Name: Sagging Fence goat tomme
From: Port Orchard, Washington State
Made By:  Sagging Fence Farm
Milk: Raw goat’s milk
Curdling type: rennet
Size/ weigh: Round tomme about 4# in weight
Rind: Natural rind that is washed weekly during aging
Interior: semi firm, very pale ivory color
Aged: 3-5 months (maybe longer due to recent closures!)

This goat’s milk cheese is made by Bob and Juli Fisher on their farm near Port Orchard on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where they also pasture raise Aracana chickens for eggs. Although they have made cheeses together for years, Sagging Fence Farm (Juli says the name comes from the farm’s wire fences when hungry goats climb on them trying to get better stuff on the other side) came into being in 2014 as a retirement “job”.

Their goat milk tomme is made from the milk of their herd of 24 Nubian goats, although only 6-8 of these are producing milk at any one time. Each 4# wheel takes 4-5 gallons of milk to make, so the total production is only 4-5 cheeses per week. It is a firm, finely textured cheese with a rich, full flavor that reminds me of the cheeses of the French Basque Countries, where sheep milk predominates but goat’s milk versions also exist. Weekly washing of the rind (“to prevent unwanted growth” during aging, says Juli) adds to complexity and full-flavor to the fresh lactic flavor of the interior.

It is a rare treat to be able to sample a raw milk cheese of this quality made by dedicated artisans right in our own back yard. Although Le Pichet and Cafe Presse are both still closed due to the Governor’s mandate, each restaurant has one of these goat tommes quietly aging in our cheese caves. We can’t wait to see how good it will taste when we reopen! In the meantime, you can generally find Sagging Fence cheese at Quality Cheese in the Pike Place Market.

For our June 2018 Quarterly Chef’s Dinnner at Café Presse, we will be preparing a traditional Poule au pot, featuring free-range, pasture raised farm chickens from Hungry Hollow Farms near Shelton WA.

THIS JUST IN:  Artisan farmer/owner of Hungry Hollow Farms Grant Jones will be on hand to talk about how he works and to answer your questions.  Says Grant of how he farms:  “We’re putting animals back on the grass where they belong. When we raise animals outside on grass, they forage for greens and bugs. This natural diet produces meat and eggs with richer flavor and a superior nutritional profile.”

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet one of the local heroes who are working to put healthy food on our tables.

There are only a few remaining seats for this event.
Rerservations by telephone only 206.709.7674

If you love all the cheeses we use on our menu and cheese board at Le Pichet and Café Presse, you likely have Olivier Boye to thank for them.  We get most of our cheeses from him, including the raw milk raclette shown above and the raw-milk cave aged Comté that we use in omelettes, onion soup, croques and much more. Olivier is the owner of Mercer Island based Corsican Cellars, and when not delivering to restaurants. spends a big chunk of each year traveling in France, Italy and Spain, discovering new cheeses and other delicious artisan products like the jambon de Bayonne from Salaisons de l’Adour that we serve.  We love his deep knowledge about all things cheese and his passion for discovering family-owned dairies run by artisans who’s mission is to maintain the glorious tradition of raw-milk farmhouse cheese.

Ever heard of caviar that is raised in France?  With caviar from the Caspian Sea  being either too expensive or morally murky ( Caspian Sea sturgeons have been on the endangered species list for a while) or just plain unavailable, many countries have seen growth   in their farmed caviar industries, notably the U.S., Canada, Israel and Uruguay.  Now France has joined the list as well.

Before the pollution of post WWII years, the French region of Aquitaine, and specifically the Gironde river, was known for its sturgeon fishery, although more for the meat than for the caviar.  In the last 20 years or so, a number of companies have begun to invest in raising sturgeons  in Aquitaine again,with the goal of producing French caviar of a quality to compete with Caspian Sea caviar.  If you have been through an airport in London or Paris lately, you have probably seen the Prunier/Caviar House seafood bars.  Prunier/Caviar House is owned by French luxury goods giant LVMH, which was one of the early investors in sturgeon farming in Aquitaine (LVMH also now owes the iconic Paris seafood restaurant Prunier, which has become a showcase for its culinary products.  Prunier is an art deco jewel box, that warrants a visit for interior design buffs, even if just for a glass of champagne at it’s marble bar…if your budget allows, a champagne-addled lunch there is a once in a lifetime experience).

