A day in the cheese room

This story appeared in the August 4, 2010, edition of The Valley Advocate.


Link to story.

The sun has just peeked over the horizon, and I am struggling to keep my eyes open as I make my way through fog and down winding roads into the sprawling farmland of Ashfield. It's not yet 6 a.m. As I turn into Sangha Farm, owners Maribeth and Derek Ritchie are already making their way to the barn where two dozen goats are huddled, all eager for attention, several impatient to be milked.

Everyone knows the lineup. After balancing on her hind legs to give Derek a good morning kiss, Bennie—a large, black goat with floppy ears and an in-charge attitude as the first goat on the farm—is the first into the milking room. She staggers up the ramp onto a platform and goes straight at the bowl of grain strategically placed at the other end. Derek closes two wooden panels around her neck to keep her in place while he milks her, though Bennie shows no sign of trying to abandon the bowl before every grain has been eaten.

After an iodine solution kills any bacteria on her udders, the milking begins. Derek keeps his hands wrapped around Bennie's teats, alternating between them as he pinches the milk down and squirts it into the metal bucket below.

An hour later, after seven other goats have been milked, Derek and Maribeth return to the house to feed their children breakfast and get ready for their day, which Derek will spend in the field and Maribeth in the cheese room. After a second milking at five p.m., there will be about six gallons of milk from the day to be pasteurized and turned into chevre, a fancy French word for a simple treat: fresh goat cheese.

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The light, airy texture and cool tart flavor of fresh ch?vre makes it a summertime favorite for cheese enthusiasts. Goat's milk, with its high fat content, yields cheese that is creamy, tart and, well, goaty. It's also widely believed that goat's milk cheese is actually healthier than cheese made from cow's milk. Especially during the warmer months, you'll find it served over fresh greens, spread on sandwiches or dipped in chocolate. My favorite way of eating it is to buy a loaf of freshly baked bread and an herb-flavored cheese to dip it in.

The good news is that the Pioneer Valley has plenty of goat cheese. While our neighbor to the north, Vermont, has long captivated the attention of cheese aficionados, local dairy farms in Western Mass. have started to turn heads. Locally made goat cheese is a focal point on the menu at the best restaurants and available at every farmers' market and grocery store in the area.

Margaret Christie, of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), a group that helps connect farmers with markets for their products, attributes the rising interest in local goat cheese to the national movement to buy locally made food. Good food and food made near by excite people, she says.

At Sangha Farm, Maribeth can't make cheese fast enough to meet the demand for her product.

Bistro Les Gras in Northampton is one of her biggest customers. Chef David Martinez says he often uses chevre on his menu during the summer months for its flavor, which he calls "bright and lively." One unique dish he has concocted from local goat cheese is a chevre-flavored ice cream that he serves over a chilled peach soup.

When buying goat cheese to enjoy at home, Martinez says he suggests staying away from chevre that appears overly white or has a yellow tinge and opting instead for a creamy, natural color. He recommends pairing the cheese with fresh tomatoes.

"People are looking up to Vermont for cheese," he says, as he tends to the Bistro's stand at the Tuesday Market. "And I think they should keep their eyes here."

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Derek and Maribeth bought their first goat not with the intention of becoming cheesemakers, but because it was cheaper to feed their two young children milk from the goat than to buy milk at the store. Six years later, cheesemaking has become a full-time occupation for Maribeth.

Inside the barn, the small cheese room is a cross between a kitchen and a science laboratory. On one side, curds wrapped in a cotton cloth are hanging from a metal rack while whey drains into bowls below. A metal vat with four gallons of freshly pasteurized milk is cooling in the sink, where it will ripen into a layer of yogurt-like curds submerged in yellowish whey. On the stove, two gallons of milk from the morning are being pasteurized.

In the refrigerator are Maribeth's special creations: chocolate-covered chevre truffles. The balls of goat cheese, which have been frozen and coated in a layer of Swiss chocolate, sell out at nearly every market she brings them to.

Once the milk is harvested in the morning and evening, a meticulous regimen of cooling and heating must be followed. Within two hours, the temperature must drop from 102 degrees, the temperature just after milking, to below 45 degrees. While the goats are still chomping on grain, Derek and Maribeth strain the milk for debris and chill it on ice. A few hours later, after the kids have been fed, Maribeth brings the milk into the cheese room to be pasteurized, a two-hour process.

