When Del Burkholder first told his wife his plans to start a goat farm, she sprang up (she was sensible, after all) and cried “What? At our age?” Burkholder shrugs sheepishly at the memory. “I’ve always been into goats.”
Before his wife had many more opportunities to protest, he began learning how to make goat cheese, amassing equipment from as far as Holland and dozens of goats — Lamanchas (goats with no ears), Sonans (beautiful white goats), billies (disagreeable goats). That was a little more than a year ago, when he’d sold all the gear from his previous painting business on his doctor’s advice. His Turkeyfoot Creek Creamery has since become the go-to goat cheese supplier for the wave of restaurants and supermarkets now interested in locally-sourced, sustainable food products, from Bar 145 to Health Foods by Claudia.
On most days you’ll find him in a plaid shirt of varying colors and white painter jeans — in fact, in all the press clippings hanging from the spotless walls of the creamery, he sports the same look, the only variables his boots and ever-present hair net. He awakes at 6:30 in the morning and works 14 hours to fulfill three passions: cheese, goats, and honest farming. The Wauseon, Ohio farmer’s admissions throughout a typical day are charming, and frequent.
On his favorite pastime, making goat cheese ice cream: “I’m not a normal guy, I guess. I love cooking.”
On the stench in his cave of gouda: “This smells a lot better than paint.”
On his goats’ udders: “It sounds pretty bad, but I recognize them from behind better than in front.”
To the city dweller, the goat business seems unpleasant. There are all sorts of smells and difficult personalities. But Burkholder’s sunny optimism is the foil to every goats’ stubborn ‘mah.” “It’s good, healthy, clean work. It’s nourishing.” His aim is not just to make mild reels of gouda and chevre as well as the Europeans do, but to also do it honestly, and chemical-free. “I’m doing it the way I want it, the way I want to eat.”
“I go through a lot more steps than a commercial creamery,” he says, admiring the reels of gouda in his cheese cave. A Dutch cheese expert — a chees-pert, if you will — advised him on what kind of shelving to use (the wood absorbs moisture from the cheese) and how to wax the reels so that the flavors of the cheese develop. The rest he learned from visits to other creameries, trial and error, and the internet.
Burkholder’s goats are responsible for some amazing chevre, a cream cheese-like spread, in plain, pineapple, and peppercorn varieties, and squeaky curds, delicious in name and texture. As he visits the goats in his barn, he tries to find the words to explain what he finds endearing about them. “They fight for my attention,” he says. “They’ve got personalities.”
Turkeyfoot Creek Creamery,
11313 County Road D, Wauseon, Ohio. 419-335-0224.
www.turkeyfootcreek.com.
