Managing Shared Harvest can be pretty challenging. Consider all the extras that I’ve got to sample. Most recently I’ve been sampling Crystal Brook’s orange-cranberry goat cheese. I’ve been a fan of their classic plain and cracked black pepper cheese since I toured the farm during a CRAFT visit several years ago. Thinking that shareholders might want a bit more variety, I decided to follow up on Crystal Brook farmer, Ann Starbard’s recommendation that a slightly sweet cheese be included in Shared Harvest’s offerings.

I easily recruited my neighbors to join me in a taste-test. “Yes, I can taste a bit of citrus,” was eleven year old Tjaden’s first comment after trying the orange-cranberry cheese on a cracker. Max (an eight year old with his own copy of The Joy of Cooking and strong opinions about what tastes good) declared it to me “quite good”. The adults liked it, too. We all knew after the first taste that we liked this slightly sweet, fresh tasting goat cheese. Just to be sure, we kept on with the taste-testing.

Orange-cranberry is a hit in my neighborhood. If you’ve got a favorite Crystal Brook variety, let me know. We will make it available for the second CSA distributions.