A little wine and cheese adventure

I have to say that as far as boyfriends are concerned, Noe is a pretty great one. His greatness is especially evident when I ask him to humor some weird idea I have, such as going to the goat farm.

Yes, I asked Noe to take me to a goat farm. The idea came to me at work one day when I was bored and surfing websites that have not yet been blocked but probably will be soon due to my excessive surfing of them. Obviously, all the usual suspects - Facebook, MySpace, YouTube - have been blocked for awhile, and around Christmas time all the shopping sites - Amazon, Ebay, any store you can think of - started dropping like flies. (Believe it or not, they have not blocked Blogger - of course, that could be because one of our IT guys enjoys reading my blog and then calling my extension to discuss.)

Luckily for me, restaurant sites have not been put on the chopping block. Nor have chamber of commerce or downtown development-oriented sites, such as New London Main Street. Most people probably wouldn't care, but I occasionally go to these types of sites in my desperate attempts to find things like teams, lessons, events, etc (still looking for that soccer team, by the way). Anyway, somehow I ended up on the Fiddleheads food co-op site, I think maybe because I was trying to find the hours for the farmer's market. From there, I ended up on the "links" page, and from there I ended up at the (virtual) goat farm.

Meadow Stone Farm is in Brooklyn, Connecticut. According to MapQuest, it should have taken us 56 minutes to get there but it took more like 45. I wanted to go because Meadow Stone Farm makes and sells artisan cheeses on their premises. They sell both cow and goats milk cheeses. It was a little early in the season for the goat cheeses, but the website said they had two varieties of cow's milk cheeses (they also sell all kinds of soaps and lotions, most made with a goat's milk base, in addition to honey, occasionally eggs, and some other good stuff).


A very nice woman at the farm told us all about the cheeses and the different products and let us sample the two cheeses available, the brie and the abbey (kind of like cheddar).

The brie, while not as creamy as one might expect (it had a little bit more of a crumbly texture, although definitely not as crumbly as, say, chevre) had great flavor and was especially good when spread on some rosemary crackers I had in the cupboard (thanks, Judy!) The abbey was delicious as well and I'll probably eat it sliced up alongside some apples (maybe Granny Smith?)

As you've probably guessed, I purchased both cheeses and am very much looking forward to going back in May or June to get some goat cheese and - wait for it - milk and dark chocolate goat cheese truffles. (Chocolate and goat cheese may sound disgusting to some, but please trust me when I say it works. It works beyond belief.)

Part of the fun of buying our cheese at a goat farm was obviously seeing the goats. Although we were informed that Elsa, the goat who appears on the website and many of the product labels, had passed away, there were plenty of other goats around (including Elsa's daughter, GiGi). We even saw some tiny babies (only a couple weeks old) and were told that there was actually a litter of goats born that morning before we got there.

By the way, Michigan readers - Meadow Stone Farm ships, so if you're interested check out their website: http://www.meadowstonefarm.com/

You might think our foodie adventure ends here, but since Noe was being so accommodating, we also got to visit the winery down the road. Sharpe Hill Vineyard is sort of hidden - it's way back on a twisty-turny, very narrow country road - we thought for a few minutes we might be going the wrong way. However, we eventually located the vineyard and headed in to the tasting room.

Now, wine is not really Noe's thing, but he tried a few varieties anyway. I tried more than a few. Most were drinkable and some were pretty enjoyable. I think I made my selections based completely on the nice weather we've been having - I left with a Dry Riesling and the Dry Summer Rose. Both will be enjoyable chilled while sitting in the backyard, perhaps after we put in the patio. I did not pick up any of the Select Late Harvest (a dessert wine made entirely of estate-grown Vingnole grapes) on this visit, but we did try it and it was a mouthful of sweet fruity deliciousness. Actually, Noe said he "kind of liked it", which coming from Noe is pretty high praise for a wine. (Noe only likes the sweet stuff.)

All in all, this was a pretty enjoyable way to pass a warm and sunny afternoon. Cute baby animals, cheese and wine...does it get any better than that?