my lunches at Sissy’s

It’s a pretty 15 minute drive for me up 140 from Wallingford to Middletown Springs and lunch, and it’s one I’ve made every Wednesday, it seems, throughout July.

Because, although Sissy’s Kitchen serves breakfast, lunch and dinner Wednesdays through Sundays, I’ve only been there for lunch; and I want you to know that even though Sissy’s is a take-out place you can usually find a place to perch – either at a table on the front porch or in the sylvan back gardens – for long enough to eat her beautiful food, much of which she sources locally and all of which she prepares with the care and expertise that her long career in food – much of it as chef/owner of the Dorset Inn – affords her.

Her website bills her place as a retail outlet, and it is full of charming touches – like the twig and small lights chandelier on the porch ceiling; selected crafts of  pottery and wooden bowls and cutting boards, and her own bottled sauces and salsas as well as a selection of cookies, including the best knife-thin gingersnaps I believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of biting into (at 25¢ apiece) and other baked goods. Yum. Yum.

For my first lunch I met Elsie Gilmore there because I wanted to meet this young woman who was so kind and effective in helping my son Spencer a few years ago when he suffered the devastating loss of his house to fire. Since she divides her time between Sarasota and Middletown Springs, I had my chance. I wanted to thank her and I wanted to know what she was about.

She’s about Green – ways to lessen your carbon footprint, which you can see on her website.  I’ve watched her do that herself on Facebook, where she downgraded from car to scooter to bus to shank’s mare back up to scooter. And she’s about reaching out to women, helping them to connect and to succeed in business.

I had the Ploughman’s Lunch – a pork pie enclosed in pastry, served with potato salad, red onion jam, Consider Bardwell Dorset Cheese, hard boiled egg, sliced tomato, and sliced apple $8.95. Even though I’d fasted all morning the sight of that plate made my eyes pop and I was sure I’d be having it for supper, too. But No! Bite by tasty bite the plate was cleared, as Elsie devoured her Prosciutto, Pesto and Fresh Mozzarella cheese on Cibatta Roll. We sat at a table on the porch, and then, being nosy, scouted the gorgeous gardens out back where Sissy grows much of the produce she uses in the kitchen, with the help, it must be admitted, of the amazing gardener Paul Morgan.

***

Next week I had lunch with Angela Miller, the owner, with her husband, Russell Glover, of Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet. I hadn’t seen Angela since last fall when we met for dinner at the Victorian Inn at Wallingford.  I’d first met her at the Consider Bardwell booth at that frigid first year festival, in 2007, of the Winter Farmers’ Market. She struck me then as a pretty blond woman, petite, retiring but warm, almost shy but forthright. We talked about cheese and I sampled. Those were some wonderful cheeses. In 2008, when finally I drove to West Pawlet and saw the gorgeous (300 acre, red brick) farm and talked to Peter Dixon, the cheese maker, I couldn’t quite square the whole thing in my head. I knew Angela had her own literary agency in New York City. Driving from NYC to W Pawlet and back each week? Melding or leaping from one end of life’s spectrum to the other? THIS woman? It didn’t compute. And, really? It still doesn’t.

But sometime this summer I picked up her new book, Hay Fever, from the Consider Bardwell stand (which she no longer womans) and it had lain on my coffee table since then. You know how it is that sometimes you’re reluctant to read something that a friend has written? What if you don’t like it? What if you find it boring, or the voice is off, or... I don’t know! Anyway, one night, when I had first begun reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, I picked up Angela’s book as I was making myself a supper sandwich, flipped it open on the kitchen counter and began to scan through it, like you do with a new book sometimes, trying to get the lay of the land.

It. Was. Fascinating! Angela’s voice came right off the page and into my ear. I flipped it shut, took my sandwich and glass of wine out to the porch and started at the beginning, leaving Lisbeth Salander to languish pour le nonce.

