Community Notebook > Our Community, Our News

Time to Make the Cheese
by Jim Andrews . Photos by Megan Mcquade

“You don’t have to be cheese savvy,” insists Allison Lakin. “Eat what you like.” An unusual statement to hear coming from a maker of high-end artisanal cheeses. But Lakin, creamery manager of Sprout Creek Farm in Dutchess County, is the ultimate anti-snob. “I come from an educational background, and I’m very big on not alienating people. People will be put off by foods. And cheese is often this moldy thing that’s all craggy. I tell people, ‘Try some, see if you like it.’”

Located east of Poughkeepsie in the town of LaGrange, Sprout Creek is a 200-acre working farm that produces three semi-hard, pasteurized-cow’s-milk cheeses: Toussaint, a smooth, buttery cheese; Ouray, similar to Toussaint but sharper in flavor; and Barat, a sharper, drier cheese, cheddar-like in texture. Sprout Creek also makes ricotta, called a “fresh” cheese because it doesn’t require aging. In season, fresh ricotta is available daily.

The Hudson Valley is home to a large and ever-growing number of farms that produce artisanal cheeses—cheese made by hand with traditional means. These include, among others, Coach Farm (Pine Plains), Egg Farm Dairy (Peekskill), Little Rainbow Chèvre (Hillsdale), and Old Chatham Sheepherding Company (Old Chatham). What makes Sprout Creek distinctive is that it’s a nonprofit farm owned by a religious order, the Society of the Sacred Heart, and its primary mission is educational. Originally founded in the early 1980s in Greenwich, Connecticut, the farm relocated to its present site in 1990. Sister Margot Morris and three other nuns manage the farm, which offers an extensive array of education programs, including seasonal overnight programs, that serve as many as 5,000 children a year. Its calendar is reserved a full year in advance. Among the farm’s stated purposes is the commitment to “educate a population that is chronologically, economically, and socially diverse to environmental and social responsibility through study and experience.” The farm is staffed by six full-time employees. During the school year this number is augmented by five Vassar interns, who each work eight hours a week, and, in the summer, by camp counselors.

In 2001 a grant from the Beinecke Trust allowed for the purchase of machinery and equipment for cheesemaking, and the Sprout Creek Farm creamery was born. Like the rest of the farm, the creamery is a teaching facility. “We want people out here,” says Lakin. “This place is here for a reason and that’s to educate. Sister Margot started this whole thing because she was disenchanted with the standard school system and the way that kids were learning and the disassociation with the practical.” And in keeping with the farm’s philosophy of social justice, Lakin recently hired four developmentally disabled workers to work in the creamery.

A year ago Lakin, 33, was working as an educator at the Texas Maritime Museum when she answered an ad that read: “Cheesemaker Wanted.” A self-described foodie, cooking enthusiast, and avid traveler, Allison was intrigued. In September she was hired as creamery manager and charged with hiring a cheesemaker. But “no one responded to the ad,” she says, and so Lakin was given a crash course in the making of artisanal cheese. “It’s not rocket science,” Lakin says with a smile. “Chemistry and dishwashing is all you need to know to make cheese.” But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, and Lakin’s education in the traditions and innovations of the ancient art is ongoing. She attends workshops, is in constant contact with members of the close-knit community of local cheesemakers, and serves on the board of the New York State Farmstead and Artisanal Cheesemakers Association.
Lakin is the first to tell you that it all begins with the milk, and the man responsible for it is Chris Hartman, Sprout Creek’s farm manager. With his skimpy red beard and thatch of red hair, Hartman reminds one of Vincent van Gogh. In the last two years, he’s seen the farm grow from a two-cow, hand-milked operation to a full-blown dairy farm that boasts 45 cows. The herd includes Brown Swiss, Jersey, Guernsey, and Milking Shorthorns cows, and one Belted Galloway that looks like an Oreo cookie. These cows are used because they produce milk far superior—higher in butter fat—to that produced by high-volume Holsteins.

From mid-May to late October, Hartman rotates the cows through 35 acres of grazing pasture where various grasses—alfalfa, clover—and legumes are grown. “It’s a pretty carefree system,” Hartman says, though he carefully monitors the rotation for the optimal health of the animals and the soil. This so-called Grass-Based Production, part and parcel of the farm’s mission to be “a socially and environmentally responsible local food source,” strives to exploit nature’s efficient processes. The animals are provided with an ideal eating habitat, which means healthier cows and healthier milk, and the grazing reduces the need for tractor work and eliminates the use of herbicides and pesticides.