When the milk has cooled again from the 145 degrees it reaches during pasteurization, Maribeth adds cultures that will coagulate it. A day later, she slices into the now-thick curds with her knife and scoops them into cheesecloths to be hung overnight.

Next comes the fun. Maribeth takes down the cheese, which has now reached the right consistency, salts it, and empties it into a bowl. She dices fresh chives from the farm, adds garlic powder, and stirs it all together. The result is chive and garlic chevre, one of her most popular varieties, to be sold tomorrow at the Ashfield market. From one gallon of milk there is almost enough chevre to fill six of the four-ounce containers she sells her Tava brand cheese in.

Maribeth's cheesemaking operation is carried on under strict regulations. Learning the rules and gaining the necessary certification was an arduous task when she began making cheese commercially three years ago. Christie, at CISA, stresses the difficulty of getting into artisanal cheesemaking. Jurisdiction overlaps between agencies, and often the regulations themselves are unclear. "Government makes it harder for local farmers," she says, creating a "hurdle at the front end."

The equipment can also be expensive. Maribeth's small four-gallon pasteurizer cost her $7,000.

Maribeth is now making upwards of 50 pounds of cheese per week. In addition to fresh ch?vre, she makes goat's milk feta and plans to experiment with brie. Her small-scale pasteurizer and the time it takes to milk each goat by hand limit the amount of cheese she can produce. The coolers come home empty from the markets week after week.

With the growing demand for fresh, locally made goat cheese, Maribeth and Derek are looking for a bigger property that can handle more goats and, possibly, a machine to do the milking.

"I can't keep up," Maribeth says with a smile as she tends to the milk on the stove. "They just love goat cheese."




Other dairy farms in the area that produce goat cheese are Hillman Farm in Colrain; The Farmstand at Mine Brook in Charlemont, which makes Goat Rising ch?vre; Rawson Brook Farm in Monterey, which makes Monterey Ch?vre; and Westfield Farm in Hubbardston.

Pretty damn cool.

I stumbled upon this today and I must say, it feels good to read.

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Toothless reporting

News about anti-rape device isn’t news at all

By D.A. Kolodenko

This story appeared on June 30, 2010 on San Diego CityBeat.
 

Even if you don’t have World Cup fever, you might’ve heard about Rape-aXe, the brand name of an anti-rape device invented by a South African woman named Sonnet Ehlers, who plans to distribute 30,000 of them at the matches.

Like a medieval but self-imposed chastity belt with teeth, the Rape-aXe is a sheath-like polyurethane vaginal insert. Small plastic “hooks” on the device’s inner walls painfully latch onto an unsuspecting rapist’s penis and won’t let go. It can only be removed surgically by a doctor.

The legs of the story derive from its shock value, and the triteness of the reportage reflects this:

Typical is Kat Hannaford’s post for the online gadget guide, Gizmodo.com, which reads like a press release. She reports that the anti-rape “condoms” are being distributed at the Cup, explains how they work and who invented them and comments that the need of a doctor in removal will help with prosecution. She adds that Ehlers plans to sell RapeaXe for $2 each.

A Buzzfeed.com link to the Gizmodo story by John Winskowicz picks up its breezy tone: “I think this idea is fantastic,” he gushes.

But weak reporting is not a simple matter of new-media blog versus traditional news source.

A widely distributed New York Daily News story by reporter Joe Tacopino cites the criticism by Victoria Kajja from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Uganda that Rape-aXe “not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma.”

Rather than elaborate or cite any other critics’ concerns, however, Tacopino merely answers Kajja’s statement with Ehlers’ unquestioned claim that she “had taken the proper research and development steps before launching the product.”

Even more widely distributed has been the story by Faith Karimi for CNN.com. Karimi at least provides context: She reports that South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, citing a recent Human Rights Watch survey.

But Karimi’s story still lacks depth: “Some critics have accused [Ehlers] of developing a medieval device,” she points out, without citing who the critics are or elaborating. Karimi also gives the Rape-aXe inventor the last word: “Yes, my device may be medieval, but it’s for a medieval deed.”

