Monterey Chevre -- A goat cheese unique to Berkshire County

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Across the verdant landscape of Monterey, and a little off the beaten track, lies Rawson Brook Farm. This small family-run farm, with its low-fenced paddocks and unassuming barn and outbuildings, is the birthplace of Monterey Chevre (pronounced “shev”), a type of goat cheese. “We got our license to produce cheese for sale in 1984 and have been making Monterey Chevre ever since,” said Rawson Brook Farm owner Susan Sellew. Monterey Chevre is a fresh, soft, and smooth goat cheese. Although reluctant to compare chevre to cream cheese, Sellew agrees that their textures are similar. Besides the mild, plain chevre, Rawson Brook Farm also makes various flavorful varieties like thyme and olive oil chevre. According to Sellew, goat’s milk is more easily digestible than cow’s milk. “We can assimilate it much more quickly. Some people that think they may be lactose intolerant, might not be. Goat milk has lactose, but maybe they just have a hard time digesting cow’s milk.” Rawson Brook Farm is currently home to seventy goats: mostly females, three breeding males, and over a dozen kids. The majority of Sellew’s goats are American and French Alpines, but she does have several white-haired Sanaans and one Nubian for variety in her product. “Nubians have richer milk but produce less of it,” explained Sellew. “There’s higher butter fat and protein in their milk.” She has bred her Nubian goat, Delight, to an Alpine in hopes that the resulting kids will produce the same rich milk in greater quantities. Fifty goats are milked twice each day using milking machines. Each goat averages one gallon of milk per day and it takes one gallon of milk to produce one pound of cheese. “We make 350 to 400 pounds of chevre each week,” said Sellew. Each year, the farm begins producing cheese in the middle of March through to the first week of January. Goats are seasonal breeders that go through a five-month pregnancy. Sellew tries to breed them in October so that they can bear kids come March. The yearly break in cheese production is due to the fact that goats do not produce milk in the last half of their pregnancy. “Goats usually bear twins or triplets,” Sellew stated, but sometimes single kids, or even quadruplets, are born. Out of the 100 to 120 kids born each year at the farm, Sellew keeps approximately 12 to raise as future milkers. Sellew has had goats since the 1970s — during what she calls her “homesteading days” — at a farm in northern New York where she met a French woman who taught her various goat-cheese-making techniques. Sellew stated matter-of-factly, “I’d fallen in love with goats and one thing led to another.” Soon after, Sellew decided to open Rawson Brook Farm in the Berkshires “because I grew up here and love it here.” Still, she is a business woman and admitted that she also thought Berkshire County “would be a good location since it’s between New York City and Boston.” Although quite a broad range for distribution, Sellew expressed confusion over the fact that “over the years, I hear a lot that people have said they’ve gotten Monterey Chevre in areas I don't distribute to. I do all my own distributing; I know where my cheese is sold.” As far as she knows, Rawson Brook Farm is the only one in Monterey that produces chevre. “I think that maybe people try it somewhere and they like it.” Sellew speculated, “Then they assume that a soft goat cheese is Monterey Chevre, that it’s a type of cheese, not from a specific farm in Massachusetts. Maybe consumers think all chevre is Monterey.” Sellew stated that her cheeses could be purchased at her farm, but that this is secondary to her main distribution to stores and restaurants. Monterey Chevre can be purchased as close to home as Guido’s in Lenox, the Berkshire Co-Operative Market in Great Barrington, Creative Gourmet in Tanglewood, Random Harvest in Craryville, Stockbridge Wine in Stockbridge, and Brandow's in Hudson — or as far away as Zabar’s in New York City and at several Bread and Circus locations in Boston — just to name a few. The cheese can also be found at many restaurants, including Aubergine’s in Hillsdale, N.Y., the Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, the Seven Hills Inn in Lenox, the Williamsville Inn in West Stockbridge, The Old Mill in South Egremont, and The Last Chance Café in Tannersville, N.Y. Although her business has thrived, Sellew considers her goats more than just income-producers. “I take them on hikes with me and they stay by my side.” While scratching behind the ear of an obviously grateful goat, she stated, “They’re all very friendly. People always seem sorry that they don’t have a treat for the goats when they walk over. They don’t understand that they aren’t just looking for food — they really just appreciate the attention.”
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Clarksburg Select Board Accepts School Roof Bid, Debates Next Steps

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The Select Board last week accepted a bid by D.J. Wooliver & Sons to do the flat roof on the elementary school. 
 
Wooliver was the lowest bid at about $400,000 but cautioned that the cost may rise depending on the conditions once the work started. The work will depend on town meeting approving a borrowing for the project and a possible debt exclusion.
 
But how much borrow and whether the work will be worth it has been a conundrum for town and school officials. The condition of the school has been a major topic at meetings of the board and the School Committee over the past few months. 
 
Town officials are considering putting the question to the voters — try to piecemeal renovations or begin a new study on renovating or building a new school. 
 
In the meantime, the leaking roof has prompted an array of buckets throughout the school. 
 
"Until they actually get in there and start ripping everything up, we won't really know the extent of all the damage per se so it's really kind of hard to make a decision," board member Colton Andrew said at last week's meeting, broadcast on Northern Berkshire Community Television.
 
Board member Daniel Haskins wondered if it would be better to patch until a town made a decision on a school project or do a portion of the roof. But Chair Robert Norcross disagreed. 
 
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