It was all there. No punches pulled. Names named. An honest –  heartrending sometimes; joyful, too – account of real life on a real farm. But this is not your ordinary farm, nor is Angela – or her husband, (whom she calls Rust) – your ordinary farmer. Rust has his own architectural practice in NYC, too. Both are very successful. Thus – as a rule – she usually drives from NYC to West Pawlet on Thursday night and back again to the city on Monday. By 8AM next morning she’s sitting in the Chinese beauty salon in her office building getting redone for her city look – nails, hair, makeup – and  taking calls from “my authors” on her cell, “they don’t know I’m not in my office.” The goats take care of her country remake every Thursday evening with their nuzzling and kisses. Angela loves her goats and they love her!

I got up and emailed Angela, "You never even told me you were writing a book, and it’s terrific!"

She wrote back, "That’s probably because we don’t see each other enough. Let’s have lunch."

That next Wednesday, Angela pulled up in a utilitarian van with no air conditioning. It was sweltering. She was wearing black denim jeans and a white muslin top that she worried she would drip pulled-pork sauce on (BBQ Pulled Pork on Cibatta Roll with cole slaw  5.95). I had what Elsie had had the week before, (Prosciutto, Pesto and Fresh Mozzarella cheese on Cibatta Roll 5.95). We strolled out back to the gardens and found a shady table. And talked. For a leisurely but intense couple of hours.

We talked about her voice. She told me how she had written notes through that 2008-2009 year and given them to her co-writer (the title page says By Angela Miller with Ralph Gardner, Jr), and he had captured her voice and put the book together. Later I googled him and from what I found he doesn’t hesitate to be hard-hitting. He’s written extensively for magazines and newspapers – I got quite caught up in his compelling account of the Tony Marshall/ Brooke Astor affair from last year; one in which I hadn’t the slightest interest at the time  – and is Senior Special Writer for The Wall Street Journal. Hay Fever is his first book.

We talked a lot about the mechanics of raising goats, milking them, and making internationally-acclaimed cheese out of the milk. “Most cheese makers don’t milk their own goats,” she told me. “It’s like having two full time jobs – three, if you count my agency.” (Oh, now why would we count your agency??!!)

She told me she slept in her car during kidding season, which is March and April, during which she tries to stay at the farm most of the time. “The house is too far away from the kidding barn,” she said. “I couldn’t have someone running to the house to get me every time I was needed.”

We talked of the satisfaction she gets from the mix of all the farm workers from all strata of life – from 18 year old tough-talking pure Vermonters to the Texan who travels up to W Pawlet for every kidding season. When she first went to New York City (from her mother’s organic farm in Pennsylvania), she found herself dating a publisher and their whole social scene was literary. That was when she determined she wanted publishing to be her career, not her life.

We talked a lot about the dilemma of when to separate the kids from their mothers. We talked about the tragedy of male kids, most of whom are destined to be slaughtered.

We returned again and again to a vituperative letter to the Manchester Journal that had taken Angela to task for the euthanization of a kid that the writer took totally out of context. Angela was distraught at the letter as she had been distraught at the necessary euthanization.

A neighboring farmer had stopped her at the general store. “He said, ‘we farmers know that life on the farm holds its tragedies. But we don’t write about it.’ I think I should have pulled my punches on that one,” she told me with regret.

But that’s one of the strengths of Hay Fever – she pulls no punches!

We got up to walk through the gardens. I had one last question. Angela’s in her early sixties, but doesn’t look it. And to my earnest question, “How long can you continue to do this?” there was, uncharacteristically, no answer.

***

The following Wednesday, I took my visiting friend from Virginia – Dana Squire – to Sissy’s for lunch. I had the Seafood Salad Roll (Shrimp and crabmeat tossed with celery and mayonnaise) 7.25, while Dana had a wrap (Fresh Mozzarella, zucchini, yellow squash, spinach, roasted red pepper, black olive tapenade, sun dried tomato puree 5.95). We sat in the back and talked, and then inspected the gardens. Dana has gorgeous gardens of her own but she was entranced. 

This week, my daughter will be visiting. I wouldn’t be surprised if  Sissy didn’t see me again! Maybe we’ll all go for dinner this time.Maybe I’ll see you there! Maybe you’ll be reading Hay Fever!

originally published in the Rutland Herald 08/03/10

Considering Bardwell

Four Ears... photo by Isobel Gabel Nimtz

...mother and daughter...