You can learn a lot by investigating. Titania Kumeh of Mother Jones, in a followup interview with Ehlers, found out that CNN got basic facts wrong: The devices haven’t been distributed at the World Cup or anywhere else. Ehlers is seeking donations and a distributor.

Amanda Bailly, a Student Correspondent Corps reporter from Boston University, provided more thorough coverage than either CNN or the New York Daily News in her April report for GlobalPost.com. Bailly raised critical questions about how safe the devices are for the women who use them—questions mostly ignored in mainstream sources.

Bailly cited filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson’s argument that Rape-aXe doesn’t make sense in the Third World. Jackson interviewed rape victims and rapists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and produced The Greatest Silence.

“If a guy is raping you, and there’s five other guys waiting to take their turn… do you think he’s going to take that well? They’re going to mutilate that woman. It’s just a provocation,” Jackson told Bailly.

Likewise, in a country where HIV/AIDS rates are extremely high, Bailly wanted to know the potential danger from blood. Ehlers said that the Rape-aXe does not draw blood. But later in the story, Bailly reported that “the ‘teeth’ have yet to bite into a real penis,” rendering Ehlers’ claims suspect.

Ehlers’ own website claims that “the penis will be encapsulated and the tines are so small there will hardly be blood that can spill because it is in a capsule.” This statement is inconsistent with her more certain response to Bailly. And whether the tines draw blood is not the same question as whether blood can leak out of the sheath.

Later on the site, Ehlers states that the rapist would not suffer permanent damage but would be left with “tiny scars.”

The issue of blood here is not a minor concern, nor is the issue of retaliation. Both can impact a woman’s life just as much as rape.

Considering that Rape-aXe hasn’t been tested on people and is highly controversial, is it any wonder that there is no distributor and seemingly no government approval? On Ehlers’ website, there isn’t even an order form to purchase Rape-aXe. There is, however, one way to spend money on Ehler’s website in addition to sending her donations: her “stylishly decorated” guest house on Great White Lake near Capetown is available for rent.

The Rape-aXe, it turns out, is old news.

The BBC reported on Ehlers’ idea five years ago. In that story, she is identified as a “former medical technician.” It makes you wonder if CNN’s labeling her a doctor, which has been constantly repeated, is also false. Ehlers makes no mention of it on her site, referring to herself only as “a woman.”

Latching onto global publicity of the World Cup by falsely suggesting that she was on the verge of heroically distributing thousands of Rape-aXes, “Doctor” Ehlers hoodwinked the press into recycling her story as if it were new.

Back in 2005, anti-rape campaigner Charlene Smith told the BBC that the device would incite injured rapists to kill their victims.

“We don’t need these nut-case devices by people hoping to make a lot of money out of other women’s fear,” Smith said.

Write to dak@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

Jackie Cooper: History told through the eyes of an artist

This article appeared in the July 22 issue of the Shelburne Falls Independent, available only in hard copy.

In one small square room in the rear of the Ashfield Historical Society, artist Jacqueline Cooper has captured the story of early European Jewish immigrants and their impact on the fashion industry in America.  Far from a dry history lesson, the exhibit is brushed with artistic flare to create a narrative that is as visually stimulating as it is informational.

Titled “Follow the Thread,” the exhibit weaves together two centuries of American Jewish culture with the evolution of the garment industry.  From the stiff hoop skirt and gripping corsets of the mid-19^th century to the flowery fabrics of the 1960s, artist Jacqueline Cooper has illustrated this history through words, photos and the clothing itself.

Cooper— a former fashion designer turned photographer and now historian—says she remembers telling a friend that she was considering a multi-media Holocaust exhibit when the friend interjected, “there’s more to the Jewish people than that.”  The idea for the exhibit was born.  Rather than casting the Jews as victims, she would underscore their role as leaders and innovators in the fashion industry.   

She found that Jewish immigrants had introduced standardized sizes so that clothing could be mass produced and available to the masses.  Rather than custom tailoring each piece, someone could walk into a department store and pick up a shirt in a small, medium or large.  Levi Strauss, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, was the first to manufacture the blue jean in the late 19^th century originally for coal miners.

Cooper has employed a range of mediums to tell the story like a scrapbook with a third dimension.  Photos collages compliment text on each of the placards, which are arranged in order from life in the pogroms of Eastern Europe to the spirited 1960s in the United States.

