"Cows, Bread and Autism", Bobolink's Answer To What's Cheese got to do with it?

Last Saturday, June 18th 2011, I left you dear reader, with photographs of mouth-watering cheeses, (known as Drumm and Very Special Cave-Aged Cheddar respectively), and a promise to tell you a little bit about them as well as discuss the folks that make them in today's post. So, without further ado:

I have always liked cows and goats, but having had severe allergies since childhood has caused me to admire them from afar. However, once upon a time, after being given allergy shots, I was able to get close enough to some grazing cows and photograph them, and one of the resulting images was my photographic print, Cow with Children, as seen in the first image at the top of today's blog post. This image has also been rendered into a greeting card and both are available for purchase via my web-site, Patricia Youngquist Photo-Art (patriciayoungquist.com.). For specific information on the photographic print, please click here, and for information on the note-card, please click here.

Fortunately, my allergies stop with where these animals graze, and I am able to indulge in the cheeses they produce. "You have a friend in Cheeses," (a play on words of the old time hymn, What a Friend we Have in Jesus), is a "slogan" on "base-ball-style-caps and T-Shirts that a cheese shop in the West Village of New York city sells, and today's blog post explores, a "friendship" related to cheeses which has evidently given Jacob ("Jake") White a lease on life. (More on this later.) Jake is the son of Nina and Jonathan White, who are cheese makers at Bobolink Dairy, a business that now includes rustic bread baking, and a business that they have named for the spirited bobolink song bird whose image is imprinted on the labels they use when wrapping cheeses (this can be seen in the photograph posted below) that they sell at a Greenmarket that serves Tucker Square in the Upper West Side of New York City (where I live) on Thursdays and Saturdays.

The Whites also sell their delicious products at other greenmarkets in New York City, and New Jersey (where their farm is located), as well as via their web-site, cowsoutside.com ,but it is the Tucker Square location, where I first met Nina White, pictured in the photograph posted below, where she can be seen holding a sign that usually is propped up on a table where she sells the yummy cheeses and breads.

The cheeses are seasonal, and the ones being offered at this time of year are Drumm, Very Special Caved Aged Cheddar (again both of those were pictured in last Saturday's blog entry, the other two being offered as of today's posting are Armram and Tower of Bobol as noted on the left-hand side of Ms. White's sign and pictured below respectively.

On the right-hand side of the sign, the Whites give a shout out to local growers whose ingredients they use in their bread. Local is right. Some of the growers that are mentioned also sell their products at Tucker Square. This year round  outdoor market is "the gateway to the Upper West Side" and, as per their web-site, I can attest to their fine offering of "seasonal vegetables" that "range from fresh staples to certified organic and Mexican specialties". The orchards represented at the Tucker Square Greenmarket, "boast sweet berries, stone fruit and over eighty varieties of apples." On many occasions, there are cooking demonstrations which offer unusual recipes and tastings, hence, this market is a great haven. And, like the folks who give the cooking demonstrations, Bobolink Dairy is very gracious in giving tastes of their unusual, distinctive cheeses, as well as making recommendations on what other foods would go best with the cheese of one's choice.

A unique thing about Bobolink is that not only do they offer tours of their farm, but they have internship programs which from what I've heard (straight from the mouth of an intern who moved from Oregon to the east coast to intern with the Whites) are empowering. The Whites are no strangers to the relationship between cows, cheese-making and baking, and empowerment, for these things have had a profound effect on their son Jake. As I mentioned earlier, they have given him a "new lease on life" — and a much needed one at that, for Jake, the eighteen year old son of the Whites, is autistic. I understand that "while he is quite intelligent, he has very limited speech capability, equivalent to a typical three year old." and that he is "very outgoing in matters that engage him" which apparently are "cows and baking". 

Their web-site states that "Jake seems to have a particular affinity with cows, and cows seem to respond well to him." As I read this, I thought about my image, Cow with Children (mentioned earlier in this post), an image that was created long before I had heard about Nina and Jonathan White, or tasted cheeses from their farm, Bobolink Dairy, and I thought about the unconditional love between cows and children, an observation not lost on the Whites, who also  indicate on their web-site that, in terms of Jake, the love from child-towards-cow is reciprocal: "hey they {the cows} don't even know that he has a speech handicap". 

