(folksy music)
- Well, hey!
Welcome to Circle M Farm in Blanchardville, Wisconsin.
I'm here at this diversified farm and bed and breakfast
to find out more about what it takes
to run a business like this.
I'm helping Kriss out with a few farm chores
and then I'm gonna head up to Landmark Creamery
for some amazing sheep's milk and cow's milk cheeses
and learn from the girls up there how they do things.
And then I'll head back here
and Kriss and I will make up a farm fresh breakfast
for the guests.
Gather with us Around the Farm Table .
I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
- Gather with
Around the Farm Table !
- A few years ago, I moved up to Wisconsi
I started an organic dairy farm at St. Isidore's Mead.
That's when I discovered
the abundance of Midwestern local food
and small scale farmers
growing everything from green zebra tomatoes to pasture pork.
I'm taking a break from the cows
hitting the road,
and seeing if I can't satisfy
my epicurious appetite.
*
- That's great.
[frying pan sizzles]
- This is amazing.
*
- Funding for Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union, a member-driven organization
for family farmers, rural communities, and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
united to grow family agriculture.
Information at WisconsinFarmersUnion.com.
With additional support from these community members
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- Nice job on those furrows. - Thank you.
It's harder than you think it would be.
- Yes it is... I'm famous for my imperfect furrows.
- (laughs) Kriss, thank you so much
for letting me come down here and have this opportunity.
What a great way to learn if this is
the right business for me by being here with you.
So tell me a little bit more about your business
and about the B&B and everything.
- I don't talk without working,
so I'm gonna put you to work while I answer your question.
We came here about 10 years ago from Chicago.
We loved living in the city,
but my husband wanted to try a country adventure
with our four children.
So I was home schooling, I brought them out here,
and they quickly learned how to do a lot of things.
So we got horses, we got sheep,
we got goats, and we started a CSA.
And then, as they all started leaving for college,
I shrunk the CSA and I opened a bed and breakfast
in their bedrooms.
- Nice!
What gave you the idea to do a bed and breakfast here?
- Well, I really like being here
and I really like sharing the farm.
That's why we had a CSA in the first place.
So, for me it was a natural progression.
I had rooms empty.
It's a cute house.
And I like eating with people.
So it gives me a chance to cook, eat, talk,
and, hopefully, get a little weeding done.
- Right.
See, that's one thing that I'm trying to do on my farm.
I really need to add some other value to the farm
and I really like entertaining and I like farming.
So I thought that maybe a B&B like this
would be a good start for me
to be able to do both of those things.
- I think it'd be perfect for you.
- How do you manage all the stuff that you're doing?
It must be exhausting.
- There's coffee. (laughing)
And there's good food at the end of it.
And I have a lot of good help.
- I'm here to help, so what else can I do today?
- Well, I need to get those goats milked
and I think you can do that.
- [Inga] I'm good at that. I'm good at milking.
- [Kriss] All right, thanks. I'll finish up here.
(folksy music)
- Well, goat milking is a little bit different than cow milking.
I'm used to working with four quarters instead of two.
There's a couple differences
between goat milk and cow's milk.
It's naturally homogenized.
So if you were to set out some goat's milk on the counter,
it doesn't separate.
The fat doesn't separate out from the milk
like a cow's milk would.
It also has less lactose.
So if you find sometimes lactose might bother you,
maybe try looking for a goat milk cheese or goat milk
and see if that's maybe a little bit easier on you.
It also has more calcium than cow's milk
and the flavor is just a little bit stronger,
so it might take a bit of getting used to,
but I think once you do, you're gonna really like it.
Okay... Good girl.
Wisconsin's famous for its dairy cows,
but it's actually the number one state for dairy goats
here in the United States.
It's kind of an amazing fact
that we don't think about all the time.
Now that I've got this goat milked,
I'm gonna take it into Kriss
and find out what else she has in store for me today.
Alrighty, I've got the goat milked.
- Thank you. - What's next?
- Will you put Mokey away
and then we'll go get some veggies.
- Okay. - Thank you.
- [Inga] Come on, baby. (goat bleats)
(folksy music)
- So Kriss, this is just calendula, is that right?
- [Kriss] Yeah, calendula.