We glissando over glistening roads, the wipers swiping intermittently, the wet green greengreen green of early Vermont summer dense along the roadside. “We” are my daughter and me, Zoe back for a visit, we just hanging out and talking and reading and making cheese, without the stress of talk, talk, talk long-distance telephone calls require. Daughters should be with their mothers, don’t you think?

Reminds me of long ago, when she was little more than a baby, we put on our yellow slickers and went out into the drizzle to find some fiddleheads and found, as well, a whole, habitable, magic green world we would have missed had we viewed it only from inside the window. Today we’re looking for West Pawlet, and Consider Bardwell Farm.

West Pawlet? Whoever knew such a charming village could be so hidden betwixt and between this maze of old roads that even I, in these more than thirty years, had never heard of it much less run across it in my travels. It appears. Mistily like Brigadoon. Look away and it might be gone. A mile or so beyond the village center appear the brick house and out-buildings, and the chocolate-shaded Swiss Oberhasli goats, of Consider Bardwell.

It is the second stop on a little cheese tour we’re devising – our first stop was at Al Ducci’s Italian Pantry in Manchester to watch Al Sheps make his fabulous creamy fresh mozzarella. None better, in my opinion, and perhaps that is because when you buy mozzarella there it has not yet been refrigerated and the cheese remains soft and layered and oozes creamy liquids. How many times over the years had Zoe and I torn into one of those juicy ovoids, the size of a child’s football, right in the car, unable to wait for home, tearing off strandy sheets and stuffing them into our mouths, with an occasional bit for the dog in the back seat.

There’s no one home at Consider Bardwell except for Bob Hahn – “just a darn good helper” is how he bills himself – who tears himself away from a ladder leaned against the red brick house to meet and greet us. Almost as though he knew we were coming, he drops everything and graciously takes us on a tour of the many brick out-buildings – including the old brick granary with ventilating, lacy, brickwork – and shows us where the first dam was located, that, with a waterwheel, fueled what would be Vermont’s first cheesery, and, in 1862, the first cheese co-op.

The farm was owned by a man named Consider Bardwell, whose mother’s name was Experience, for whom the AGED Chèvre has been named. Chèvre, of course, is a fresh goat’s milk cheese, christened Mettowee at Consider Bardwell, after the river that runs through the farm, and, since the goats are only milked in summer, Chèvre can only be made in summer. For winter use it is aged, and called Experience.

We easily spend an hour exploring the state-of-the-art cheesemaking room with its stainless-steel vats, and the climate-controlled ‘caves’ which are rather vast new coolers lined with shelves full of cheese rounds of varying sizes and shades of tan. And on to the other end of this very large barn, where the babies gambol in their spacious pens, where Bob built them a little fort with a hidey-house at the base, and broad steps leading up to the fortress top and the doorway into the pasture at the front of the barn. The goats like to climb. Across the road the young, yet-to-be-bred females who graze in the rock-ribbed pasture love to climb on those rocks.

We traipse a labyrinth of movable electric fencing to the field, in the midst of the 300+ farm acres, where the nannies are grazing. Inquisitive, sleek, bright-eyed, nuzzling our hands, chewing on our shirt-tails, asking us who we think WE are. There are 44 milkers among 90 goats not counting the babies and the two rams. Bob would prefer the Nannies’ munching field to be not quite so flat – their bodies are designed to climb, and upward they wish to go!

Meeting the rams after meeting the kids and nannies is a slightly jarring experience for both Zoe and me. Long-bearded, scraped up, slightly scruffy, twice as big as the nannies, yet their eyes betray a heightened and developed sense of humor, as they greet us gruffly. There are only two of them, so we are not sure if the joke is on us or on them: Was the joke that all those nannies needed only two rams, or that two rams were sufficient to the task?

Finally, back to the cheesemaking room, where Peter Dixon had arrived. Zoe won’t quite be able to get the seductive and strangely personal odors of the cheesemaking room out of her mind for a long time. “Peter,” she says now, “looked like he would be perfectly happy to dive into the cheesemaking vat, where he cuts and then scoops up the custardy mass of curds floating at the top.” Indeed, he seems to have made a home there, among the vats of milk and the temperature gauges, and testing vials.