Jake's passion for "kneading, baking, and most importantly eating baked goods" is the impetus for the Whites' recent move to a new farm. They write, "We hope to make a bright future for Jacob. In {our} extensive collection of old dairy and farm books, there are many photos of people working on farms and in cheese factories, who appear to have one learning disability or another."

The Whites take this one step further saying, "one photo that particularly comes to mind is of a young man in perhaps the 1950s, with biceps like Popeye's, operating a manual cheese press. His bright eyed, proud and smiling face belies the markers of Down's Syndrome, although their is no mention of it in the text. This young man had a good job and was proud of it. Nowadays, a Down kid or someone like Jacob is more likely to have a job putting parts in a bag on an assembly line. Agriculture and food production, in simpler times, had more room for people with disabilities. As modernity has taken its toll of the quality and flavor-fulness of food, it has also eroded the opportunities for those of us who are different."

"So, wish us well as we set out to set it right", the Whites ask. And so, with this post, I do wish the Whites well in their endeavor, for as you know dear, reader, I suffer from Neurofibromatosis Type-One as well as Legal Blindness, and  have written about this in posts which you may refer to by clicking here and here as well as here.I am painfully aware of attitudes towards disability — a word I would like to see changed to challenge. Physical challenged as opposed to disabled. Disabled is what they call stalled cars as well as stalled tractors, trucks, busses and trailers. "Disable it", is what techies and geeks tell you to do with a program in your computer when it is not functioning properly.

M y afflictions are mild compared to many folks, including some whom I knew personally including, Colleen Ormond, who died in November of 2010 from complications of her hydrocephalic condition, and my dear friend KM, who died last week after a long battle with near blindness and multiple sclerosis. (You may recall that I mentioned KM in a couple of posts this past May that you may refer to by clicking here and here (when I wrote about one of her sister's passing and now she too has passed away).

The Whites, in their unique attempt to give their son an opportunity to be the best that he can be, remind me of the mother of the dearly departed Jennifer Mahoney (who was born with Spina Bifida, and who died in an accident with her wheel chair, a fact that you may recall, dear reader, because not only was Jennifer an inspiration for my photographic work that was acknowledged by the American Printing House for the Blind, but she is someone that I have written about in a blog post which I referred to in a blog post that you can access here),  Mahoney's mother, as you may recall, spoke to me at her daughter's funeral and of her keen desire to let Jennifer live the fullest life possible, saying "I always knew that I was on borrowed time with Jennifer." 

And so as I conclude today's post, I hope you will indulge me in re-posting the image of Jennifer, 

who embraced life, but realized attitudes were the disability, and did not hesitate to voice her position, leaving a legacy at Hunter College where she was receiving her education before her untimely death. Now, perhaps, Jacob ("Jake") White —even with limited speech — will be able to leave a legacy through his work on the Bobolink Farm, which not only produces great cheeses and amazing breads to feed the body, but provides opportunities to nourish the soul and confidence of the physically and mentally challenged.

    

Goat Berries and Bleeding Espresso: What's cheese got to do with it?

I
will address the relevance of the two photographs at the top of this blog post, but, first, please allow me to digress: It was April 18th 2011 (exactly two months ago), and the herbs, plants, shrubs, and trees which I grow in my terrace garden had just been unwrapped two days prior, from the garden winterizing that I had done with Juan V, in December of 2010. I was low on inspiration in terms of writing about any of the things that I grow in my terrace garden.

Normally, this would not be a hardship, because it is fairly easy for me to write about almost anything, but I had sought the advice of a career coach, who had informed me that my blog readers would be confused if I strayed off topic to discuss things other than gardening, or to write about  my work as a photo-artist, photo-work which often leads to images that I ultimately produce to include in my "correspondence" collection, which has  selections of invitations that enhance any occasion, as well as my event program covers that preserve a moment in time, and, my greeting cards that are about more than communication — all of which I sell via the store-front of my web-site.




