CheeseFate, Pt. 1

Feelings!

I first read about Lazy Lady Farm and its singular proprietress, Laini Fondiller, in late 2009 when the New York Times wrote a profile about her that was sort-of but sort-of-not tethered to the cheeky, politically charged names she gave to some of her cheeses (the Tomme Delay and Barrick Obama, which merged the names of traditional cheese formats -- a tomme is a drum-shaped jammy and a barrick is, well, a brick -- with famous figures). There was Laini, pictured amongst her herd of alpine goats, looking ethereal. There she was in the cheese room, stern and sullen by her vat, hairnet in place. The profile came up with various ways to emphasize the misnomer of her operation -- far from lazy, she was a workaholic, tending to her solar-powered farm and her small herd and crafting her fine cheeses and doing all the other hard work associated with running an agricultural endeavor with very little help. She was, by her own admission, a workaholic.

I, on the other hand, had just been laid off from my last full-time media job and was preparing to start my life over, having just entered the NYU graduate Food Studies program, allegedly so that I could write a book about the cultural phenomenon of breakfast, but really just to buy time. I'd always been interested in anthropological inquiry and had been a writer, and food's significance as a lens into things social and historical was, well let's say only slightly more than a hobby-like curiosity for me at that point.

I don't know what specifically it was about that profile that resonated with me, but I was inspired to write to Laini then and there asking for an apprenticeship. This, I thought, would be the beginning of something great! I would live out all the pastoral fantasies that I and my beleaguered media friends used to spin in our heads and share over $12 salads in Midtown before slogging back to our desks to write witty copy about music or TV or travel and gchat with our boyfriends. I would live the dream!


Well, Laini never wrote back. She was, you know, probably fucking busy. I recalibrated my plans for the future, got a part-time job at a wine shop and started going to school. I still felt drawn to cheese. And not in the I-want-to-stuff-my-face-with-L'Explorateur way, although that too. In the intervening years, I came back to it again and again, staging at a creamery, taking classes on the science of cheesemaking, working behind various cheese counters and mounting an independent study on the landscape of American artisan cheese.

In 2011 I found myself in Vermont taking a class at UVM on rural food systems. I decided to avail myself to the proximity of some of my favorite cheesemakers and, once the course was over, I and my curly-haired boyfriend (that one who packed my car) planned a mini-tour of farms. I hadn't forgotten about Laini. I reached out to her again, asking if I could visit and what string of days would be most convenient. After her brief, brusque response, I plotted my trip around winding up at her farm, which was in the farth northerly reaches of the state in a magical-sounding area called the Northeast Kingdom.

I'd heard from a variety of sources (cheesemongers, the Vermont-based professor from whom I'd taken my class at UVM) that Laini was "eccentric." I had no idea what that meant. When pressed for details, my informants turned shy, neglecting to divulge anything specific. That simply added to the mystique of course. I embarked on my journey, and my excitement at finally meeting this strange woman and seeing her goats mounted as I drove further and further north.

Then, two days before our visit, Laini emailed to say that she would be busy putting up hay and that the day we'd agreed on would not work. I was leaving Vermont the following week and couldn't reschedule. I was crestfallen. I offered to help her with the hay but got no response. As a contingency, I reached out to a neighbor of hers, Jack Lazor, who helms the incredible Butterworks Farm (which I didnt' realize at the time was as big a deal as it is) and wound up spending the day helping him wrap his hay. In return, he took us swimming in a mountain stream with a waterfall. It seemed like a more than worthwile trade. Jack was the sweetest dude ever, a tall, gentle soul. When I told him that I'd tried to see Laini he shook his head, exasperated, which I took to mean "that's Laini for you." He offered to take me over there himself and insist that she show me around, sensing how disappointed I was. I declined, and he promised to give her shit when he saw her.

When I got back to New York I had an email from Laini telling me that her friend Jack said I'd stopped by and that she was sorry I wasn't able to come visit.

Fast-forward to 2014. I've graduated from NYU and am now managing and buying wine for the shop I worked for part-time during school. It's fine, mostly, but I know it's not my destiny. I've been casually looking on job boards to see what's out there. I find myself needing to hire someone part-time for the shop, and as I finish uploading a job post, my eye catches a posting for Lazy Lady Farm. "Goat Dairy and Cheese Help" it says.

My heart stops. This is a sign. Is this a sign? This is a sign. It's all I can do to wait until I get home to craft a cover letter and update my resume. "Hey Laini, I don't flatter myself that you remember me, but .... "