What’s On Your Mind?
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Several years ago, not long after my father had died, a cheesemonger who is a close friend brought me to the biennial international cheese festival in Bra, Piedmont, northern Italy - (the very same place where the Slow Food Movement came into being) to cheer me up; it was a wonderful holiday - food for the body and food for the soul and wine for the mind, amid terrific and congenial company - food, wine, cheese, culture and opera in northern Italy....
One wonderful evening, I was seated at dinner beside an award winning producer of cheese - goat's cheese, as it happened, - and the cheese producer and I were chatting about the award winning cheese, and about the (prize winning) herd of goats that produced the milk which, in turn, allowed her to produce this - her - internationally recognised award winning cheese.
Not only, according to her, were they mischievous marauders, - and highly intelligent - but, there were also ascending degrees of mischief that were indulged in, when they embarked upon their destructive sprees, a piece of information which astonished me.
She informed me that the goats all wore these clanking bells around their necks, which normally sounded, giving advance notice - indeed, warning - of the goats' approach - but, paradoxically, their owner advised me that the bells did not necessarily sound the alarm when trouble was about to brew or mischief was in the collective mind of the herd.
"No", she said, lifting her beautiful Italian wine glass, and studying the refracting light ruminatively, with an admiring - but rueful - snort of laughter. "It is when the bells are silent - very, very silent - that you really have to watch out. That is when the real trouble happens."
lizkat
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How true!! Not just goats, cats too sometimes, apparently. A pal up the road had belled her indoor-outdoor cat in hopes of reducing its predation of songbirds, but she caught sight of it one afternoon sitting in the driveway, pawing its collar round and round and pausing when the bell was up atop the back of its neck, where apparently any ringing noise would be muffled after it stood up and resumed walking (or stalking as case may have been). My friend was outraged! Sigh. Better mousetrap, smarter mouse, etc.
Pumbaa
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Greatest of all time, even?
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That is brilliant.
Laugh out loud brilliant.
Actually, that is hilarious.
I remember having to explain the term "belling the cat" to a brother - who had never heard of it but was absolutely fascinated by my explanation (it came up in the context of an internal (brothers & I) discussion of family - i.e. parental - health matters/problems, oh, several years ago, with my (rhetorical) query - after the immediate health disaster/topic du jour had been teased to death - to brothers taking the form of "but, who (i.e. which of us) shall bell the cat?")
So, yes, "belling the cat" is now well known and a much used metaphor (for we, none of us, have cats) when brothers and I chat, these days.
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Renzatic
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Goat cheese is good, but not the GOAT. Feta is great in certain circumstances, but smoked Gouda goes with everything!
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Aged goat's Gouda is sublime.
Renzatic
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…there’s a goat Gouda? Why was I not informed?
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Renzatic
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I won’t just seek it out, I’ll make a full on quest for it!
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It is pale white in colour (in marked contrast to the cow's milk Gouda which is gold, graduating to a burnt orange, deep rich amber, or apricot, for the more aged versions), and both wonderfully sweet, yet sharply tart, - an explosion of contrasting tastes - when savoured.
A favourite.
My cheesemonger stocks it, but that is probably of little reassurance to someone who dwells in the United States, not far from the Georgian state border, or near to where the battle of Chickamauga was fought, if memory serves.
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lizkat
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I know that Goat Rodeo Farm in Pennsylvania makes a decent goat's milk Gouda cheese, but not sure which markets might carry it in the southern USA. I used to get carried away with myself whenever I was shopping in person at the local Hannaford and ended up by the cheese offerings. They had quite an array of domestic and imported cheeses, including different goudas, some made in the USA... at least before the pandemic managed to complicate supply and demand for everyone around the world from farm to retail customer.
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Actually, @Renzatic, while I love all (really good quality) Goudas, if I had to choose, an exceptionally good goat's Gouda easily surpasses (in my subjective judgment) the best of the (superb crystalline, and aged) cow's milk Goudas.
lizkat
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Here ya go. How far can it be? A 50-goat cheesemaking enterprise in good ol' Franklin, Tennessee.
Noble Springs Dairy: Goat Cheese Farm
Young farmers Dustin and Justyne Noble run Noble Spring Diary in Franklin. Their goat cheeses, or chevre, can be found at farmers markets, stores and restaurants in the Nashville area.
www.tnhomeandfarm.com
Renzatic
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I will accept this quest, and shall travel hither anon.Here ya go. How far can it be? A 50-goat cheesemaking enterprise in good ol' Franklin, Tennessee.
Noble Springs Dairy: Goat Cheese Farm
Young farmers Dustin and Justyne Noble run Noble Spring Diary in Franklin. Their goat cheeses, or chevre, can be found at farmers markets, stores and restaurants in the Nashville area.
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My friend, the cheesemonger, used to quote (with cackling, delighted, glee) the line in Monty Python (The Life Of Brian), "Blessed Are The Cheesemakers", blithely disregarding the (suspected) fact that this may have been an inspired (if splendidly irrelevant) heckle in an otherwise brilliant scene.
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More cheese action here than in the cheese thread! 
talkedabout.com
The Cheese Thread.
Time to start a cheese thread, although, I suspect that I may be one of the main contributors: Today, I paid a flying visit to the city, and - among other things - thought to visit the cheesemonger's. My purchases included: Roquefort, Bleu d'Auvergne, mature Gruyère, aged, mature Comte, Torta...
talkedabout.com
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More cheese action here than in the cheese thread! [emoji23]
The Cheese Thread.
Time to start a cheese thread, although, I suspect that I may be one of the main contributors: Today, I paid a flying visit to the city, and - among other things - thought to visit the cheesemonger's. My purchases included: Roquefort, Bleu d'Auvergne, mature Gruyère, aged, mature Comte, Torta...
I had a peek but the first entry got me too hungry already!
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The one thing I always hated about Santa Carla was all the damnWe're having stakes tonight, you know, because we live in Santa Carla
Have you seen the goats in pajamas? That’s my all-time favorite.
lizkat
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Yes indeed, i might even have posted about them somewhere, probably over at that other place... they are adorable.
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