Pat, Flip, Babysit


I know you're beginning to think I'm obsessed with goats and goat cheese. And you're not wrong. But my obsession doesn't spring from nowhere. The goats are a lot of work.

The (admittedly dim, but it's a cave! come on!) picture above is of the goat cave, where the neediest cheeses live. The young goat cheeses need to be patted to control rind growth and flipped over at least a couple of times a week. This is chilly, delicate work. If I spend more than about forty-five minutes in the cave patting and turning the cold cheeses, I start to get a little numb in my fingertips. But this is important work.

Flipping the cheeses keeps the butterfat from settling on the bottom of the cheese. If you don't turn these cheeses, they will eventually squoosh out of the bottom of their rinds, I think.

In truth, that's speculation, but I have seen that if they are not flipped on time, the rind starts to grip the straw mat a little bit. Scary! I would be interested in knowing what would happen if the cheese just was left alone indefinitely, but because my charge was to care for the cheese and not experiment on it, I can only speculate.