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CANDOR, N.Y. -- Rita Kellogg is a tiny slip of a woman, probably no more than 100 pounds soaking wet. But she still manages to pack a powerful punch into the goat cheese she and her family handcraft at Side Hill Acres Dairy Goat Farm in this tiny village in New York's Finger Lakes region.
In 2006, the farm's rosemary-garlic flavored goat cheese log was a blue-ribbon winner at the New York State Fair. In fact, the dairy farmer is quick to point out, most of her cheeses -- which she started making in 1994 and include goat milk cheddar and plain and flavored fetas -- have won gold medals at the show's prestigious dairy competition.
Ms. Kellogg has an easy explanation for the farm's success, and why a growing number of tourists are seeking it out for culinary tours. Like many of the other cheeseries that will strut their stuff Oct. 10 during the Finger Lakes Artisanal Cheese Open House, she uses only milk from her own herd of 135 goats. The farm also processes all its ingredients by hand; her mother Bertha Miller, for instance, flips and salts each and every log that slides out of a long, narrow mold after setting for 16 hours. "And we hand-ladle all our cheeses for the creamy texture," says Ms. Kellogg.
Travelers in search of spectacular fall colors often head north to this corner of New York, where this year the leaves should be at their brightest and boldest during the first two weeks of October (fallgetaways.iloveny.com). The area is especially popular with wine drinkers, thanks to the four organized "wine trails" that tickle the taste buds with more than 100 wineries. Now there's something for foodies to explore, too.
New York's Finger Lakes region lies south of Interstate 90 between Rochester and Syracuse, covering 14 counties. The college town of Ithaca is a good jumping-off point for the half-dozen artisan cheese makers clustered around Seneca and Cayuga lakes, especially if you plan on marrying a cheese tour with the waterfalls and 100-plus wineries dotting the region's four wine trails.
Getting there: Ithaca is an easy 51/2-hour drive northeast from Pittsburgh. Several airlines also offer one-stop flights between the two cities; a roundtrip ticket on expedia.com costs about $300.
Where to stay: Lodging options range from full-service hotels, camp sites and budget chain properties to quaint B&Bs that require a two-night stay on weekends (www.flbba.org). My visit included one night at the elegant William Henry Miller Inn in Ithaca's East Hill Historic District. It was built in 1880 by Cornell University's first student of architecture and is furnished with antiques. Rates start at $155 and include a gourmet breakfast (www.millerinn.com or 1-877-256-4553). I also stayed one night at Sunset on Seneca in nearby Burdett, a homey waterfront B&B just a short drive from Watkins Glen State Park and international racetrack. True to its name, it boasts a dock from which you can watch the sun setting over Lake Seneca. Rates start at $165, with a full country breakfast (www.sunsetonseneca.com or 1-800-233-5752).
Cheese tour: The Fingers Lakes Artisanal Cheese Open House is Oct. 10 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sponsored by the Cornell Cooperative Extension/Tompkins County (1-607-272-2292), it includes cheese-making demonstrations at eight farms. Chances are you'll also want to bring some cheese home, so remember to bring a cooler to keep it fresh. For a guide to specific farms, visit www.ccetompkins.org for a list of Web sites/telephone numbers. The site also includes a map.
General information: www.fingerlakes.org; 1-800-548-4386, or www.visitithaca.com; 1-800-284-8422.
New York has always been famous for its particularly sharp cheddar cheeses. Yet artisan cheeses such as those produced at Side Hill Acres also are starting to make a name for themselves. Formed in 2003, New York's Farmstead & Artisan Cheese Makers Guild now counts almost 30 members. Most are more than eager to show you how cheese is made through demonstrations and tours -- some scheduled, some completely on the fly -- of their barns, milk parlors and aging caves. (For hours and directions, visit www.nyfarmcheese.org or see source box at the end of story.)
Many of these small-time cheese makers are on the northeastern half of the state, not far from the Vermont border. This year's second annual tour, however, celebrates the hard work of eight cheese-making operations much closer to Pittsburgh. All of the featured farms are clustered around Seneca and Cayuga lakes in western central New York, where it just so happens the grape-harvesting season is in full swing during autumn and local wineries offer tastings for as little as $1.
Or as coordinator Monika Ross of the Tompkins County Cooperative Extension puts it, "Grab yourself a loaf of bread and you can have yourself a picnic," with the area's legendary blanket of gold, deep scarlet and orange leaves as your backdrop.
The farms' offerings are as delicious as they are unique: joining Side Hill Acres on the free, self-guided tour (you'll need to drive) are Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese Co. in Mecklenburg, where former reporter Nancy Taber Richards crafts aged Gouda-style cheeses on the 700-acre farm her paternal grandfather started in 1919, and Sunset View Creamery in Odessa, home to a tasty selection of cheddars, cheddar curds and Monterey Jacks that Carmella and Ron Hoffman make in a 290-gallon vat imported from Holland. In nearby Kings Ferry, Finger Lakes Dexter Creamery will tout its farmstead kefir cheese, cultured with living kefir grains and handcrafted with raw milk from grass-fed Irish Dexter cows.
"It's an opportunity to get out and see the farm," says Ms. Ross. That, and sample a little cheese in the process.
But first things first. Seneca and Cayuga lakes each stretch more than 40 miles, so to do a cheese tour justice, you may want stretch your visit at least two days. I spent my first night in Ithaca, a funky college town populated with old hippies, young hipsters and robed Tibetan Buddhist monks (Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies on Aurora Street is the North American Seat of the Personal Monastery of His Holiness the Dalai Lama) at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake. Arriving late, and cranky, on a Monday afternoon, I found an immediate warm welcome at the William Henry Miller Inn, an elegant bed-and-breakfast in the city's East Hill Historic District. Graced with American chestnut woodwork and stained glass, it reminded me of the Victorian mansions on Pittsburgh's North Side.