As you know, dear reader, the topics of gardening (especially urban gardening) and photo-artistry are my blog's "mainstays". However, as I've said before, I am a dot-connector by nature, and therefore, I also give others (such as you, my dear readers), credit for connecting dots, which sometimes leads me to blog about other topics. Therefore, I was very disheartened by the career coach, because I am not a "category person",  as I stated in a previous post, in which I touched on this still-sensitive-to-me subject. I pointed out to the career coach that in the"About" box in my blog, I've stated,"On this blog, I discuss how my gardening experience inspires and informs the images I create for my unusual line of invitations, event program covers, and all occasion greeting cards; as well as my impressionistic photo-art. (For details see patriciayoungquist.com). Sometimes I reflect on current events, or discuss what people that currently influence me are doing (as well as people who have had an influence on me from their place in history). My 1st blog entry was 12.31.09, where I laid out my plan for this blog. Now, January 29th 2011, after 108 posts, I've changed the layout, and I warn you that I like long sentences, because when they stay on point (as I hope I do), they take you on a journey. I like to plant ideas, as well as seeds, with good care, and nurture them as they grow." 

However, in spite of my efforts to explain to the career coach about my methods of working, or to discuss what I was trying to achieve, I had the feeling that he was not listening to me. Our sessions were done via the telephone, and, if truth be told, I "shoulda" gone with my gut instinct from the get go, which was to not work with someone in a consulting situation who only worked via the telephone. I do not find phone exchanges to be a fruitful way of communicating when it comes to sensitive subjects, and advancing a career is something I consider highly sensitive. Although I am legally blind, I still like visual cues, and, yes, I realize that folks use SKYPYE for that, however, I am a personal-touch kind-of-girl, and, for me, SKYPE, would not suffice. In any event, SKYPE was not an option in the career coaching scenario that I participated in earlier this year.

One of the main reasons that I felt the coach was not listening is that on one occasion, he was eating while we spoke on the phone, an action I despise during scheduled telephone conversations — especially paid telephone appointments. Still, I thought he had the answers to what I could do to advance my projects, and, one of his "answers" was  for me to check out the blog of a woman who "made money from her blog" and who "had a lot of followers"; so, therefore, I went to her blog (wishing he had liked my blog as much as he liked hers), and I found it to be very slick. The blog that he referred me to is authored by a graphic artist, and it is filled with her photographs — mostly of times she spent in Paris — and I noticed that she had occasional blog entries about cheese. In these entries, she would post a photograph of various cheeses — arranged on a cheese board — and then remark how she, her husband, her sons and her friends had or had not enjoyed the "cheese of the week", and, I found myself wondering why my coach had felt this blogger could stray off topic to mention her like/dislike of a certain cheese, yet, find yours truly's blog postings which occasionally stray from the mainstays to be a hinder to any readership I might have. Furthermore, I thought of contacting his beloved blogger with a "cheese challenge", because, dear reader, if anyone knows cheese, it is yours truly. It's my standard joke that I've even been tempted to "fight" a mouse for  a given piece of cheese (attached to a mousetrap), when the mouse in question reaches for it. I've eaten cheese in lieu of meat since I was at least six years old, and I've worked in a somewhat famous New York City based shop that sold cheeses (as I indicated in a previous post which you may review by clicking here).

Meanwhile, as of today's post, I have not contacted the graphic-artist and occasional cheese critic blogger with my proposal for a "cheese challenge blog post scenario", but I did, on April 18th 2011, when I was dry in terms of "on-topic" inspiration, write a blog post on cheese, and titled it, Ardith Mae and the Special Secret Service of Goat Cheese, which you may refer to by clicking here. In my writing of that post, I realize I could not be like the graphic-artist and occasional cheese critic blogger, when it came to "cheese posting", because, a), I do not photograph still-life (such as cheese on a board) with much success, and, b), I rarely make it home from wherever I buy my cheese without taking a bite out of it en-route, which would not make a pretty picture. My solution to this cheese challenge posting idea was to write about cheese makers (because I am always interested in how people came to do certain things in life). Consequently, in my research for my blog entry on Ardith Mae's goat cheeses, I not only was intrigued by the folks who started the company, but I was intrigued by the adorable goats that were responsible for the "goods" that went into the cheeses that Ardith Mae produced.