Caviar farming requires a huge investment of time and money.  The sturgeon are raised in freshwater ponds that must be isolated from the river that feeds them to avoid returning polluting waste products.  Construction of the pens and water processing plants is very costly

Additionally, sturgeons, which are very long lived, generally don’t produce roe until they are about 8 years old, so the investment of time and money to get them to producing stage is substantial.  One outcome of this is that that caviar is now sometimes even harvested via cesarean section so that the fish can live to produce more in the future.

In the past, I have had the opportunity to try the several of the caviars from Prunier/Cavair House and found them very good, if very expensive.  However, there are now a number of caviar producers in Aquitaine.  A stay at the house in Orthez seemed like a good pretext to get acquainted with some of the local eggs.

While visiting Biarritz, we stopped by the Chez Chailla, a gourmet food vender that started as a fromagerie selling Basque cheeses in the 1980’s but has since branched out into a wide range of artisan foods from the Basque countries, including caviar from Aquitaine.  The amiable owner, Monsieur Jean-Marie Pariset (who later helped us with a restaurant recommendation for lunch…his recommendation was enthusiastically seconded by two older women who waited patiently in line behind us) was happy to fill us in on the local caviar that he prefers and that he sells exclusively, from  company called l’Esturgeonniere.

L’Esturgionniere raises Russian sturgeons in fresh water basins in near the Basin d’Achachon, which is locally famous for its oysters.  Their facility includes a hatchery and raising ponds, and their business model includes not only caviar but sturgeon hatchlings sold to other producers and sustainably raised sturgeon filets for the table.  Their caviar, which is sold under the name of “Caviar Perlita” is sort of mid-priced for French caviar – the 100 grams I purchased set me back about 150 euros (about 3.5 ounces for $190 which is pretty reasonable as caviar goes…I remember wistfully my days as Chef at Campagne restaurant when we could buy Caspian Ossetra for $34 an ounce…boy those days are gone!).

SO how was it?  Pretty good is the short answer.  The long answer is that, of the traditional types of Caspian caviar (sevruga, ossetra and beluga) the Perlita resembles Beluga caviar in its large egg size, jet black color and intense salty-creaminess.  I think that the flavor is more bitter  and less complex than my memories of Caspian beluga, but that might be just memory.  Full disclosure,  I have always preferred Ossetra caviar, which has a slightly smaller, firmer eggs of a deep brown-golden color that pop between your teeth.  However, the Perlita made a lovely first course with a bottle of cold Macon so no complaints here.  The traditional accompaniments include creme fraiche, capers, chopped hard boiled egg and wild chives from our yard.

9am Saturday at the University Farmers Market
Memorial Day Weekend and the weather feels almost like summer.  Even at 9am, the air is warm, no breeze, few clouds.

I took the old number 43 bus to the University Farmer’s Market this morning, not sure exactly what to expect.  Given the holiday weekend, it is possible that the number of farms represented (not to mention the number of shoppers) could be pretty small.  Nice weather on a holiday never helps business.

My fears are premature, though;  lots of farmers are already set up and selling at 9am and the crowd, though not large, is respectable.  The season has finally begun in earnest and the cold, dark days of winter when only hardy souls make it to the Market, are (nearly) forgotten.

