During our last cheese school class, Alpine Cheese and Alsace Wine, Wil Edwards, one of the instructors, talked about having worked at Harley Farms for a number of years, a goat dairy located an hour south of San Francisco. He mentioned they do tours, and given Stephanie’s affection for goats (as well as cheesemaking), I knew we had to go.

I checked out their website, and discovered they were hosting several prix fixe, five-course dinners on the farm, complete with a tour and cheesemaking demonstration. My jaw dropped! I made reservations immediately, for dinner last night, which we learned was their first ever seasonal dinner available to the public.

The Harley Farms Cheese Shop in Pescadero, California

Our first glimpse of the baby goats

Our own personal petting zoo

Baby goat’s eye view

Baby goats cuddling together to stay warm

Udders in profile, about to be milked

Spread’em!

Goats get milked sixteen at a time

The result: fresh goat milk, ready to be made into cheese

The goats head back down the stairs after milking

Looking dapper in our hairnets before entering the dairy

Dee Harley demonstrates how they make goat’s milk ricotta

After the tour everyone gathered above the barn around a long handmade table and chairs set for 20 people, family-style. For the next several hours we enjoyed lively conversation inevitably centered around food, cheesemaking, community-supported agriculture (CSA), cooking, beekeeping, etc. Meanwhile we were treated to an amazing dinner prepared with ingredients procured from farms within a 30 mile radius of Pescadero.

There was bread and goat butter on the table, which we enjoyed with our first course, steamed artichokes with garlic aioli. The second course was an amazing homemade ravioli stuffed with ricotta and topped with chevre, basil, and brown butter. (I need to cook with brown butter more.) That was followed by a beet and citrus salad with mixed greens. The main course was rack of lamb with potatoes and asparagus. Dessert was the ricotta we’d “made” earlier, with strawberries and honey.

We had arrived that afternoon at 4pm, after leaving San Francisco at 2:30pm—it was pretty much the only activity we’d planned for the day—and when we got back to our car it was past 9:30pm. Thus we began the slow drive home through the fog along the coast, with full, happy bellies.

• A week of milking goats
• So you want to make cheese at home?
• This weekend I did the dishes (and some other stuff)
• Urban Cheese Party!
• Cheeses of the Mediterranean

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