One thing led to another, as so often is the case with research, and so whilst researching the origins of the adage"got your goat", to include in my  Ardith Mae posting, I came across a lovely blog known as Goat Berries; not only did I admire the logo, layout, and heartfelt content,  but I admired the blogger's finesse. Ultimately, I let the blogger (Michelle Fabio) know my reactions to her blog, and, I was very humbled at the fact that Ms. Fabio subsequently put a link to my blog (under her links menu) on her Goat Berries home-page which she calls "other places to graze".

I am long overdue in acknowledging Ms. Michele Fabio in a blog post, however, you may have noticed, dear reader, that on April 22nd 2011, I put a link to Goat Berries (which will also take you to Ms. Fabio's other blog called Bleeding Espresso.com). If you have not seen this, dear reader, I want to let you know that the link can be found in the links menu on the left hand side of my blog below my labels.

All this being said, you may find yourself asking, what do the photographs at the top of today's blog entry (which you can see are images of a scrumptious looking chunk of cheese and of a watering can respectively) have to do with the narrative of this particular post? You may even be saying that you can understand a photograph of a watering can on an urban gardener's blog, but what's cheese got to do with it?

The scrumptious looking cheese is something to salivate at, and, it is even better to indulge in. Moreover, the folks who make this cheese are very interesting (as is the back story behind their mission), but, for now, all I will say about the cheese is this: it is made by a New Jersey cheese-making family, and that it is a cow's milk cheese, and also that its story was to be a part of my cheese challenge to the beloved blogger of the career coach. I gave up on my cheese challenge idea, but by no means have I given up on giving a shout out to the interesting people who produce this cheese, and, so, FYI,  I will be blogging about these cheese makers and their cheeses next Saturday, June 25th, after I interview them to clarify a few questions that I still have about their endeavor. The reason that I've included a mention of this cheese in today's post is due to the fact that it was in the pursuit about things related to cheese, that I came upon Ms. Fabio's writings in the first place, and the remainder of today's post has to do with a recent blog entry of Ms. Fabio's.

In a post that Ms. Fabio made on Bleeding Espresso, on June 13th 2011, she discussed issues related to her need to provide water in the "orto" where her "goats, chickens, and several fruit trees live", and she wrote about her feelings regarding this "chore" of watering. Perhaps it was serendipitous that I read her post when I did, as I had planned to dedicate this Saturday's posting to my never ending gardening "obligation"of watering. (Hence, the image of my watering can which can be seen in the image below the photograph of the wonderful cheese that you can read about next week.)

Not only is today June 18th 2011, my two month anniversary of discovering Goat Berries and Bleeding Espresso, but it has been twelve days since National Garden Exercise Day celebrated its year anniversary. National Garden Exercise Day, is a day that State Garden Clubs, and thousands of "Aerobic Gardeners across America", deemed as a day to encourage people to substitute the phrase "yard work" with "yard exercise"  with the goal of having gardeners think of their garden-work as a way to achieve physical fitness  through something "fun" like exercising, instead of as a "chore". The"image" of "exercise" versus "chore", would not work for me, because, even though I get some exercise, by cycling as a stoker on a tandem bike (which I truly appreciate) at least once a week, I don't really enjoy exercise per se. Besides, I live in a fifth floor walk-up, where I walk up and down seventy steps many times a day. (I never counted the steps, but years ago, when my mother visited New York, she counted the stairs she was climbing to reach my apartment).

In any event, whether one wants to call gardening "yard work" or "yard exercise", I forgot about this so-called aerobic gardening awareness day this past June 6th, because, as you may know, dear reader, June 6th, is D-Day.  Consequently, I was thinking about the meaning of that, instead of toying with the idea of doing jumping-jacks in my garden, for as you know, dear reader, I am most sensitive to issues of war, as I've indicated in previous blog entries concerning Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, and issues related to the Vietnam war.

