September Cheese Horoscope

Equinox Gougere, Wooden Spoon Bakery, Phoenixville, Pa.

If you start to feel lazy or listless in the early part of the month, consider raising your derriere off the couch to attend a cheese tasting or farm tour. Expect creamy waves of pleasure as well as new thought patterns around chevre and personal fortune. Here’s a taste of what Mercury brings, especially around the full moon on the 19th:

September 9-11

Yellow Springs Fall Open House

Friday noon-6, Sat & Sun. 10-4

1165 Yellow Springs Rd., Chester Springs, PA 19425

Catherine and Al Renzi have one of the prettiest goat dairies in Chester County, along with a native plant nursery of fall-blooming shrubs, wildflowers, and trees. Their fall open house is a great time to meet some adorable loppy-eared goats and sample some remarkable handmade cheese. If you missed out on their goat cheese CSA this year, you can scope out the coolers for a selection of tender morsels (try Red Leaf and Nutcracker). If you plan to make a day of it, stop by Kimberton Whole Foods to check out the selection of local foods, have lunch at The Wooden Spoon Bakery in downtown Phoenixville for a sandwich and a cookie (the homemade Oreos and Oatmeal Smileys are not to be missed), and pop by Talula’s Table in Kennett Square to pick up dinner-to-go and grab winter provisions. For more info, visit yellowspringsfarm.com.

September 16

Autumn Pairings Class: Cheese, Beer & Homemade Preserves

Wedge+Fig, 160 N. 3^rd St, Philadelphia, 19106, 4-6 p.m.

Join Marisa McClellan (foodinjars.com) and Madame Fromage for the ultimate evening of snacking at Philadelphia’s newest cheese café and patio garden. We’ll teach you how to pair flavors and give you plenty of tips for holiday entertaining, using cheese and homemade preserves (pickles, chutneys, and jams), along with local brews and more. This is a great Cheese 101 for anyone interested in developing a palate, and if you’re a home canner, we’ve got recipes you can use for parties and gift giving. If you’ve never attended one of our cheese’n pickle parties or cheddar’n chutney events, this is the grand bomb.

To reserve tickets ($65), click here.

September 17

Adams County Orchard Tour

Bus departs Reading Terminal at 8:30 a.m.

The good folks at the Fair Food Farmstand (in Reading Terminal Market) have been rolling out some great road trips to local farms this summer – a terrific deal if you’re a car-free city dweller in search of green pastures. Board a bus, eat some nibbles on the way, and visit several area growers that supply food to the stand. You can bet there will be some cheese at this hoe down, which stops at Beechwood Orchards and Three Springs Fruit Farm for tastes of heirloom apples and other regionally grown fruit. A picnic is provided, along with live music. You may even see cheesemonger Paul Lawler trip the light fantastic. For tickets ($75), visit Eventbrite.

September 20

The Brewer, The Farmer, The Chef, and The Goat

Upstairs at Di Bruno Bros., 6-8 p.m.

It’s a nose-to-tail fete with Stoudt’s Brewing and 7^th Heaven Farm of Tabernacle, NJ, a local purveyor of rare and heritage livestock. Chef Rob Sidor goes to gorgeous extremes on his tastings (witness the Fermentation Dinner), so this meal is not to be missed. Dinners at Di Bruno Bros. are casual, and this one will feature tasting stations with special pairings of all things goat. Meet all the characters involved in brewing, farming, and cooking this meal. To reserve tickets ($45): call 215.665.1659 or email catering@dibruno.com

For more area cheese events, check out...

Anne Saxelby's Cheese Calendar (For all things relating to artisan cheese in NYC)

Cheese Classes at Artisanal (For master classes with Max McCalman)

Murray's Cheese Events (Note the Stinky Cheese & Wine tasting and the Cave Tours)

Tria's Fermentation School (Note the Cheese Happy Hours at this Philly institution)

My Goat Cheese CSA

It's true. Yellow Springs delivers. Well, actually it's not quite that easy, but this is my first installment of a summer CSA program run by one of my fave cheese-making outfits in Chester County, PA.

I don't know of any other cheesemakers using the CSA model, but it does seem pretty savvy and -- on the receiving end -- quite deluxe. Every other week an organic grocery service (Panache Foods) drops off a cooler full of goat cheese, along with any meat and produce I've ordered. It's better than getting take-out.

This is the second year that Yellow Springs has offered CSA shares, a program that puts 20-24 different cheeses into the hands of their customers over a period from May to November. I paid about $250 up front for 13 deliveries; each installment includes 3 varieties of raw and pasteurized goat cheese.

Here's the first installment, unveiled:

My favorite cheese in this batch was Fieldstone (center), an earthy, firm cheese with a delectable rind. The paste was dense like a Gouda, and the flavor called to mind wild grass, prairie weather. On rustic bread, it was delicious with a touch of jam. Bliss, the bloomy cheese on the right, tasted a little soapy -- it wasn't as ripe as the last time I tried it, back in December during a farm visit. The pepper-garlic chevre disappeared from our fridge right away, tucked into lunches, alongside sliced veggies.

I'm ready for the next batch of goat-cheese stocking stuffers. It arrives Thursday. I'm excited to try a new cheese from the Renzi's, called Iron Spring -- it's rubbed with paprika and named after the natural spring that bubbles up on their land. The "rusty" rind is a nod to the high concentration of iron that colors the water.

One thing that sets the Renzi's apart: they run a native plant nursery in addition to milking Nubians. All of the "flavors" they add to their cheeses are grown on their farm, including saffron, black walnuts, fresh herbs, and honey.

Curious to try Yellow Springs cheese? The Renzi's will be part of the Stoudt's Wonderful Good Cheese Festival in Adamstown, PA from 2-5 p.m. on June 11.