Culture Magazine

46 culturecheesemag.com T R AV E L 202 2 That's how Laura and I found ourselves on a tree-lined dirt road a few months later, on a crisp autumn afternoon. It would be the start of a memorable long weekend meandering our way between four exceptional New York cheese producers. A S G A A R D FA R M & D A IR Y In 1988, Rhonda Butler and David Brunner bought the first of three parcels of land at the former estate of American artist Rockwell Kent, outside the hamlet of Au Sable Forks in northern New York. Over the following three decades they restored the property, adding the other two parcels, a further 1,000-acres of Adirondack woodland, 11 covered structures on the National Historic Register (including Kent's studio), and a menagerie of 60-70 goats, 30 beef cattle, 20 pigs, and 150 laying chickens. Kent established the dairy estate in 1927, at the height of his popularity, and would spend the rest of his life there until his passing in 1971. People from all around the local community would come for bottles of fresh milk. Laura and I arrived at the farm's lovingly renovated Emerson House after a five-hour marathon drive from the city. Built by Kent for his son Rocky, it became the home of Gladys and Tink Emerson, who managed Kent's estate for 40 years. Today, Butler and Brunner rent the two- bedroom red cottage to Adirondack- bound vacationers like ourselves. "Originally the idea was a herd of Jersey cows like Rockwell had," says Brunner from a sunny picnic table outside their farm store. But when their daughter, 10 years old at the time, asked for a pair of goat kids in 2002, their plans changed. "We fell in love with the goats," adds Butler. Two would become eight the following year, and 40 in a couple years more. Butler would attend courses at the University of Vermont's Vermont Institute of Artisanal Cheesemaking from '06- '09 to expand her education, and operations for their goat cheese and dairy farm began in earnest in 2008. The couple find that 60-70 goats is the sweet spot for them these days. They produce between eight and 10 thousand pounds of cheese per season, including a flavored fresh chèvre, feta, tomme (Au Sable), bloomy rind blue (Whiteface Mountain), and a signature ripened log—the Barkeater Buche. It's understandable why Arding highly recommends the log. Bursting through a vegetable ash rind is a creamy, tangy core that is pure heavenly delight. We'll sample bites of all their products over the morning, while they tour us around the milking barn, creamery, aging cave, and Kent's studio in the forest. "We were inspired by the bloomy rind cheeses of the Loire Valley after living in Paris for two years," says Butler. "Goats are seasonal milkers, but making the blue, tomme, and feta that we can age and sell all winter has allowed us to have cheese in stock all year. We're still a tiny producer, and we want to stay that way." S UG A R HOU SE CR E A MER Y Roughly 10 miles down the road is another of the Adirondacks' superb small producers, Sugar House Creamery. Owners Alex Eaton and Margot Brooks bought the 23-acre property in the summer of 2012, after it had been sitting neglected for several years. "The pastures were overgrown, and the first stages of reforestation were starting to take over," explains Brooks while her young daughter Harriet, a self-proclaimed "chicken tamer," is deftly corralling a stark white hen down the front steps of their porch. "Goats are seasonal milkers, but making the blue, tomme, and feta that we can age and sell all winter has allowed us to have cheese in stock all year. We're still a tiny producer, and we want to stay that way."

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