However, ever since learning of the subject of changing the term "yard work" to "yard exercise" in  an effort to take the emphasis off the word chore, I have realized that I never think of tending to my garden as a chore, with the exception of watering it. Hence, my amusement when I read Ms. Fabio's June 13th 2011 post on Bleeding Espresso, where her description of her watering experiences made me feel like I have a kindred spirit, albeit across the Atlantic, for Ms. Fabio lives in Italy. You see, I have a garden on my terrace, which means it is a container garden, and, dear reader, if you know anything about container gardens, you know that containers have a tendency to dry out herbs, plants, vines, trees, and shrubs — especially if the containers are terra-cotta, which is a beautiful material to have in one's garden.

In my case, I grow over sixty things (in varying sizes) in my garden, and each one has very specific watering needs. I am often asked by a number of folks if I have a watering system (which means do I have vats that are timed to go on and off at given times in my garden), and when I tell them that I, with my single medium sized watering can (the watering can in the photograph below the photograph of the delicious-looking cheese), am the watering system for my garden, they wonder aloud why I don't devise some type of way to have a faucet installed outside so I could attach an outdoor hose to it. For one thing, I am only a renter, and any construction related to installing a hose would be filled with a chore much worse than watering — procuring landlord permission as well as New York City permits.

Meanwhile, a number of years ago, I did try to quicken my watering process with  a different type of hose, and I invested in a low-cost "portable hose" — the kind that had the ability to stretch, and stretch, and stretch, by having a coil unravel from where it was attached to a sink. However, the "path" from my kitchen sink to my outdoor terrace garden involves going through my only living area which means the hose would have to pass along the electrical cords that hook up to my Apple Router, G-Drive, i-Mac, Mac Book Pro, Canon Prixma Printer and H.P. Laser Printer — all of which are sitting on top of a huge arts-and-crafts working table, which I use as a desk, and, if that hose ever slipped from the sink, my equipment, which I use to try and earn a livelihood, would be ruined; so, after a few close calls, I gave my hose to Juan V for one of his clients, and I went back to using a medium-sized watering can. I stress the words medium-sized, because, in my early years as a gardener, I had fairly large watering cans in an effort to make less trips from the kitchen sink or bathtub to my great outdoors. This meant that the cans were heavy. Unfortunately, I had a tendency to tilt the cans to make them easier to carry, which often resulted in water being slopped onto my floor, an incident that prompted my tendency to use truck-driver language, as well as my need to use lots of beach towels to sop up the water —  before it made its way to the cords that I have for my equipment. In those early days of my gardening endeavor, whenever I watered, I would find myself counting the number of plants that I'd done and how many I had left to water. This was an exercise in misery, because it robbed me of the very joy of tending to my garden. I found that when I was not counting things that had been watered, or counting things that still needed watering, I was thinking about all the things I had to do. Sometimes, I'd be so caught up in my ruminating that I would almost miss seeing a brand new bud and even a brand new flower or a butterfly.

I
have finally learned to embrace watering by hand because such attentiveness allows me to detect garden nuances that I would miss with a watering system. I am not sure what brought on this change in my attitude towards watering, because I certainly love everything that I grow — maybe after all these years my motherly instincts are finally kicking in. Then again, maybe it's that I have transplanted some of my thirsty friends from their terra-cotta homes into Viducci containers and that are made from isi-fiber so the things that I grow don't dry out as much as they did in their terra-cotta homes (plus they look elegant as you can see from a few of my plants which are thriving in those great digs).

The Autumn Clematis discussed in several blog entries, including ones that you can refer  to by clicking here, and also here seems more than content to share its Viducci box-planter with my strawberry plants, as evidenced by its flourishing as it reaches for the lattice behind it before hopping on the trivets which Juan V placed on the brick wall this past May.

