It’s Sunday Morning: Time to Talk Cheeses – Interview with Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove Chevre

The first goat cheeses we reviewed here on the website was Humboldt Fog, an elegant, ripening cheese with a layer of vegetable ash that looks like a delicate cake with a snowy, fluffy frosting. Overtime, we became fans of Cypress Grove Chevre and Mary Keehn, as we learned more about her, her love of life and her family of cheeses. One of the great thrills of her trip to Italy last fall and the Bra Cheese Festival was meeting Mary and working with her in the American Booth. The Lady also became a fan of Mary’s hubby, Roger, and from their friendship saw an important correlation in the relationship she has with The Man: simply stated, a partner that loves to laugh and can make you laugh is a gift.

Spaulding Gray: Mary, First of all thanks for agreeing to answer a few questions for our website. The Lady told me that you first bought goats for milk because your children had allergies to cow milk. How did you get from there to making award-winning cheese?

Mary Keehn: Close – I first got goats so that I would have healthy milk for my daughter.  Later, when traveling I found that one of the girls had a serious cow milk allergy. I was really glad she had been raised on fresh goat milk.  I was biology major in college and got very involved in the back-to-the-land movement of the 60’s – quite a serious hippie.  We built a log cabin with logs we drug from the woods with our horse, grew a huge garden, and had goats for milk.  Making cheese was a natural progression of the lifestyle – mine and the goats with their 2.2 kid per year average.

Spaulding: I love the names of your cheeses… they show a whimsical 60′s-esque sense of humor. Please share how some of these names came to be.

Mary: We take our cheese and our fun seriously!  Some names were my crazy thoughts from way back and some were collaboration.  We had so much fun with the most recent Flash Back family of cheeses.  Their names were a group effort from all the folks here are CGC.  The dill pollen was so much more complex and intensely more flavorful than regular dill that it almost named itself – “PsycheDillic” is a perfect description.  We already had Purple Haze and Herbs de Humboldt so went big with the 60’s theme for Sgt. Pepper for our spices of the world offering and Ms. Natural for the natural.

We now have a “big money” contest that gives the person who comes up with the name we use $100 and lifetime bragging rights.  Family, friends, all the “Grovers” as we call ourselves and even pre school groups bring in names that we choose from.

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