Market Highlights:
The first local strawberries of the season!  A landmark even if I decided to wait a week to buy…they looked a bit small and green, not the sun-drenched beauties that I expect in June.
Flowers, including peonies and lupine.
Lettuces really coming on strong, especially beautiful oak leaf at Let Us Farm.
Radishes, red, French breakfast and purple.
Bunched carrots as big as my little finger Willies Greens.
Rhubarb still going strong (I think the rain helps)
Asparagus ($5-6 a pound?  Ouch).
A really good bran and seed muffin at Tall Grass stand
Spring garlic.
English peas

Old-timey fish stop
One of the great advantages of the U-district Farmer’s Market is that, if you don’t find any meat or fish that grabs you, you can always stop by University Seafood on the way home.  University Seafood and Poultry, located on 47th between University Way and Brooklyn Avenue, is a longtime pillar of the neighborhood.  It was there when I was a student at the UW in the early 80’s (!!) and is still to my mind one of Seattle’s most dependable seafood vendors.  In addition to a well chosen selection of fish, the shop also features tanks for live oysters, clams, mussels and lobsters as well as one of the most divers selection of poultry in the city (where else to you go if you need quail, pidgen, rabbit and guinea hen?).  Although they dont feature as many little fishes (sardines, smelts, mackerel, etc) as Uwajimaya , they still manage to surprise me with something new every once in a while (the Ono a couple weeks ago was really tasty).

Going to University Seafood is a bit of a journey into the past,  to the days when butchers and fish mongers were opinionated, honest and thoroughly professional.      Along with Don and Joe’s Meats in the Pike Place Market, Better Meats in Greenwood, A&J Meats on Queen Anne and Mutual Fish on Rainier, University Seafood is part of a disappearing breed of stores staffed by honest to goodness craftsmen.  In a certain sense, shopping at these stores reminds me of the time I spent in Paris, a city where fierce loyalty to ones preferred bakery, butcher, fish monger and cheese seller is a way of life.

What:  Exclusive Selection of the Cheeses of Ferme Kukulu
When:  Beginning May 19, 2012
Where:  At Le Pichet

In March of this year, I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit Ferme Kukulu in the French Basque Countries.  This family-run farm has been producing raw milk cheeses in the traditional style, using traditional methods for generations.

Now you can a taste the cheeses of Ferme Kukulu.
Just in time for the 2012 Seattle Cheese Festival, Le Pichet has arranged to bring the cheese of Ferme Kukulu to you.  Le Pichet is working together with Corsican Cellar to offer a very special sampling of these fantastic farmhouse cheeses.  We are offering an All Kukulu cheese plate in addition to our normal selection of house aged cheeses.  You will be able to try a selection of five Kukulu raw milk cheeses for only $12.  The selection includes:

Pur Brebis (sheep’s milk)
Pur Chevre (goat’s milk)
Brebis-Chevre (mixed sheep and goat’s milk)
Bleu de Brebis (blue made from sheep’s milk)
Pur Brebis au Piment d’Espelette (sheep’s milk with Espelette pepper)

Corsican Cellar, a Seattle-based importer that sells to restaurants and stores in the Pacific Northwest,  is the exclusive representative in the U.S. for Ferme Kukulu.   Le Pichet will be the only restaurant in America to have all five of the Ferme Kukulu cheeses imported by Corsican Cellar.

On Visiting Farms
To me, there is no better way to really understand a product than to visit the place were it is made.  Whether the product in question is cheese, hams, sausages, wine or any other artisan product, understanding how and why it tastes like it does always begins with geography.  Just as the soil, the sun exposure, the elevation and the character of the country side where a wine is produced all play a role in how it finally tastes in the glass, so it is also true that all these elements have a huge part to play in the taste of a cheese.  This is true, at least, for the best wines and cheeses, when the wine maker or the cheese maker works with respect to tradition and lets the flavor of his wonderful raw materials shine through.

Visiting a farm in France can be a bit of a tricky business.  I have visited farms in France on many occasions, and under many different circumstances, ranging from cold call visits to visits made possible by a formal letter of introduction.  Let me assure you that, despite what the promotional “cheese route” maps and local tourism offices say, just driving up to a farm and asking to see what they do is almost always awkward.  Lets face it, farming is hard work that more than fills the day, and any farm large enough to have a person on staff to just deal with visitors is generally too big and industrial to be much fun to visit.

