Kitchen projects: Simple Goat’s Cheese
Last year, while still in Ireland, the Boyfriend and I attended a cheese-making weekend workshop at Rossinver Organic Farm in County Leitrim. My knowledge of cheese-making had previously been limited to a school outing during primary school. A schoolmate’s father, Glenroe’s Matt O’Brien, used to make a wonderful farmhouse cheddar called Glenosheen in the eighties. Sadly, Glenosheen Cheddar no longer exists but that was my first taste of a real cheese and, even to a pre-teen palate, it was quality stuff. I was no less fascinated by the workings of Matt’s little cheese factory and, years later, all I had observed there made sense when I attended the cheese-making course at Rossinver.
Asparagus is very much in season at the moment in New Zealand with signs hanging by the roadside offering freshly picked spears of this gloriously upright vegetable and quantities of it available in greengrocers. Despite the plenty, I must admit that the Boyfriend and I have been slow off the mark this year and have only had a couple of feeds of it – so far. We need to hurry up and feast before the season ends.
Penny Oliver, the New Zealand author of Beach, Bach, Boat, Barbeque, has returned to outdoor pursuits for her latest book At Home, At Play. With fabulous photographs of rivers, cooking over outdoor fires, mountains, camping with frost on tents, kayaking and heavy snowfalls, she intersperses her recipes – divided into chapters called Eat Up, Chill Out, Warm Up and Time Out – with views of New Zealand.
After a stressful week, all you want to do at the weekend is get out of the city (without driving too far), stay in a comfortable place (without paying too much) and eat some good food. In search of just such a place, the Boyfriend and I stayed at the historic