The draw of the exhibit is the garments themselves, which hang from the walls and are displayed on manikins around the room.  The clothes are a mix of vintage pieces from Cooper’s collection as well as others that have been loaned and one that Cooper sewed from fabric made in the 1930s.

Hoop cage skirts of the 1860s balloon from the waist to the ankle like an exoskeleton on the manikins.  A knee-length pink dress with white lace fanning out at the bust looks as if a character from the film Grease could have worn it to the prom.  There are overcoats, corsets, top hats and a woman’s bathing suit from the 1920s that looks more like a wet suit than what you might see donned at the beach today.

As Cooper tours her own exhibit on this Saturday morning, she is interrupted numerous times by friends and strangers praising her work.  “Thanks, do you want to model for me?” is usually her response.  In conjunction with the exhibit, Cooper is orchestrating a fashion show that will bring to life a century of style and history. 

On August 8 at the Ashfield Community Hall, models ranging from age nine to 93 will sport designs from the 1860s to the 1960s.   The show will feature different pieces than the ones on display at the Historical Society and will be accompanied by music from the time period.

The story begins with life for Jews in small, poor communities in Europe and tracks their migration in the millions to New York City beginning in the 1820s.  In the struggle to survive in the chaos of the big city, the majority sought work in the fashion industry as tailors, dressmakers and when the Civil War broke out, as producers of military uniforms.  

Cooper focuses on the contributions Jewish women have made to the garment industry as designers, sales people and marketing engineers.  When the men went to war, the women had to step up and fill their positions.  “Look, it’s even a woman designer,” she says enthusiastically, as she points to the label of a lavender short-sleeved dress from the early 1950s that hangs on the wall.  She accredits the women for continuing cultural traditions as life changed shape for the immigrants.

Woven into the exhibit is much of Cooper’s own past.  Her grandparents were European Jews from Odessa, Ukraine and Minsk, Belarus who migrated first to the Lower East Side before finally settling in a rural farmhouse in Great Barrington, Mass.  Today, Cooper lives and works out of a farmhouse in Ashfield, Mass. that she postulates is similar to the one her grandparents lived in in the early 20^th century.

Worked into the exhibit are traces of Cooper’s own mother.  There is a photo of her mother modeling a dress around the time of World War II and displayed in a glass case is one of her mother’s strapless corsets.

As Cooper explains the significance of each piece with great affection, her experience in the fashion industry is evident.  She often wears the vintage dresses from her own collection, she says, though today as she visits the Historical Society, she sports loose green pants and a colorful blouse, her graying curls hanging freely to her shoulders.

Cooper grew up in Great Barrington, Mass., where her grandparents settled in the 19^th century.  She attended Syracuse University where she received a degree in fine arts.  After a short bout in the advertising industry, she left for the world of fashion.

Cooper describes herself as “an artist who found a niche in apparel.”  Cooper worked for more than three decades as a self-taught fashion designer, first in Boston and then from her farmhouse in Ashfield.  She owned her own label, twice, and sold her pieces to stores in New York City, she says.  In 2004, she left the commercial fashion industry in search of producing art that she describes as “more from the heart.”

She decided to go back to school at Greenfield Community College and graduated in 2006 with a degree in media arts.  This encompassed video, digital printing and her passion, photography, but she was unsure what she would do with the degree.

Her first project came to life when Cooper was invited to photograph a meeting of Ashfield’s oldest women.  Cooper was there to capture the women’s portraits as they told stories about what Ashfield was like when they were young and sipped tea.  Throughout the winter, Cooper visited each of the elderly women in their homes and asked them to tell a story on a single page, hand written, about their relationship to the town.  She paired their portraits and their stories and put together an exhibit that offered a glimpse of Ashfield decades prior, called “Ashfield Elderly Women’s High Tea.”

At one home, the woman’s husband wanted to tell his story of life as a soldier during World War II, which led Cooper to her next project.  History was never one of her strengths, but Cooper promised to come back, she says, and she did.  She has now compiled the stories and portraits of 17 World War II veterans in the area in an exhibit called, “World War II Veterans’ Voices.”  Her next endeavor is to take the exhibit into schools, where students can learn from the real life stories of veterans.

