The Slow Food USA Blog

College chapter meets local goat cheese producer

Print this Page Send to a Friend

by Marion Rockwood, Slow Food Oberlin Leader

On Monday, March 22, Slow Food Oberlin hosted a campus-wide event called Cheese 101, featuring a local farmer: Abbe Turner.  Turner, a Slow Food Terra Madre delegate in 2008, is also the milkmaid at Lucky Penny Farm and the cheese maker at Lucky Penny Creamery in Portage County, Ohio.  She came to campus to talk about her family farm goat dairy, women in agriculture, and how to make and enjoy cheese.

Lucky Penny Farm is an opportunity for Turner’s family to live out its ideals of tradition, simplicity, and sustainability in cooperation with the land and animals. She emphasized how important the farm has been to her and offered to advise any audience members who wanted to get started in agriculture.

Cheese making is becoming increasingly popular in today’s do-it-yourself kitchen and Turner sought to elucidate the process. She explained the cheese-making experience in detail and left a lot of audience members excited to try it in their own kitchens.

Turner generously brought samples of her chevre, feta, and award-winning sweet Cajeta caramel sauce, along with artisan offerings from other Ohio producers. Audience members received a plate and Turner moved with them through each cheese, providing some background and encouraging them to choose their own words to describe the tastes they experienced.

The event brought community members together with college students and fueled the ongoing conversation about sustainable food systems. Next year, Slow Food Oberlin hopes to replicate the successful event with a hands-on cheese-making workshop with Turner.