As soon as the cows are released to graze in the spring, their milk changes color markedly, from white to a creamy yellow. As a result, the first batch of cheeses, available in June, are rich and grassy. Says Lakin, “You can almost smell what they’ve been eating.”
Cheesemaking happens six days a week, and begins as soon as the cows are milked. On a farm, the day is over when the work is done, so it’s not unheard of for Lakin to help with the milking. The milk is pumped through pipes directly into the creamery, a large, bright room built with a big picture window to allow kids and others to view the cheesemaking process. Stainless steel surfaces, kept meticulously clean to prevent unwanted bacteria from getting into the cheese, gleam under the fluorescent lights.

The milk, deposited directly into the pasteurizer, is mixed with the starter, an enzyme that begins the coagulation process. (Mold is added now, too, but it doesn’t begin working until the cheese enters the aging room. Lakin admits that she resists using the word, because “mold” does not have positive associations for most people. “But it’s what makes so many things good.”) Once the acidity level of the milk has shifted, the milk is drained into the cheese vat, a 500-gallon stainless steel tub, where another coagulant, rennet, is added. Here the milk is heated and begins to gel. Cheese harps, large wire cutters, are raked through this wiggly milk jello, and it’s chopped into little blocks, or curds. The raking and cutting releases the whey, the liquid component of the milk, which is drained off. (Lakin collects enough whey to make ricotta. The rest is funneled down a drain and winds up as fertilizer for the fields.) This intense period, about an hour in length, is when the cheesemaker really earns her pay. As the mixture continues to be heated and stirred and fretted over, the cheesemaker has to keep the heating consistent; she can’t let the curds, finally pellet-sized, cook too much or the texture of the cheese will be compromised. When the curds are just right, she quickly scoops them into molds of various sizes, where they sit until dry to the touch.

The wheels are then brought to the curing room, a small, cave-like space with carefully controlled temperature and moisture levels. Aged for at least 60 days, the wheels are turned daily to encourage consistent aging. “I refer to this as the cheesemaker’s workout,” says Lakin. “Toussaint runs twelve pounds and the Ouray runs six pounds. Not a lot of weight, but when you turn three hundred of them...it’s a lot of reps.” The aging room can hold 15 racks of cheese, the equivalent of a thousand wheels, which makes the levels of production self-limiting.
It’s in the aging room that the magic happens. Inside, the cheese is changing chemically. Outside, a mold grows on the surface of the wheel, which creates a rind and ripens the cheese from the outside in. Various factors influence the rate of ripening, including the ratio of surface area to mass. The Barat, packed in molds small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, ages the fastest and develops the richest flavors. “With Barat, the really good ones taste like you’re biting into dirt,” says Lakin, with obvious relish. “It’s a very earthy flavor. Not everybody likes it.” After at least 60 days of aging, the cheese is ready to sell.
The farm produces about 15,000 pounds of cheese a year. “We make award-winning cheeses,” says Lakin proudly. “We just haven’t won any awards yet.”

The best way to get yourself a pound of Sprout Creek Farm cheese is to drop by the farm between 10 and 6, Wednesday through Saturday. You can sample the three cheeses for yourself, and Lakin will be glad to talk to you about the cheese, the cheesemaking process, grass-based production, and anything else you want to know about sustainable agriculture.

Jennifer Ippolito, the proprietor of The Cheese Plate in New Paltz, which sells dozens of local and foreign-made cheeses, says Sprout Creek’s cheeses have become favorites of her customers. She describes the cheeses as nutty and mellow and consistently good. “They’re not scary cheeses,” she says. “And unlike some handcrafted cheeses, there’s never a dud in the batch.”

The cheeses are also available at the Hurley Ridge Market, Adams Fairacre Farms locations, and Vintage New York in Manhattan. And the farm sets up shop at local farmer’s markets in Millbrook, Pleasant Valley, Peekskill, Arlington, and Rhinebeck in season. If you’re dining out, visit Gigi Trattoria in Rhinebeck, where Sprout Creek Farm cheeses are on the menu.

While Lakin has great respect for the centuries-old traditions of artisanal cheesemaking and proudly describes her cheeses as “exquisite”, she doesn’t want you to think her cheeses are out of reach. After all, cheesemaking is essentially a way of preserving milk. And she’s serious when she enthuses, ever conscious of the everyman palate, “Our Toussaint makes a great ham-and-cheese sandwich!”

SPROUT CREEK FARM MARKET & CREAMERY
34 Lauer Road, Poughkeepsie, NY.
(845) 485-9885. www.sproutcreekfarm.org