The Somerset farmer, chosen for this judges’ award, doesn’t need hi-tech gear to know when her goat’s cheese is at its best: it’s all down to how it looks and feels
Every Tuesday Mary Holbrook drives 130 miles from her farm in Somerset to London, to look after her cheese. She does this at Neal’s Yard Dairy in Bermondsey, where she sends her produce to be ripened in special maturation rooms before sale. Wednesdays are spent washing, turning, wrapping and generally lavishing her four styles of goat’s cheese with care and attention. Then Holbrook drives back to Sleight Farm to manage the 200-acre property, tend her livestock (she also raises pigs and cows) and carry on making cheese.
At Neal’s Yard, where we meet after one of her Wednesday sessions, Holbrook is regarded with affection and something approaching awe. “She’s an amazing cheesemaker,” managing director David Lockwood tells me, adding that Holbrook’s weekly visits to the dairy “totally expands people’s minds”.
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