and those that are interested in Belle Chevre, a greater opportunity to be a part of what we do and even let us entertain.  That concept couldn't be more exciting to me.  

We would have a cooking school, a tasting room, ways to view our process, a shop, a place to relax on the farm and take it all in, and perhaps even weekend retreats with a guest house on site.  So exciting!

(Of course we will still have the disco ball and lots of fun music for our cheesemaking!)

The very next week Keith sent another amazing person to help in making this dream a reality - Scott Schoel, who is a most talented timber-frame "artist".  I was most fired-up when I learned from Scott that based on the way the building is designed and can be constructed we could literally have a BARN RAISING!   Scott told me that with 20 people and a good leader (Scott Schoel himself) we could do it.

So this means that I, our cheesemakers, the community, or even our President, if he was interested, :) can literally and symbolically build an American small business whose main focus is on producing clean, healthy and sustainable food.  Wow!

 There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle left to be solved, put into place, to get this farm built but we are on our way.   

We are so fortunate to have had so many brilliant and caring people offer to help us solve the puzzle, put the pieces together.

The feeling I have about that cannot be quantified or even adequately described but maybe it is like how the Robin must feel - excited and expectant of the possibilities!

(To see additional drawings of the plans please see the Slideshow)

Spring

I am not certain I can recall a memorable Spring in any other geography other than my native South, except for maybe one, and I am not at all certain it was as vibrant and as spectacularly colored as it is in Alabama right now, this moment, today.  Although memory is a coy mistress, isnt' she?

Today Alabama looks like an Easter egg - the redbud, the dogwood, the cherry tree, the  bradford pear are all ALIVE with color that makes one wonder how any unbeliever could doubt Mother Nature's intent to please and entertain us with the rich pageantry that is solely hers to share - just for joy's sake, just for joy's sake.

Spring is my favorite season - full and pregnant with beauty and new life (no wonder the egg is the symbol of spring).  The one and only other spring I recall where my heart cheats on Alabama is when I was attending Culinary school in New York.  It was great in that I got to experience my favorite season twice in one year - once in NY and once in AL.  I remember coming home to Alabama and seeing the absolute lushness of GREEN that was overwhelmingly everywhere that didn't betray to me that she was coming the weeks before I had departed.  It was so sudden and so surprising.  This was almost 10 years ago and I still feel the effects of that experience to move in and out of the season - as opposed to sensing it ever so gradually that the import of it sometimes misses me entirely. 

At Belle Chevre we are experiencing the unabashed boastfulness of spring showing off - lucky for us and for you.  The forsythia is blooming on our drive, buttercups are welcoming and most importantly the gals (the goats) are producing fantastically beautiful fresh-milk brought to us by our local dairies almost daily.

Also the creativity is flowing inside the creamery as the pollen starts populating the outside world.

We are in the process of experimenting with hard cheeses, cloth wrapped - perhaps washed in beer or even wine.  We are playing!  And it is oh so much fun.

I was away from the creamery for a couple of days last week - over the official first day of Spring -  working with some people that Belle Chevre is so very fortunate to know and to have taking an interest.... in our best interest when I get a call from Kim at the creamery.  She normally doesn't call me when I am away unless it is important so I always answer - even if I am in the middle of something.  I took her rather excited call to find out that we had visitors at the creamery.  

Well, so? We don't always but it isn't that highly unusual I am thinking.

It turns out that our guests - please keep in mind that we do not have tours or a shop or anything other than two rooms dedicated to making fine chevre so accommodating guests is sometimes a challenge - that stayed for Samantha's birthday lunch and then for the frivolity (loud music and dancing)that followed.  Our guests (now friends) shared in the potluck lunch that everyone brought and then ended up staying to dance and sing and ultimately to participate in how we work and play at Belle Chevre.

I was so excited to hear about it.  Truly.  

I am always so happy to hear that when people take the time to come and see us that they find and share in the spirit of what we do.  There is nothing magic about it.  No mystery at all.  The spring happens every day - in the same way we celebrate birthdays at the creamery with grand style - simply because we believe in creating ourselves anew everyday, every one, with making people (and most importantly ourselves) happy with great food and friendship.

Welcome Spring!

Visionary

"I hope you truly know we appreciate what you do everyday to contribute towards better food and educating people about better food" Emily Broad, Whole Foods Market, South region.

I had the honor of attending and participating, in a small way, in The Visionary Dinner gala benefit in support of Southface (www.southface.org) in Atlanta last week.  I was so inspired!  I was able to meet and learn more about what powerful contributions individuals and organizations are doing for sustainable practices - in food and architecture - throughout the world and most especially in our own backyard.

Whole Foods Markets was the title sponsor and recognized the food artisans and farmers with a thoughtful video series that highlighted how each participates in supplying great food in thoughtful ways - and why that matters.  

After the dinner I began to ponder what it means to be a visionary.  Does it mean that a visionary Sees something differently than others and then works to share that insight, knowledge, passion?  Is it someone who changes the world?  

I was most fortunate (and subsequently highly entertained) to share the delicious 5 course wine-paired meal sitting in the company of Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. (www.whiteoakpastures.com).  Will and I shared philosophies and banter about what it means to participate in sustainable agriculture.  I am not sure I can speak for Will on this but I do know that the sustainable part of Belle Chevre's practices is simply a by-product of doing something "correctly".

In the video slideshow that Kate Medley so artfully created, Will states, and I paraphrase, that there is nothing different about his beef than Industrial beef - except that it tastes better, is healthier, is better for the environment, is better for the animals, etc.  Besides that it is just the same. 

Not only is that a humorous way to compare his beef to others it is absolutely true.  

We continued to discuss how we might know - from a personal and professional integrity standpoint - that the ingredients are and will remain in place for doing it "correctly".  What is our litmus test for knowing our products are different than industrial foods.  What makes a "good" life, a "good" venture?

Will shared, after not much thought, that when his day doesn't begin at sunrise in his pasture enjoying his cup of coffee and it doesn't end in the same pasture with his 750ml of red wine in hand then he knows that the "vision" and the joy of it is compromised or lost.

I don't know how other artisans might define their litmus test but I can bet they all have one.

In a world where most people feel like their jobs are comparable to serving a sentence it is so refreshing to meet people who continue their crafts in a way that is completely different from the field - not giving in and not compromising.  I bet that the employees of these artisans don't feel as if they are serving a sentence - I would wager that they are just as impassioned as their employer.  I know that is true of people I am honored to work with.

So is Will Harris a visionary?  Is Elisa Gambino (www.viaelisa.com) a visionary?  Because they do something that sustains a craft, a way of life? Because they are passionate, effervescent, creative?

I don't know.  But I certainly am infected and inspired by being in their company!