My second night stay near Watkins Glen at Sunset on Seneca, a waterfront B&B on the southern shores of Seneca Lake, was also delightful. Its large dock was a perfect spot for watching the sun set over the water.
The following farms are on the cheese tour on Oct. 10:
Lively Run Goat Dairy, Interlaken, N.Y.: www.livelyrun.com; 1-607-532-4647
Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese Co., Mecklenburg, N.Y.: www.fingerlakes-cheese.com; 1-607-387-3108
Cowlick Farm, Lodi, N.Y.: 1-607-582-6611
Side Hill Acres Dairy Goat Farm, Candor, N.Y.: www.sidehillacres.bizland.com; 1-607-659-4121
Sunset View Creamery, Odessa, N.Y.: www.sunsetviewcreamery.com; 1-607-594-2095
Muranda Cheese Co., Waterloo, N.Y.: www.muranda.com; 1-315-539-1103
Finger Lakes Dexter Creamery, King Ferry, N.Y.: www.kefircheese.com; 1-315-364-3581
Northland Sheep Dairy, Marathon, N.Y.: www.northlandsheepdairy.com; 1-607-849-4442
When retreating ice age glaciers formed the Finger Lakes -- so named because that's exactly what they look like, fingers -- more than a million years ago, they also cut deep gorges with raging waterfalls into the earth. Ithaca boasts more than 150 within a 10-mile radius of downtown. Taughannock Falls, nine miles north of the city on Route 89, is well worth the 20-minute hike on the gorge trail. (It's 33 feet higher than Niagara Falls.) Almost as pretty are the series of six falls that tumble 400 feet through Cascadilla Gorge just a few blocks from Ithaca Commons, the city's signature two-block pedestrian mall. Even in heels, it was worth negotiating the rocky, wooded path before dinner for a glimpse of this giant "staircase" of falling water.
Knowing I'd be sampling a lot of cheese (and wine) the next day, I figured I'd better eat light. The world-famous vegetarian Moosewood restaurant tempted, but an acquaintance pointed me in the direction of Just A Taste, a tapas restaurant on the Commons. It was an excellent choice: Our small plates included local squash sauteed in brown butter, baby lamb chops on a bed of greens and chunks of German sausage nestled in sweet red cabbage. A dessert buffet at the B&B before bed yielded fresh brownies and apple cake, and the next morning, a gourmet breakfast of homemade English muffins topped with baked eggs and smoked salmon greeted guests in the sunny dining room. It took some resolve to leave room for cheese.
Had it been the weekend, I would have hit the open-air Ithaca Farmer's Market at Steamboat Landing on my way out of town (more than 100 vendors sell everything from agricultural produce to ethnic foods and local crafts). Instead, I settled for the mini mid-week market at Dewitt Park. Then it was onto my first stop of the day, Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese Co. in Mecklenburg, where I found Nancy Richards wiping and turning some 300 eight-pound wheels of the raw milk Gouda-style cheese she learned to make from a Swiss cheese maker in 2006.
It takes time, and upper-body strength, to wash and move all those rounds. But it's necessary, says Ms. Richards, to encourage the bacteria on her distinctive Red and Bier Meck cheese to grow and impart a tangy flavor. Her Schuyler (traditional Dutch-type cheese) gets a sponge-on coating that dries into wax-like skin.
Sold at upscale and specialty stores, co-ops and farmers markets, artisan cheeses -- defined as those made by hand using traditional methods and recipes -- are all about quality ingredients and painstaking attention to detail. The milk comes either from the producer's own cows, sheep or goats (known as "farmstead") or fresh from a local dairy, and the batches are small to allow for hands-on attention.
Ms. Richards, who sources milk exclusively from her herd of 50 Holsteins, is relatively new at the game, as is dairy farmer-turned cheese maker Andrew Cabot of Cowlick Farm in nearby Lodi; he's been making a variety of aged hard cheeses since 2004. But others are seasoned pros. Susanne Messmer has been making her famous Cayuga Blue and French-style chevre artisan cheeses at Lively Run Goat Dairy in Interlaken since 1995 (www.livelyrun.com). But there's definitely a renaissance underfoot for handmade, small-production cheeses, even with prices that run $15 or more a pound, as a growing number of consumers seek a direct relationship with farmers.
Ten years ago, people rolled their eyes at the "buy local" movement, says Linda Smith, an ex-officio member of the 6-year-old New York's Farmstead Artisan Cheese Makers Guild. Many now are clammering to know who, exactly, is producing their food, which in turn makes artisan cheese makers more enthusiastic about growing their businesses. Culinary tours are a natural offspring of both side's burgeoning interest.
Yet artisan cheese-making also is about survival. When milk prices started to fall several years ago, dairy farmers sought value-added opportunities that allowed farm families to become price-makers instead of price-takers for their milk. For some, that meant turning their raw product into cheese.
"We had to do something different, and I like to cook," said Mrs. Hoffman of Sunset View Creamery in Odessa, who was looking for a way to stay on the 415-acre farm that had been in her husband's family since 1905.
"Something" ended up being a class on farmstead cheesemaking with Scottish cheese maker and educator Kathy Biss. It was a smart move: Open for business in May 2004, the farm's cheese-making operation now pumps out 250 pounds of flavored cheeses a week, 25 percent of which is sold retail. They were the first local farm to do bite-sized cheese curds, mainly because they're "portable."
It's a scary thing, going where so few before you have traveled. But remember, Mrs. Hoffman says, the Finger Lakes' wine industry was far from a sure thing during its infancy in the 1970s.
"A friend who owns a winery kept saying, 'What are you waiting for,' " she recalls, laughing. "You have to do this."
Five years later, she's glad she did.
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