A better option is calling ahead to make sure that a visit would be welcome and well timed, although this also can be tricky depending on your French skills.  If one feels comfortable enough to make the  necessary arrangement in French, the results are usually gratifying.  In the late ’90’s we spent a lovely afternoon at the home of a cheese maker in Rocamadour based on a nothing more than a pretty shaky phone call the day before.  After a lengthy tour of the farm and cheese making facilities, we were sent on our way with a bag full of tender little goat cheese disks and tickets to the Musée de la Monnaie in nearby Bergerac, where a relative of the cheese maker, a security guard there had provided complimentary passes.

However, by far, the king of farm visits are those where someone you know, who also knows the farmer, has made a personal introduction.  In this circumstance, it can be difficult to believe the warmth and generosity of the reception that one often receives.  During a visit to a winemaker in Sancerre many years ago, a personal introduction  from the wines American importer resulted in our being invited to a multi-course lunch after touring the vineyards and wine making facilities. With a personal introduction, ou never know exactly what to expect, but a very polite welcome is the bare minimum.

Our visit to Ferme Kukulu was scheduled at the farm-friendly hour of 9am, which meant that we would have to get an early start since the farm, nestled among the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees Atlantique, is over an hour from our house in Orthez.  Morning fog meant that we arrived a few minutes late, even though we allowed plenty of time.

Our guide for the visit was Mayi, who works in the tiny office that is the brains of the operation.  She welcomed us to the farm by letting us know that, until 1985, when the paved road to the farm was built, Kukulu was a “ferme isolé” or isolated farm reached only by horses, oxen and mules (or I suppose in 1985, they had 4 wheel drive vehicles?).

100 Years of Cheese Making Tradition:
The Hiriart family has made raw milk cheeses in the traditional style of the Basque Pyrenees since 1900.  Madame Hiriart is currently the matriarch of the family, and she still runs the the tiny cheese shop on site.

Cheese that begins with Sheep:
A visit to any fromagerie ought to begin with the animals, as this is where the process begins.  Ferme Kukulu now has about 2000 sheep, which I believe qualifies them as small to mid sized for this region.  They no longer raise the local Tete Noir breed of sheep but instead favor the Lacaune breed that is native to the region where Roquefort cheese is produced, 2-3 hours distant in South-Central France.

During the period when the animals are giving milk, they are kept in barns for reasons of hygiene (to facilitate inspection and testing…a concession to the regulations of European Union hygiene rules).  During this period they are fed on organic, non GMO grain and hay which is grown  locally.  During the rest of the year, they are allowed to feed on the grasses, herbs and flowers of the surrounding countryside.

All  of their practices in regard to the raising and utilization of these sheep are geared toward respecting their health, seasonality and happiness.  As the farms motto states, “A happy sheep is a sheep that reproduces and provides milk” (my translation).

The farm also has several hundred goats, and 4 or five cow, all of whom provide milk for cheeses made either in combination with sheep’s milk or on their own.

In recent years, the use of raw milk in the production of their cheeses  has necessitated a major investment for Kukulu.  It was necessary to install new cheese making “laboratory” to insure conformity to the strict hygiene standards set by the  European Union.  This modern equipment, coupled with constant independent testing of  the milk and all  cheese made from it at several stages during its production and aging, insures the safety of the final product.  However, these practices only serve to reinforce a message that French people have known for years:  high quality raw milk cheeses are not a health hazard and, on the contrary, contain beneficial bacteria that strengthen the bodies immune system.

The people at Kukulu all seemed very proud of the cheeses they make and very happy to tell us all about the process.  During our visit to the cheese making laboratory, we watched the cheese maker filling molds with the still warm cheese curds from that mornings milk.  When he noticed us watching, he motioned to us through the window,  asking  in pantomime if we would like to taste the curd.  He joined us in the observation area minutes later, with a colander full of warm, sweet, sheep-y curds.  At first the individual curds separated easily from the pile, but as the curds cooled they began to coagulate into a coherent mass, just as they would when the cheeses are formed.