Angela Miller, the owner of Consider Bardwell, with her husband Russell Glover, had told me a great deal about Peter in the times we’d spoken at the Rutland Winter Farmers’ Market where she is a vendor, and also at the summer market in Depot Park. “Peter is a wonder,” she’d said. “We couldn’t do this without him.”

Peter Dixon learned the art of making Camembert from French visitors in the 1970s, and has worked in-depth with Allison Hooper at Vermont Butter and Cheese, at Shelburne Farms and Taylor Farm in Londonderry, was part owner of the Guilford Cheese Company and of Westminster Dairy, and there may be one or two cheeses in the world that he has not personally perfected, and one or two animals whose milk he has not used to make cheese. Brie, Camembert, Quark, Crème fraîche, Chèvre, Cheddar, Fontina, Fromage Blanc; in the style of Raclette, Reblochon, Toma, Gruyère, and Comté; from cow, goat, and sheep milk. Peter is a partner in the Consider Bardwell business.

At Consider Bardwell Peter makes cheese twice a day, six days a week. From goat’s milk he makes the Metowee/Experience, the Danby, which is a feta, and the aged Tomme called Manchester, which has a nutty flavor. From Jersey cow’s milk that he picks up from Lisa Kaiman’s Jersey Girl Dairy in Chester on the way to West Pawlet from his home in Westminster West, he makes Rupert, a Swiss Alpine cheese reminiscent of Gruyere; Pawlet, an Italian-style, semi-hard Toma with a creamy texture; and Dorset, a washed rind in the style of French Raclette. Using half cow’s milk and half goat’s, he’s experimenting with a Romano, a pungent, hard Italian grating cheese, and has developed one of my favorites, which is called, uncharacteristically, Quarry. Quarry lays claim to a deeply creviced rind, buttery flesh, and intensely pungent flavor with, when chilled, a slightly chalky ending which disappears at room temperature, when it is just meltingly rich. Angela thinks this cheese will be their breakthrough, world-class cheese. As though they didn’t have one or two already.

to the left is Quarry, Consider Bardwell's next "world-class cheese," according to Angela, who is pictured below.

By this time Angela has arrived, but she’s changed into her bright turquoise, rubber, cheese room clogs, is busy scrubbing milk cans and looks to be in her element doing it.

Zoe and I take our leave, deciding on the road that our cheese tour has ended for the day. Next time she visits we’ll drive up to Blue Ledge Farm in Salisbury, from which hail others of my favorite goat cheeses, and to their neighbors in Whiting, the Crawford Family Farm, who make the wonderful Vermont Ayr, but for now it’s begun to rain again and a book in front of the fire sounds just the thing. As we drive away from Consider Bardwell, the mist closes around it, then through West Pawlet as we leave it, too, behind.

...talk with the farmer...

It’s not until the end of summer, when Zoe has long returned down south to do art, make music, and mozzarella, and live too far from her mother, that I am able to sit down with Angela at Consider Bardwell’s kitchen table to tie some ends together. This is one busy, well-traveled lady. Although she spends weeks at a time at the farm during kidding season in early spring, and then also much of July and August, the rest of the time she is back and forth to New York City to tend to her office – she has her own literary agency – from Monday through Thursday, which leaves weekends to attend the Rutland Farmers’ Market, as well as farmers’ markets in Dorset, Manchester and Londonderry. A partner, Chris Gray, attends New York City farmers’ markets.

“I’m the farmer,” Angela tells me. “Peter’s the cheesemaker, Russell’s the infrastructure, and Chris Gray does sales and marketing.” Russell, an architect with his own practice in NYC with much experience in renovation, has left no stone unturned in finding grants and loans and ways of renovating the historic farm, working with Efficiency Vermont to make it energy efficient – just now he’s working on plans to turn the silos into solar collectors – and building the caves.

