…So this is all going to seem quite like bragging.

Every morning I do something 80 percent of you can’t. I eat yogurt. A steady rotation of mason jars filled with goat, sheep, and cows milk line my refrigerator shelves, sweetly perfumed with pasture, waiting to be poured into ceramic mugs and laced with summer berries, dark honey, or still-warm granola. I eat raw milk yogurt for breakfast, yogurt that I purchase at one of several local shops and farmers markets.

And Maine is one of only ten US states in which eating or drinking the dairy of your choice is legal.*

July 25th. Tonight's dinner was late and so, appropriately, quick. Blanched corn -- the first sweet stuff of the summer -- tossed with cracked pepper, torn garden basil, lemon cucumbers, brandywines, and Ploughgate Farm's Queso Fresco. A perfectly tangy and tender take on a cheese that's so seldom made right. Marisa Mauro was taught the authentic recipe and has started selling limited quantities at her local farmers markets. I was lucky enough to plea some off her at July 24th's Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, and it didn't last 24 hours. 

This is why I have a love/hate relationship with the annual VT Festival: all us cheese lovers are able to try the fleeting side projects and small-production items, fall for them, then miss them.