Uniformly, the people working on the farm seemed most surprised to learn that people in Seattle are interested in and enjoy their cheeses.  Exportation is a recent development for Kukulu;  for people who until recently made a product that seldom traveled beyond Bordeaux, Seattle seems very far off.

The cheeses from Ferme Kukulu are featured from time to time on the cheese board at Le Pichet and Cafe Presse;  these are limited production, seasonal cheeses (as is the case with many of the raw milk cheeses we offer) so it is hard to make any promises.  If you do notice them when you dine with us, I hope you will share the feeling of connection with this distant artisan when you taste their cheese.

New to the menu at Cafe Presse:  We are now featuring grass fed New York Strip steak for our Steak Frites.  This great tasting steak comes to us from Northwest Grass Fed Beef, a collective of small ranchers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.  It is 100% natural and 100% grass fed so it not only tastes great but has much less fat than grain-finished beef.  I hope you will enjoy it and I look forward to your feedback.

When I think of the growing season in Seattle from the distance of the winter, I often make the mistake of associating July and August with height of the harvest.  This year especially, because of the very mild summer, spending time in the Pike Place Market has made the truth abundantly clear:  the real height of the harvest begins in September and continues well into October or even November.

Although the farm tables have been full since early July, the peak of the harvest season has now begun in earnest.  On this first weekend of September, the tables in the Market are fairly groaning under the weight of an ever growing selection.  Melons, figs, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are just beginning to arrive, while favorites from earlier in the season, like lettuces, greens and radishes, are making a second, late season showing.

I often think that, when the discussion turns to real farmer’s markets, I mean markets that are dedicated to selling groceries, the Pike Place Market gets a bit of short shift.  It is easy to think that  Pike Place is more about tourists than about serious shoppers and certainly, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, it can be hard to maneuver around the crowds who all seem to be from out of town and all seem to be looking for the First Starbucks Ever.

But saying that there are a lot of tourists in the Pike Place Market in the Summer is like saying there are a lot of Americans in Paris in August.  Its true, but Paris is still Paris, and even at its most crowded, Paris is pretty great.

I have worked in the Pike Place Market for over 18 years.  During that time, I have often shopped on a daily basis at the farmer low stalls, the permanent high stalls, the butchers, dairy venders, spice merchants and miscellaneous stores that make up the community of the Market.  I own a restaurant that is located in a building that is nearly 100 years old and is governed by the rules of the Pike Place Historical District.  My neighbors have been the Pike Place free clinic and the Senior Center, and the upstairs residents, low income seniors.  I never walk through the market without seeing a dozen familiar faces.

One of the things I remember most vividly about living in Paris was the feeling that the area within 5 blocks of my apartment was its own, self contained little village.  Although I moved throughout Paris, I still ultimately had the feeling that, if I never left that 25 square block area, my life would still be full and complete and contain everything I could want.  For me, the Pike Place Market comes closer than any place else in Seattle to replicating that feeling.

Well, one answer is a new company called Northwest Grass Fed Beef.  I have recently had the opportunity to try beef from Northwest Grass Fed and, at the risk of sounding like a cheerleader, their beef is good.  Very good.  Good enough that we are switching to Northwest Grass Fed Beef at both Le Pichet and Cafe Presse as soon as they can dependably supply us.   I tasted their hanger steaks and found that they deliver all the rich, beefy, greasy (I mean that in a good way!)  flavor that I hope for from this modest cut.  In addition, I found their hanger to be tender when compared to other natural hanger steaks I have tried, which is a bit of a surprise in a cut of meat that is much more prized for its flavor than its texture.