My Actinida kolomikta and Actimida (Kiwi Vines), that I have recently featured in my first garden movie, The Kiwi Vine Speaks Fifteen Minutes of Fame almost, which is on Vimeo (details available at the blog post found by clicking here), have always enjoyed their Viducci home, flourishing beyond my expectations, a fact I've written about in a number of blog entries which you can refer to by going to the labels on the left-hand side of my blog and clicking on Actinida kolomikta and Actimida. When I first planted my Actinida kolomikta and Actimida, I trained them to travel north around the railing, now I've freed up the other "route" and it is quickly traveling north and south simultaneously, and, it will soon be turning the corner and heading to the western side of the railing, as indicated in the collage of the  Actinida kolomikta and Actimida  posted below:

The 24" by 30" Viducci container that houses my Actinida kolomikta and Actimida, is something I wheeled home on a quasi-luggage cart walking  from West Forty-Fourth Street to my home in the upper-west side. (The same way I got the Autumn Clematis's container to my garden ). This is a walk that is nearly forty blocks before I reach my home and, once there, I carried the container up five flights of stairs — perhaps that's what the garden-chore- versus garden-aerobics  folks mean by "garden exercise".   However, if  my Actinida kolomikta and Actimida and my Autumn Clematis keep growing at the pace they are now, I'll be able to shimmy up the vines as opposed to taking the stairs!

Both my Actinida kolomikta and Actimida and my Autumn Clematis have lived in their isi-fiber homes since their first day in my garden, however, my Continus Coggygria (Smokey Bush), started out in a terra-cotta pot (seen at the left side of the collage posted below)  where it lived for three and a half years, before moving into Viducci digs  (seen at the right side of the collage posted below). If you'd like to read about this fantastic shrub, I have several postings and you can find them in the label menu, at the left-hand side under the heading  Continus Coggygria (Smokey Bush).

My Physocarpus opulifolius (Coppertina), also thrives in its iso-fiber, and it even boasted about this fact — in its own words —  in a blog posting on Cinco De Mayo which you can read by clicking here. The other things that I grow in fiber-glass are my "Chelsea" Larch Tree and my H.F. Young Clematis (which has been featured in many posts including ones that you can refer to by clicking here and here) that shares its home with Dragon's Blood Sedum . This means that only six things that I grow live in iso-fiber; the remaining others (nearly sixty) live in terra-cotta. the material that has a tendency to dry out plants, leaving them thirsty. This fact, coupled with the fact that my garden is on a terrace hemmed in by New York City's condos and brownstones, means that there is a lot of heat in my garden — another thing that makes what I grow thirsty, requiring the act of watering to be done two or three times a day in New York City's blistering summers.

I am often asked after a heavy rain if I am relieved that I don't have to water my garden. The funny thing about rain is that not only does it pour down on "the just and unjust" but it does not always fall into iso-fiber or terra-cotta containers. Therefore, even after a big rainfall in my terrace garden such as the one pictured below, the result often requires that I water by hand, in the aftermath.

However, I am not yet like the old-woman who lived in a shoe that had so many children that she didn't know what to do, while I am a getting-old woman living in a shoe-box style studio apartment with so many plants in my terrace garden, I do know what to do — water them by hand, which permits me to notice all their nuances and to contemplate on the miracle of their non-stop changes and beauty. Using a medium sized can that has the holes in the spout arranged in an evenly distributed manner helps give the things I grow in my garden the drinks they need, and they never disappoint me with their on-going changes.

Besides, now upon reading Ms. Fabio's post, Practicing Mindfulness and Saying No to Multitasking, I not only relish staying in the moments of watering, I've also been able to stay in the moment of learning Final Cut, a professional program that I've been wanting to use to create my next garden movie, The Butterfly and The Kiwi Vine, as a sequel to The Kiwi Vine Speaks Fifteen Minutes of Fame almost — who knows maybe my Kiwi Vine character will have the notoriety of Harry Potter!