- [Inga] Calendula, oh. - [Kriss] And it's resinous.
You can feel it's kind of sticky.
It's very medicinal and good for you,
but we're using it for confetti
to make our breakfast look super pretty.
- Okay. So, how do you do that?
- [Kriss] Well, we're picking the whole blossoms.
And then we will be picking off the petals.
So, literally, just hold the end, and pick,
and make something pretty.
- [Inga] And these are edible flowers,
so that's why we can eat these.
What are the other flowers that you use?
- [Kriss] I love Johnny Jump Ups, violas.
Pansies are terrific, but my 100% favorite is Nasturtiums.
- Oh, yeah. And do you have to cut those up
or you just use the smaller leaves on those?
- I use the tiny, little, round leaves,
they look like lily pads,
and then, I use the blossoms whole.
And you can stuff them with goat cheese or a little cream cheese,
a little ricotta. - [Inga] What a great idea.
- And they taste the same as the leaves
They're very peppery.
Kind of like a radish flavor. Wonderful.
- So much of eating has to do with looking at something
and sort of taking in the whole experience, so
I love this idea of garnishing with a flower confetti.
I'm probably gonna start using this quite a bit in my cooking.
- [Kriss] Yeah, do it. Once you open your mind to it,
there's a ton of flowers out there that you can use,
and I just keep my eyes open.
My favorite new one this year is cornflower.
They're growing them, hybridizing them,
in lots of different colors, pink, purple, almost a black.
- [Inga] Oh, nice. - And a light blue.
So, blue is kind of rare in flowers
and it's pretty special to put--
Wonderful if you have a white iced cake
to put the whole confetti: blue, pink, purple, and orange.
Stunning.
- This is like the tip of the day for me.
This is great. Thank you.
Well, Kriss, if you don't mind
harvesting the rest of the vegetables,
I think I'll take off and get cleaned up
and head off to get the cheese for the breakfast today.
- Say hi to the Annas for me. - [Inga] I will.
(folksy music)
I'm at Cedar Grove Creamery in Plain, Wisconsin,
which is also home to Landmark Creamery,
where Anna and Anna make a fantastic variety of cheeses.
I thought since I was sent over here to pick up some cheese,
instead of just grabbing it and going,
I thought what I would do is learn the process
of how these amazing, tasty cheeses are made.
So, let's get started.
- Sounds good.
We're just adding the starter cultures right now.
- And what does the starter culture do?
- The starter culture adds flavor,
but it also acidifies the milk
so that once we add the rennet a little bit later on,
the curd of the cheese forms,
so you need the acidity.
Otherwise, the milk would just stay liquid.
- And the milk that you have in here right now,
it's a cow and sheep milk.
- [Anna] Yes, it is. Yep.
It's about two-thirds cow, one-third sheep today.
- Okay. Why do you like the two different types of milk?
- I love the nuttiness and the higher fat and protein
that the sheep milk brings, and that's why we make--
Most of our cheeses are just 100% sheep milk.
I think the blends work really well together because
it just kind of brings out the best in both of the milks.
And they play really nicely off of each other.
- Oh, good. Well, don't let me keep you.
I'll wait here and wait for your orders.
- [Anna] (laughs) Okay. All right.
Well, now that we've added the starter culture,
we're just gonna let it ripen for about 30 minutes.
And that just allows the bacteria in the cultures
to start working on the milk
and getting things going.
So, in the meantime, we could also add the starter culture
to our Petit Nuage milk,
which is over in our coagulation vat.
- Okay.
- This is the vat that we use to make Petit Nuage,
our little buttons of fresh cheese.
This is 100% sheep milk.
We call this little contraption a coagulation vat.
- It's amazing to me that this is not having to be heated up
or anything like that.
I feel like it's something I could do at home.
Actually, this is one of the most common cheeses
that people make at home.
It's considered a lactic set cheese.
So, it really just...
You add your culture
and it just sits for a long time.
It's a very easy cheese.
A lot of people will drain this in their...
- Like a colander? - [Anna] A cheesecloth.
- Oh, okay. - [Anna] Yeah.
You could do cheesecloth.
We drain ours in little baskets,
but that works.
