Laura Chenel of Sonoma County, California, was the first of a handful of brilliant female goat cheese producers who began making cheese in the late 1970s.
With Judy Schad, who owns Capriole just north of New Albany, Ind., and Mary Keehn, of Cyprus Grove in Northern California, Chenel's dedication to quality and authenticity helped lift American cheesemakers' art — finally — to heights on par with that of Europe.
According to Steven Jenkins in his Cheese Primer, written in 1996, "Laura's chèvres are as close to the French originals as you will find — flaky, barely moist, bone-white, and extraordinarily delicious."
This could be because when Chenel found her goat herd was making too much milk and that she needed to make cheese with the surplus, she hopped on a plane and lived with four French dairy families in different parts of the country, learning everything she could about traditional goat cheese making.
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