That was the genesis of the Celebrity Dairy in Chatham County, locally famous for their varieties of goat cheese which sells at area farmers markets and ends up on the menus of hot chefs throughout The Triangle.
Run by Brit and Fleming Pfann (pronounced "Fan"), the Celebrity Farm sprawls over 114 acres and features goats, chickens and even llamas. It all sounds pretty much like the perfect hippie fairy tale. Husband and wife – sick of the corporate rat race – bail out to Green Acres to make artisan goat cheese and live a neo-hippy, oh so happily and very much off the grid, ever after. It would make a great screenplay. And the beautiful thing, that's sort of what happened.
In the late 1970s, Brit was an engineer for Bell Labs working on Defense projects and commuting to Guilford Center. His wife Fleming was an artist working in textiles. He changed jobs, which exacerbated his commute from Guilford County to Research Triangle Park. All that time, he was working on the farm. One day though, there was a rumor that downsizing was coming to the company. He volunteered to be "on the list." As it happened, it worked out.
"Being laid off was great," Brit said. "I was too busy to come to work anymore."
Before the Pfanns took over the farm in the 1960s, the land was a used for subsistence farming, meaning people grow what they will eat. It sounds romantic. The reality is much harder; it's a hardscrabble life. By the 1970s, the farm had been abandoned by the owners who apparently fled to the cities for "real" jobs.
Brit and Fleming moved to the property in the late 1970s and bought goats to help clear the land. Fleming, who has a lifelong allergy to cow's milk, tried drinking goat's milk on the suggestion of a friend.
It worked.
Fleming decided that there could be other uses for Goat's Milk and decided to try her hand at making cheese, although she didn't know how to do it. This being the low tech early 1980s, she decided to do an analog document search the only way it was available: she went to the Siler City Public Library. It didn't exactly work; she was rebuffed.
"She asked the librarian for books on cheese making and was told that they only had 'proper research material' and none of that hippy stuff," Brit said with a laugh. "She was told they had research on 'genealogy'. So she went to the Pittsboro Public Library, where they did have books on cheese making."
Recipes in hand, the Pfanns started to make their now famous goat cheese. But the first forays weren't that – how to put this – tasty.
But perseverance prevailed and now Celebrity Diary Artisan Goat Cheeses are available at two local farmers' markets and all five local Whole Foods Markets. As of today, there are some 80 milking goats making more than 112,000 gallons of milk yearly which yields some 1,200 to 1,400 pounds of Celebrity Goat Cheese. The cheeses comes in multiple flavors, such as dill, apricot and chocolate (editorial comment – it rocks!) There's also a Bed and Breakfast for those seeking a wee bit of the rural lifestyle and a monthly dinner on the third Sunday afternoon of every month.
"It truly is a labor of love," Britt said.
The Celebrity Dairy
114 Celebrity Dairy Way
Siler City, NC 27344
Tel. (919) 742-5176, for toll free reservations call: (877) 742-5176
Cuisine: Eclectic American
Rating: *****
Prices: $$$
Atmosphere: Bucolic
Noise level: Country quiet
Open: Call for details
Reservations: Oh yeah. You can't just show up.
Other: This is a working farm, not a tourist destination. Their cheese is available at The Durham Farmer's Market, The Carrboro Farmer's Market, and all five Whole Foods locations in The Triangle.
We rank restaurants in five categories: Extraordinary***** Excellent**** Above average*** Average** Fair*
Seriously makes me wish I were a local!
ReplyDelete