Dear Laloo,
We had such a great time we had at the Goat Festival. All of our goat friends were there and tons of great folks from all over the Bay Area came out to see us. You would not believe the snacks. Good thing there is a back pasture at Rumple Farm. I’ll be doing double laps this week! There were amazing samples and a couple of really fun demo’s.
Achadihna, Andante, Bodega Yerba Buena Cheese companies were the first to wet my palette. I am totally smitten with the Pacheco families Capricious. I think it would make a fine grilled cheese. Speaking of grilled cheese, the grilled cheese goddess, Laura Werlin, was on hand. She put together a combination that would blow your mind: called The Californian, which has Humboldt Fog, Monterey Jack, chipotle chilies, and almonds on butter-brushed cinnamon raisin bread. Aptly named because it’s full of ingredients for which our state is known for. Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough of Goat – Milk, Meat, Cheese were sure a hoot! They shared some goat cheese and spinach dumplings, and chevre truffles at the demo. The truffles had a salty element from the goat’s milk. They were all fantastic!
However, I must admit Michael from HappyGoat Carmel really won me over though. He shared something really with me, it was one of the most amazing cupcakes I think I’ve ever had. A brown butter salted cupcake (made with only goat dairy). The dairy ingredients were goat butter (in the batter) and goat butter+goat cream cheese in the frosting. There was a dollop of HappyGoat Vanilla Caramel Sauce in the batter and the top was drizzled with HappyGoat Scotch Caramel Sauce.
The other thing that really piqued my interest was a discussion about Bill Niman and how he raising goat’s up on his ranch in Bolinas. He has sent out to do for Goats what he did for the pork industry. While, I love my life up here in Petaluma and would never want to see any “kids” end up with a butcher. I understand the value in making goat’s meat into a more mainstream product. Our carbon footprint in comparison, to some larger primal cuts pretty much says it all. Therefore I know if I want to Rocky and Poppy to in the idyllic place, it really is essential for the American public to start looking at alternate forms of protein.
I sure hope the Goat Festival helped raise awareness about how magnificent we kids are!
Love,
Blossom