Angela grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and never got it out of her system. Led to New York City In the ‘70s by her career, she found herself setting out window boxes on the 12^th floor to satisfy a deep-seated need to get her fingers into dirt of some kind. Needing the kind of quiet and privacy that’s hard to find in the city, she and Russell bought an historic fixer-upper on Shelter Island, and renovated it for a getaway from their NYC apartment and for Russell’s office. At the same time, they began to explore Vermont, and, in 2000, Angela decided she needed the rural peace here.

When they came across the group of red brick buildings that would become Consider Bardwell, she fell hard. To take that particular leap the Miller/Glovers consolidated – they sold the Shelter Island house, which Russell, especially, loved, and moved to a smaller NYC apartment. All this was done without knowing the history of cheese making the farm held; all this was done just for the sake of living at least part time in the countryside, in Vermont. But once they began to realize the history of the place the lure of cheese making and of goats took hold. At the time they had an intern who had worked in France with goats and made cheese, who convinced them to invest in the Swiss Oberhasli goats. Angela drove to New Hampshire and brought six goats back in her station wagon.

Then the intern left. Kaput, gone, and Angela, well Angela “had never even seen a goat before I had six of them in the back seat of my station wagon.”

...the wine spectacular...

But oh well, that’s the name of the game. Goats, and cheese making became a passion, and where there’s a passion there’s a way. Today Consider Bardwell makes 60,000 pounds of cheese a year. And today Angela is sitting at the kitchen table, looking pleased, with an issue of Wine Spectator spread out in front of her. 100 GREAT CHEESES, blares its headline. “From around the world,” says Angela. “And 10 of them are from Vermont. And of those 10, three are from the Rutland Farmers’ Market! And one of those three is Consider Bardwell’s Manchester!”

About Manchester, Wine Spectator says, “This aged, raw goat’s-milk cheese has big, bold and rustic flavors beneath its somewhat barnyardy nose. Its nuttiness and earthy bite are offset by its delightful fruity notes. Made in 2-to-3-pound tommes, it has a pleasantly creamy texture.” As for an accompanying wine? “Tame this wild cheese with a complex white, such as a Savennières.” And there you have it. Manchester!

Angela is thrilled with Manchester’s success, but she is hardly less so at Vermont’s other winners, especially those we are familiar with from the farmers’ market. Of Blue Ledge Farm’s Lake’s Edge cheese, Wine Spectator says, “...this 1.5 pound cheese is aged for three weeks and has a clean, fresh taste, with a nice balance of creaminess and acidic tang.” And of Crawford Family Farm’s Vermont Ayr, “The (Ayrshire) cows are noted for producing milk with butterfat globules that result in a smooth, creamy and sweet cheese. That sweetness plays off some spiciness, which, along with that nutty alpine nose, make this a delight.”

Other Vermont cheesemakers noted in the Wine Spectator are Jasper Hill with its Winnemere, and again with its Bayley Hazen Blue, as well as in combination with Cabot for Cloth bound Cheddar, and with Grafton for its Cloth Bound Cheddar. Grafton got another mention for it’s Cheddar One Year, and Shelburne Farms for its Cheddar Two Year. And Thistle Hill for its Tarentaise, One Year.

WOW!

Just a note here, that Jasper Hill has built state-of-the-art caves in order to provide aging for their own and for other cheesemakers. Angela is appreciative of that service, though Russell has built their own caves, and she says, “I don’t want my cheeses four hours away – I want to visit my cheeses every day.”

I think that Angela’s mention of the three OUT OF 100 WORLD cheeses getting their start at the Rutland Farmers’ Market is more than mere pride – if it weren’t for farmers’ markets, how would these cheeses get started? How would these farms make a living with their acreage, with their animals, and with their products? What store would take a chance on a newcomer to the marketplace, what farm just starting out could produce enough to satisfy the needs of a Hannafords?

Farmers’ Markets prove their importance over and over again, maybe especially as regards cheese – that magical, ancient, intuitive endness of milk.

Cheese may be the end result, but more than that, “more than anything else,” Angela says, “I love the animals. I even love milking!”

This Twice Bitten column was published 10/07/08 in the Rutland Herald.