- Part of what's appealing to me about eating
is just seeing how beautiful the food is
and your cheeses always look so gorgeous and just edible.
- [Anna] Thank you. I have a friend,
Jeanne Carpenter, who was a cheesemonger for a while
at Metcalfe's and has been really instrumental
in furthering the artisan cheese movement in Wisconsin.
She was talking about how in France
you see all of these beautiful, tiny, little cheeses
all over in all the different stores,
but nothing like that existed here in Wisconsin,
and that really kind of inspired me to develop one.
Here's the ladle that we use
to stir the cultures in.
You just-- Yep, just put the spoon in there
and just stir very slowly and gently.
What we're doing is trying to get the cultures
to rehydrate a little bit first.
And then over the next hour,
we'll continue to stir and stir and stir
until it's all incorporated.
- What is it about sheep's milk that you like?
- I love the nutty flavors in sheep milks.
And one of the other things, too,
that I feel really strongly about
is the sustainability of sheep dairies
and the fact that the sheep are light on the land.
They don't need as many acres
as you would need for cows.
They just...
I think they're a really good venture to sustain families.
And I would love to see more sheep dairies in Wisconsin.
- I always thought about getting sheep
because I only have 30 acres on my farm,
so it kind of would make more sense for me
to have sheep than cows,
but I just love cows too much. (Anna laughs)
So, what got you into cheesemaking?
- I started just tinkering in my kitchen, actually.
My husband and I bought a small family--
small hobby farm, basically,
and we bought a couple sheep to start with,
although not a dairy breed,
and I bought a family milk cow.
- Oh, what breed?
- She was Ayrshire.
- Oh, I love Ayrshires.
- Yeah, I needed to start making cheese
to just kind of keep up with all that milk.
So, really, just-- yeah, tinkering in my kitchen,
became a passion, and I'd also been kind of looking
for a small business venture that I could start on my own,
and I just felt like cheesemaking was something
that would both keep me inspired
and a way to kind of participate
in the ag community in the state.
- I wonder if the texture of the cow's milk
would be different.
Like it feels like the sheep's milk
is always a little bit more drier or chalkier or something.
- Cow's milk might be a little smoother
just because it has different sized fat globules.
And, like, sheep milk is always just a little bit drier
than a goat milk, for instance.
There's some differences there with a chèvre.
But your yield would be lower with cow's milk
because it has less fat and less protein in it.
And it will be slightly lower fat
because of that reason, too.
- This is like the most meditative thing...
(Anna laughs) ...a person could be doing.
I feel so Zen.
- I find the whole cheesemaking process to be my Zen.
- We're good to go here for a little while?
- Yes, we'll let this just continue to dissolve
and we can go add the rennet in the other vat.
- [Inga] Great.
(folksy music)
So, what does the rennet do?
- It's cleaving certain proteins off of the cells
and that allows the curd to kind of coagulate and stick together.
So, you can turn it off now.
- I'll get these washed off.
How long are you gonna let the curd set up for?
- This is a 45-minute set.
- Oh, great. Okay.
- So, yeah. We'll let it go for 45 minutes
and then, it should be ready to go.
- All right, I'll wash this.
(folksy music)
- So, cheesemaking is a lot of hurry up and wait,
but it's also a lot of washing and sanitizing equipment.
When you're making cheese or working with any dairy products,
you want to make sure that
everything is as clean as possible.
(folksy music)
So, the first thing I did was just spray these off.
Get any of the solids of cheese off of here.
And now, I'm gonna give it a good scrub
with a nice soapy solution,
and then, I'll go ahead and sanitize it.
- Inga, if you're ready, the curd is all set.
- Okay. I got it.
So, we're just gonna cut like normal.
- [Anna] Yep, we're gonna cut down lengthwise
then we'll change paddles
and we'll walk back the other direction.
- Okay. - [Anna] All right.
(folksy music)
This is what I do. I run my hands through the vat
to check the strength of the curd
and whether or not it's ready to start stirring.
If all of the little cubes stay intact, then
I know that it's firm enough to start stirring.
So, I just take a form and just scoop in
what you can of the curd...
and then just fill the rest.
And if there's big chunks like this,
you can leave them intact.