More than a year after Hurricane Katrina demolished parts of New Orleans, Cooper went south to photograph the Lower Ninth Ward and other affected districts and put together a photo collection called, “15 Months after the Levies Broke.”  For three years, Cooper has continued a project called, “Creating a Sense of Belonging,” which introduces residents with Alzheimer’s disease at an assisted living center to multi-media storytelling.

Her work with World War II veterans spawned the idea for “Follow the Thread,” which has been in the works for more than a year and a half.  In January of 2009, Cooper began applying for grants and spent the next year researching, learning and compiling what she found.  She has received funding from the Y’DIYAH Memorial Fund, Greenfield Community College Diversity Fund, Herald Grinspoon Foundation and cultural councils in Ashfield, Shelbourne, Rockland and Charlemont.

The exhibit is available at the Ashfield Historical Society, which is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and by appointment, until October 11.  The fashion show is scheduled begin at 4 p.m. on August 8.

Mosaic Cafe Review

A Mosaic of Moroccan and Mediterranean Fare

This article appeared in the July 15 issue of The Valley Advocate.

Link to article.

A small country that rounds the northwest corner of Africa and juts northward just nine miles from the coast of Spain, Morocco is a fusion of European, African and Middle Eastern influences. Stroll through the bazaars and watch as Moroccans sip their mint tea, conversing in French and listening to the Spanish guitar as it echoes through the majestic open air markets. Breathe in the aroma of the couscous and tajine stews that have been served for centuries.

At a cafe just off Main Street in Northampton, owner Hafid Assab has concocted a menu inspired by the cuisine of his native Morocco. His restaurant, Mosaic Cafe, offers Moroccan- and Mediterranean-style dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Mosaic is nothing fancy; the menu is written on a chalkboard above the counter where you order and the specials board is a collage of laminated note cards. Assab strives to keep his food affordable; the most expensive item on the menu is $12.95. Order your meal, grab a number and wait for it to come to you.

The key to good Moroccan cooking is the spices. In the five months I spent living in Morocco's capital, Rabat, I watched as cumin, black pepper, saffron, chili powder, turmeric, ginger and cinnamon showered down in perfect accord onto just about everything I ate. At Mosaic, even my avocado salad, served with artichoke hearts, sunflower seeds, roasted green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives, was sprinkled with spices that complemented the vinaigrette dressing. The grilled lamb fillets in the lamb salad were tender and nicely seasoned as well.

Lunch is my favorite meal at Mosaic, with a variety of soups, salads, sandwiches and crepes to choose from. One of the more popular dishes is the Crepe Marseillaise, a crepe served with your choice of grilled chicken, lamb sausage or ground beef, with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and Swiss cheese. Another is the soup served in a crepe bowl and drizzled with almond sauce. There are many fish and vegetarian options, such as the trout salad or the eggplant sandwich.

For dinner, the goat and lamb stews are solid choices. Both are cooked in broth with plenty of vegetables and served with rice or a baguette. To get the full Moroccan experience, try using chunks of bread held in your right hand to eat the stew. I would avoid the seafood paella, the only dish at Mosaic I have been disappointed with.

On a weekend morning, one of my favorite dishes is the sundried tomato omelet: sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, goat cheese and home fries on the side. The French toast with cinnamon and honey is also a delicious option if you're feeling less adventurous.

An absolute must here is the Moroccan mint tea, either iced or hot. This green tea loaded with sugar and fresh mint leaves is the cornerstone of every gathering in Morocco. At Mosaic, you will be served hot tea in an authentic silver tea pot and painted glasses. You can also choose from fresh carrot juice, smoothies and milkshakes.

Mosaic offers both indoor and outdoor dining. Bring your own bottle of wine and Assab will provide you with glasses and a corkscrew. If you have room for dessert, the pastries displayed on the counter—baklava, bread pudding topped with raisins, and classic Moroccan cookies called fekkaz and ghriba—are all made in-house.

Assab opened Mosaic Cafe just over a year ago after working as manager of his brother's restaurant, Amanouz Cafe, on Main Street. Assab says he tries to bring out the Mediterranean element at Mosaic while Amanouz serves classic Moroccan dishes. In Casablanca, where he grew up, Assab helped his mother in the kitchen on Fridays as she cooked mountains of her famous couscous for their family of nine. At Mosaic, Assab ensures that the food lives up to the same standard.