Northwest Grass Fed Beef is a cooperative of sorts recently organized by Corfini Gourmet, a northwest-based distributor specializing in local, natural and sustainable meats.  Sean So of Corfini Gourmet says that when Thundering Hooves closed its doors, he and his colleagues recognized that the result would be a shortage in natural, grass feed beef to supply restaurants in Seattle and Portland.  According to Sean, there was no one ranch that could come anywhere close to filling the void left by Thundering Hooves.  So Corfini began making contacts with a number of small, independent ranchers in Washington and Idaho who, in Sean’s words were “still raising cattle like it was the 1800’s.  When I asked them if they used any hormones or anti-biotics, they didn’t understand why they would even want to do that.”  Natural, grass raising of cattle is the only way they know to do it.  This group became Northwest Grass Fed Beef.

At any given moment, beef from Northwest Grass Fed may be coming from any of  about 8 ranches that make up the group.  As of this writing, we were getting beef from Boyer Ranch and Heckman Ranch both in Lewiston Idaho.

One side note:  The term “natural” beef is generally understood to mean beef raised without antibiotics, growth hormones and with 100%  vegetarian feed.  Because of the high cost of getting an “Organic” certification, many small, high quality ranchers choose to forgo the formal certification even though they are basically using organic practices.  These ranches often use the term “natural” even though it has no legal status as far as I know.

A short discussion might be in order as to why I prefer grass fed beef.  I formed most of my opinions about what makes a good steak during the time that I lived in France, where grass feeding is much more common than in the US.  Grass feeding yields beef that has less intramuscular fat than grain feeding.  The French believe that grass feeding produces beef that has a richer, more concentrated, “beefier” flavor, even if the lower fat level does tend to cause the beef to have a firmer mouth feel and texture.  “Firmer mouth feel and texture”, by the way,  is the nice way of saying grass fed beef can be less tender than grain finished.  I personally think that the higher fat level in grain fed beef can give it a  flabby, mushy texture, while on the palette the extra fat can hide the flavor of the meat (contrary to widely held belief, fat does not add flavor to food.  It masks flavor by coating the tongue and preventing the transfer of flavors).    But if you are looking for a fork tender steak, by all means, get grain fed.

It should also be noted that beef characteristics like flavor, texture and fat content vary strongly with the breed of cow as well, as well as with many other factors.  Just as choosing unpasteurized cheese doesn’t guarantee getting good cheese, grain feeding is likewise not a guarantee of quality.

In America (and Japan, as well), where the well-marbled steak is king, the trend in the second half of the 20th century has been toward ever higher levels of grain feeding, culminating with the intensely grain fattened beef varieties like the Japanese Wagyu that seem to have more intramuscular fat than actual muscle.  I personally believe that grain feeding of beef in the U.S. began with the rise of industrial agriculture after World War II, when the massive use of petroleum-based fertilizers in American agriculture resulted in a glut of grain and the need to find new uses for it.  The result was things like the ubiquity of Coca Cola, processed breakfast cereal and grain feed beef.  However, this is my own personal mythology and I am not expert enough to know if this is absolutely true or not.  It makes a good story at least.  If you are a food historian who can set me straight, please do.

From what I have read, there is very little remaining doubt among nutritionists that grass fed beef is healthier for the consumer than grain fed.  Grass fed beef contains much lower levels of saturated fat ( I read that a 6oz steak from a grass fed cow has 100 calories less than the same size and cut of steak from a grain fed cow…p.s. I read this on the website of American Grass Fed Beef Association, so a bit of skepticism is perhaps warranted).  Generally speaking, the levels of fat in grass-fed beef is similar to that in pork, which is a big improvement over the fat content in grain finished beef.  Grass fed beef is also higher than grain fed in omega-3 fatty acids, also known as “good fat”, although all beef is a pretty poor source for this.   If you are really hoping to load up on Omega-3’s, eating fish is a much better way to go.  A reasonably good overview of the health benefits of grass fed beef, as well as issues of price, flavor and cooking techniques,  appeared in Cooking Light Magazine last March.

The bottom line for me is I like the way grass fed beef tastes.  If it is healthier, if it is better for the environment, if it is better for the animal and if it comes from smaller farms, all the better.