- [Inga] Okay.
- [Anna] They don't have to be broken up.
- We're gonna finish up here.
And then, why don't you meet us all outside,
and we'll taste some of these amazing cheeses.
(folksy music)
So, I'm excited to taste some of these cheeses.
Now, this is a very fresh cheese right here.
Pronounce it for me again
'cause I'm terrible at pronunciation.
- This is Petit Nuage, which means "little cloud" in French.
- Oh, beautiful.
- This is a fresh sheep milk cheese that we make every week.
It's creamy, it's rich,
and it pairs beautifully with lots of different things.
It's a wonderful summer cheese.
Great with salads, honey, berries.
- I think this might go really well
with the beets that I was planning on cooking.
- It's perfect with beets.
- What about the other flavors?
- The Anabasque is based on a style of cheese
called Ossau-Iraty.
It is quite nutty.
It has a nice, smooth texture,
and you'll definitely get a taste of the saltiness
of the cheese in there.
And you'll also get some of the cave-aged flavors from it
from the rind development.
It's a wash rind cheese, so it's
washed about two times a week.
- I think the Anabasque sounds like it'd be really nice
in the frittata I'm gonna be making.
- The last one is Pipit and that was kind of an experiment.
When we first made it,
it didn't taste like much of anything, and we set it aside,
and a few months later we came back to it
and it had a really interesting bite at the end.
So, it has a really interesting finish
and it's a creamy, soft cheese.
It's beautiful with sandwiches, crackers; a nice table cheese.
- [Inga] Oh, good.
That sounds like it could be perfect for the cheese plate.
All right, ladies. Well, thank you so much.
We got to get back to Circle M Farm,
so have a great day.
- [Anna Bates] Thank you.
(folksy music)
- Alrighty, Kriss. Well, I'm back.
I brought some great cheeses back for us.
- [Kriss] Awesome. - What's next on the list?
- Well, we're just gonna get these quilts off the line
and go make the beds for our guests.
- Oh, sorry.
It looks good.
- Thank you.
- That's a long morning for you.
- It is.
- So Kriss, I'm really interested
in doing a farm stay at my house.
Tell me, what exactly is a farm stay,
and what do I expect,
as an innkeeper, doing it?
- I think there's a great need
for people to bring people out to the farm.
People from cities want to come,
they wanna get their kids close to animals,
and I'm booked all the time.
- We just got inspected as a certified B&B in April
and we're already booked through September.
- That's fantastic. - [Kriss] Yeah.
So, it'll go fast once you put your name out there.
It's not without work.
There's laundry, there's cooking,
there's thinking through things,
there's keeping your house tidier
than you probably would for yourself,
and keeping your lawn mowed
and your weed whacking kept up on.
So, yeah, there's some work,
but it's really fun, and you get to meet
a lot of really appreciative, wonderful people.
- It must be amazing to see the people coming out who--
I think we take it for granted every day
that we live on farms, and we can collect eggs or see pigs
or know all these different things.
Is it fun to witness the farm
through the eyes of the guests that come out?
- Oh, yeah.
We had guests from Chicago this week
and the mom and I were talking about how their toddler
is helping us see things totally differently than we see it.
She just loves the kittens.
She loves the bugs.
She loves every dead thing she finds.
And, yeah, having guests here
makes me fall in love with this place
even more than I already am.
- That's so nice.
What can people expect from a stay when they come to the farm?
- You can tag along with us on chores in the morning.
You can milk with us, if you're around when we do the goats.
You can collect eggs.
You can help us chop food in the morning, if you want to.
- That's so fun! What a great experience.
It's so different than staying at a hotel.
I mean, you really get that one-on-one experience
with the people, and you're invited into the family.
- On the other hand, when the roosters crow at four.
- It's nice to share the farm experience with so many people
because it just helps also people reconnect
with where their food is coming from
and just have that experience that we get to have every day,
that most days, we usually love it, right?
- It is just my greatest delight
when my guests are here for breakfast
and then I can send them into my tiny town
and have lunch and dinner, and drive the economy here, too.
So, I think that's another part of farm stay bed and breakfast
that people don't think about
is that these rural economies need an influx of--
- Absolutely.