Meanwhile, before that happens, I'll try and stay in the moment, for now, at least when I am watering my terrace garden, I feel in the company of Ms. Fabio, who a mere six hours away in Italy is doing her watering, a "freakin' chore" turned into a chance to be in the moment for both of us, but then I shouldn't be surprised at this, given the fact that it all began with the love of cheese and a search for facts about it, so check me out on Saturday when I post about an inspiring cheese farming family producing amazing taste treats like the one pictured in the photograph at the top of this blog entry, and the one I will leave you with as a tease for you, dear reader, to  return next week (although you can always catch me on Tuesday, Thursdays, as well as days that are holidays or occasions where I am making special announcements).

Ardith Mae and the "Special, Secret Service" of Goat Cheese

Perhaps, these three kids (in the photograph posted above which is a screen shot of a photograph taken by Michael Poster for the web-site of a well known cheese maker) look familiar to my cheese loving readers, and if not, you definitely will want to get to know these cover girls —  as well as the folks that take care of them: Shereen and Todd —  who do this on their farm in Northern Pennsylvania, a farm they bought after living in Brooklyn and working in the city.  On their farm they allow "animals to be animals" as they most likely realize "girls just wanna have fun . . . "
So, I speculate that because Shereen and Todd's girls "have year around access to a lightly wooded five acre paddock, and during growing season are rotational grazed/browsed on an additional thirty acres of raspberry, grasses and various saplings" and additionally "are only bred every other year which alleviates the health stress of yearly pregnancy" (I wish my young niece would take this lesson in breeding — she is an unwed mother of three and no father in sight). 



Moreover, Shereen and Todd's goats "are never given hormones or unnecessary antibiotics", and it appears that Shereen and Todd are rewarded with what it takes from a goat to produce a fantastic variety of fresh and raw milk aged cheeses year around, which are enhanced by "local season forage", then packaged beautifully, bearing a label with the name Ardith Mae (for Todd's mother),  a detail appreciated by me, having had a loving grandmother, named Clara May (shown in a photograph in a previous post), as seen below:

After this, Shereen and Todd's reward for their great goat care becomes a cheese lovers' reward, and I was reminded of this when I passed a Greenmarket location where they sell their cheeses on my way home from my Sunday volunteer work that I wrote about yesterday.


This location, known as the Green Flea (the 77th School Flea Market), takes place on Sundays, in New York City, and it spills over from the school yard to the nearby American Museum of Natural History, where along the westside of the museum, at Columbus Avenue, Ardith Mae, with a wonderful assortment of cheeses, (including the selection n the photograph posted below) can be found.

Having Ardith Mae participate in the Green Flea, provides a Sunday haven for Upper Westsiders like myself — especially gardeners who go to this market to pick up annuals (to stick in their gardens amongst their seasoned perennials). It can be pretty chaotic and even competitive getting some plants — especially after a long winter when the natives are restless — so it is nice that greenmarket farmers, such as Ardith Mae, grace the market with their goodies, which often calm even the most disgruntled gardener.


Then again, surely you have heard the saying "get your goat" or "get one's goat", but did you know that (according to the Huffington Post) it "is a twentieth century phrase relating to horse racing? It used to be common practice for goats to be used to keep restless horses under control — they had a calming effect on the horses and they made them all the more race-ready. On race days, goats were stolen ('got') by wiling thieves who, expecting the horse to be distressed by the absence of his bearded friend, would then place a bet and lose. Today, if something or someone gets your goat, it annoys, distresses and irritates you, as if you were a horse whose goat had been stolen." 


If this is true, then perhaps it is no wonder that disgruntled gardeners (or other "normal folks"), are calmed by indulging in Sunday brunch by partaking in a goat-gouda cheese and heirloom tomato omelet served with a Bloody Mary, or by indulging in green olives stuffed with goat cheese that are served with a glass of chilled Obergen, (the Pinot Gris from Germany) at the cocktail hour.


So, if one believes the Huffington Post, then perhaps, dear reader, one could concede that it's not the accompanying beverage which calms the soul, but rather it is the goat, doing his magic of calming (but why do they need to be mutually exclusive?) — a much needed "service" in New York City and I dare say throughout the world.