Oh My Goat!*

I didn’t make it to sleep before midnight, but very close. We both woke up before the alarm, so it seemed like a good time to get up and go through the workout. I’m not used to eating so much and exercising so little, so it felt good to work up a sweat. Once again I did breakfast and Dave didn’t. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I do enjoy my morning tea and there’s good chatting to be had.

We're all concerned about the butter

We reported to the kitchen at 9:30 and were faced with a hotel pan full of blue-footed Bresse chickens, complete with heads, feet, and everything in between. It turns out I am totally not squeamish about such things, which I think you don’t know until you’re faced with it (pun intended). Arnott taught us how to break it down, and we all got our own boards and chickens. I can’t figure out if I’m totally inept or just giving off strong signals of uncertainty, but he almost always ends up coming over and taking the knife and meat away from me. However this time there were plenty of chickens, so I did get to do my own. I was pretty good at deboning, not as good at getting the breast meat off in one piece.

I wanted to work on the lobster, because that’s a place where I have some skillz, but I ended up doing pâte à choux with Carol and totally screwing it up – the recipe called for 8 whole eggs and 4 yolks, but I put in 12 whole eggs. Fortunately the dough was mixed in with fish that had been mushed in the food processor, so it wasn’t the disaster it could have been. It made the resulting quenelles a little fluffier than they normally would be. The funniest part of the whole thing was when Dave looked at the quenelles and said, “It’s gefilte fish,” which it totally was. Next year we’ll make them with salmon and matzo flour, just like Aunt Lil. Don’t worry Josh – we’ll get the ones in the jar for you. We also made ham in aspic, and Dave skinned the fish for the gefilte fish. Pretty much the whole time we were cooking Cedric was making more of his famous figgy jam. Patrick opening the Pouilly-Fuisse was the signal that we’d finished cooking class.

There was about 40 minutes until lunch so we all sat out on the front patio and chatted, and then we all moved in to the dining room and chatted. Lunch was foie gras three ways – smoked or the two rolled varieties, with wonderful passionfruit and cassis (black currant) purees, and of course figgy jam. Also somehow the topic of beer came up, and it turned out that there is French beer and that many people at the table wanted to try it. So it became a beer meal.Then we had another 45 minutes before it was time to leave for the goat farm, which I used to get the ironing done.

It;s a beer meal

Patrick’s adorable granddaughter Sybill and Valerie and her adorable dog Buddy also came with us, so we had to take two cars. The drive to the farm took a little over an hour along many windy narrow roads through villages and a forested area. I’m told it was a very scenic trip; certainly the glimpses I had between naps were very nice. Once we got there it was a little bit of a surprise to me. I’d been expecting a picturesque farmhouse (yes) with a small flock of goats contentedly grazing beside it (no). Instead there was a large barn with 108 female goats, 2 males, and about 20 babies. The babies were adorable and had the cutest little high pitched maaaas. They’re separated from their mothers after 2 days and kept in a pen together. French law says you can’t use the milk for 8 days after a goat has given birth, so all of that milk is kept together and fed to the babies.

Goats pushing to get to the feeding/milking area

The coolest thing was when they brought the goats in to milk them. The goats wait in a chute to be let into the milking station. They have 2 rows of 10 spaces, and the spaces each have a feed bucket in front of them. They let the goats in one at a time, and the first goat goes (by itself) to the farthest stall and starts eating. The next goat slots in next to the first one, and so on, boom boom boom, the goats just lining themselves up with no human intervention. It turns out there’s a mechanism so the only stall that the first goat can get its head into is the first one, and when the goat puts her head through that slides something so that only the next slot is open, and on down the line, but it’s very cool. Several of us tried milking the goats (Dave and I did not) and almost all of us tried the goat milk, which was warm and delicious.

It was raining on the trip over, but by feeding time it had cleared up. We toured the cheesemaking facility – it’s very simple and very labor intensive. The milk is pumped into pails a prep room, where rennet is added and it sits. Then it’s put into containers with little holes for the whey to run out, and it sits, except that periodically it’s flipped end over end to maintain even moisture. Then it goes into a temperature and humidity controlled room for a few days and sits & gets flipped. Then it goes into another room for a month, and then it goes into another room. As it ages it gets progressively dryer and more strongly flavored. It is not pasteurized and it is fabulous. Cedric, who doesn’t like cheese, even liked it. We also had a glass of red wine of unknown type that went perfectly with the cheese, bread, and scenery.

Back to the van. Nobody sat in front on the way out, so I figured I’d sit in front on the way back. The back of the van’s not the greatest place for me when it’s twisty, although it doesn’t bother me when I’m asleep. Then it turned out we went back a completely different way that was not twisty at all, but I enjoyed sitting in the front with Cedric and looking at the views. One cool thing was that as soon as we crossed into Maconnais the vineyards appeared. I was wondering as we drove if you could buy some of the forested land and plant vineyards and sell it as table wine, but Cedric didn’t know, so I am still wondering.

Once again we had one of those 45 minute breaks before dinner, so I got a little writing done. The appetizer was clams and gougere and lobster in wonderful sauce (not together), and then moved on to the ham and aspic that Dave and I had layered, and a big salad. It was yummy! Then it was time for the cheese course, which I like to think about all day. I was so full though that I only got two, one of which was the epoisses that I love so much and don’t think you can get in Portland. We’ve decided that my calling in life is to be a cheese sommelier, where I help people choose which cheese they want for the cheese course and also taste it for them to make sure it hasn’t suddenly gone bad. Rachel, dark mistress of the cheese will be my title. In between cheese and dessert we had to watch a funny video so we could understand why Diane and Patrick and Cedric were always saying “three times”. Now we all say it.

Today was not quite the high that yesterday was, which is actually good – I think we have reached a more sustainable level. It is still good to be us.

*This is Patrick’s joke – it is a new translation for the abbreviation OMG. Now try to say it out loud in your best French accent.