- Of money, of support, of attention.
And we have so much to offer and people don't know.
- Well, Kriss, thanks for giving me this experience.
I think it's something that I'm definitely gonna try
at my own house.
Well, why don't we let Kriss finish up
with her morning chores
and we'll start getting a frittata
on the table for the guests.
Frittatas are a wonderful recipe to make,
especially if you're living on a farm
and you have the abundance of beautiful local ingredients,
like Swiss chard and zucchini
and fresh eggs and artisan cheese.
I think it's a great way
to get all your vegetables in before lunch
and it's a great way to use up the vegetables
from your garden or your CSA box.
Leftovers go great in a frittata as well.
The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get my eggs ready.
I'm just gonna do a simple six-egg frittata.
And we'll just crack the eggs right in the bowl here.
So, lightly beat your eggs
just to get everything broken up here.
Just put a little salt and pepper in the eggs
to season them there.
We'll set those eggs aside
and then I'm gonna start cooking my vegetables.
I have one onion chopped here
and then also the stalks of the Swiss chard
that I'll cook those together.
They're gonna cook at roughly the same time
and then I'll start preparing the rest of the ingredients.
Just add a few tablespoons of butter to a cast iron skillet.
Get that melted down.
Then throw in your onions
and your Swiss chard tips.
That's the stalks of the Swiss chard.
I'm gonna let this sit and cook for a little bit,
and then, I'll get my zucchinis ready.
Take them over there.
Cook down the Swiss chard and the zucchini
until they're tender.
Now that the vegetables are cooked,
just take them off and place them in a pan
'cause we're gonna cook the eggs
right back in this cast iron skillet.
All right. Let's go cook the eggs.
Add a little bit more butter to the pan.
Add your eggs, and then,
let them sit undisturbed for about 30 seconds
so they can set up on the bottom.
The eggs are set up nicely.
Now, I can take it back over and put my vegetables in.
Now, the fun part is when you get to decorate the eggs
with all of your cooked vegetables.
And you want to do this artfully,
so it looks good for your guests.
So, just gently place all the cooked vegetables
back in the egg mixture.
Ooh, they're still very hot.
I might use this so I don't burn my hands.
Make sure to get nice and dispersed all around
And then you can kind of, with the back of your spoon,
set the vegetables in the egg mixture a little bit.
Now, I'm gonna take these beautiful cherry tomatoes
and just sprinkle them right around on this frittata.
It would look so festive and pretty.
That's why I like using frittatas for entertaining.
It looks like they're so beautiful
that took so much time,
but they're really quite easy to do.
After the tomatoes, I'm gonna add the cheese,
and I'm gonna add a few of the cheeses that
I picked up from Anna and Anna.
I think these are gonna be delicious.
And these go just right on top.
I think that the Petit Nuage and the Anabasque
are just gonna bring out a whole new dimension
to this frittata...
And make it quite a bit local.
And then to finish it with, I'm just gonna put
a little bit of the hard sheep's milk cheese on top.
And when it comes out of the oven and just before I serve it,
I'm gonna just take some of this beautiful basil
and rip it right on top.
All right.
I've got the frittata here for you guys.
- Ooh, nice. - [Inga] Some roasted potatoes.
A hearty breakfast to fuel you up
for traveling the back roads of Wisconsin.
This farm-fresh frittata is chock-full of veggies
and local sheep's cheese straight from the creamery.
Pan-roasted new potatoes
pairs well with the frittata.
Spinach salad with a light vinaigrette
and topped with roasted beets.
Dessert for breakfast?
Little chocolate zucchini cakes,
just picked raspberries,
and a sprinkling of flower petal confetti.
Guests at the B&B quickly turn into friends.
I'm feeling inspired to open my own farm stay in Osseo
and I hope that you'll feel inspired
to stay at one of the many in Wisconsin.
I hope you'll gather with us next time...
- [All] Around the Farm Table .
- I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
Do you want some potatoes?
(folksy music)
(goat bleats)
(bright guitar music)
- Funding for Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union, a member-driven organization
for family farmers, rural communities, and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
united to grow family agriculture.
Information at WisconsinFarmersUnion.com.
With additional support from these community members
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.