A is for Artisanal

Yesterday I finished a batch of goat cheese.  In the early afternoon, I drained most of the whey, pouring it off the top of the small pot in which the cheese had cultured and into another container, destined for pouring over chicken feed so my birds get their regular dose of homemade probiotics.  I then wrapped the remaining blob in a cheesecloth and hung it over a bowl on the counter to strain out the rest of the whey. Drip. Drip. About eight hours later, right before bed, I took down the cheesecloth, opening it gingerly to take out the freshly formed ball of cheese. With only eight hours of hang-time, the cheese was not quite as dry and crumbly as feta, but not quite as creamy as cream cheese.  It had reached the perfectly scoopable or spreadable texture that my family has come to enjoy.  So I worked in about a teaspoon of salt with a flexible spatula, reformed the cheese into a ball (roughly 16 ounces), and stored it in the fridge.  No fancy herbs for this batch, but with some good crackers, this simple fare will make for an indulgent lunch for me for a good four to five days, even with the kids and my husband snacking on it here and there as well.  

That's how I finished the batch.  But when, and how, did I start it?  That depends on how far back you want to go.  In one sense, I had started it just the day before, when I slowly warmed about two and a half quarts of goat's milk to 86°F on the stovetop, stirred in the culture powder I buy from an organic supplier, and covered the pot to let the cheese "set" on the kitchen counter for 24 hours or so.  Easy-peasy.

But in another sense, this batch of tangy, creamy goodness started well before then.  For one thing, since I only have one goat in milk right now – and a small one at that, a little Nigerian Dwarf doe named Petunia – it takes a full 5-6 days to get enough milk for a batch.  With her production waning as she nears the end of her current lactation, I'm lucky to get a pint a day.  So clearing the 2.5 quart threshold takes nearly a week of milking!  But of course, the fact that Petunia is producing milk at all stems from the fact that she gave birth to two healthy kids back in May of this year – itself a consequence of Petunia's planned breeding period last fall with our main herdsire, Nasturtium (whom we affectionately call "Nasty").  I could trace this batch back even further, to when we acquired Petunia and her four sisters as our starter herd in January of 2020, with Nasty joining us on the farm a few short months later.  And so on, and so on.

Alternatively, I could trace back through the energy path that this batch has traveled, back through the grass, brush, and hay that make up all but a tiny fraction of Petunia's diet, back to the sunlight that fell on that grass, brush, and hay, activating their power to pull nutrients up from the soil, back to the sun itself.  It never escapes me that when I eat goat cheese, I am eating just another form of sunshine.  It is entirely accurate to say that we are all made of the stuff of stars.

I believe it is likewise accurate, therefore, to say that when I make goat cheese – or grow a watermelon, or collect an egg, or spread our homemade butter on toast – I am actively participating in the ongoing work of Creation.  I am following the lead of the Creator, the Great Artisan, who is said to have pronounced the heavens and earth good.  That kind of pronouncement wells up out of deep pleasure, a satisfaction borne of transforming mere chaos into life-giving and life-sustaining order.  The Creation itself stands as the Creator's open invitation to seek precisely this kind of pleasure.  We have all been called, in other words, to be artisans, whether we recognize it or not.

An artisan is one who lavishes seemingly excessive care and attention on each iteration of her work – excessive, that is, from the standpoint of efficiency.  Efficiency is not the artisan's organizing principle, but rather quality and craftsmanship.  It would push the argument too far, of course, to say that efficiency is outright at odds with artisanal work; concern for efficiency has its place in the artisan's bag of tricks, and can, at times, lend a certain elegance, a spare beauty, to both the creative process and the creations that unfurl from it.  But it is not the artisan's paramount concern.  The artisan – the artist – serves the work itself, seeks to discover what wants to emerge into existence by virtue of bringing to bear the full measure of her attention, experience, and skill in a tiny corner of the world, even if only for a few brief moments. 

The artisan's work thus expresses her love, her desire to participate in the force and flow by which Creation continues to unfold in real time.  It does not require control of the creative process from beginning to end – because, as with my goat cheese, where is the beginning, really? For that matter, where is the end?  And as any well-traveled creative will tell you, "control" of the process is a temporary illusion at best.  The hallmark is attention, intentional and loving engagement with the creativity that swaddles us all, if we give ourselves permission to sense it. 

Will you accept the invitation?