KOOKOOLAN FARMS
15713 Highway 47, Yamhill, Oregon 97148 ... email kookoolan@gmail.com ... phone Farmer Chrissie at (503) 730-7535
organic farming practices ... pasture-raised poultry, meats, and eggs ... cheesemaking classes and supplies ... mead and kombucha
Please call Chrissie at 503-730-7535 or email kookoolan@gmail.com to register for any of our classes.
2012 Classes and Events:
Saturday, May 5, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: INTRODUCTION TO HARD CHEESES/FETA FEAST! (Mary Rosenblum). This popular class is our most basic introduction to making hard cheeses. Feta is the quickest and easiest of all hard cheeses, and is a great transition from making soft fresh cheeses (very easy) into making pressed hard cheeses (more difficult than soft cheeses, plus for aged cheeses you have to wait a long time to find out whether you got good results). Feta was perhaps one of the earliest cheeses to have been developed, but is not as well known in the U.S. as some other cheeses. This class will teach you not only how to make this cheese, but also how to serve and enjoy it. Enjoy a meza plate of middle eastern appetizers along with a sampling of several different fresh and aged fetas. No pre-requisite, no cheesemaking experience required, ideal introductory class for anyone wanting to try making hard cheeses at home. Bonus: This class also includes how to make cottage cheese! $70 per person YES, YOU SHOULD COME! WE STILL HAVE THREE SEATS AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!
May 12: Soft Cheeses 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). One of our most popular classes, the ideal beginner's introduction to cheesemaking. Soft fresh cheeses are instant gratification! Learn chevre, fromage blanc, cream cheese, ice cream, and an introduction to surface-ripened soft cheeses such as brie. $70 per person. just a few seats left, please call or email to reserve your seat!, class is about half filled.
May 19: placeholder
Saturday, May 26, 2012, 1pm to 4pm: Bread and Butter, Grains and Flour (taught by MaryAnn Jasper of Green Willow Grain Farm). This class is perfect for any home baker who is willing to experiment. You’ll learn fast, easy recipes anybody can do in any kitchen, even with limited time and/or space. You’ll learn that what holds in cooking also holds in baking: use great ingredients and it won’t turn out badly! The focus is on the ingredients. Your family will love the wonderful baking aromas wafting from your kitchen more frequently! Greenwillow Grains, the sales side of Stalford Family Farm outside Tangent, Oregon, http://www.greenwillowgrains.com/, mills and distributes its estate-grown, certified organic flours to natural food stores and co-ops as well as upscale restaurants and artisanal bakeries throughout the Willamette Valley. This class puts the focus of baking on its primary ingredient: flour. You’ll learn all about flour, including the difference between pastry flour and bread flour, and how to use each of these in everyday recipes. You’ll learn how to select and store flour, and even how to blend your own all-purpose flour to your own preferences, with a confident understanding of the trade-offs in texture. You’ll also learn about production of the red and white wheats from which flours are made, and the qualities of fresh local flour. In this class we’ll make coffee cake or fruit cobbler using pastry flour; scones using all-purpose flour; and overnight rolls using bread flour. We’ll use locally sourced ingredients, including eggs, milk and cream from Kookoolan Farms. The class will also work together to make fresh raw butter, and we’ll talk about several different sourdough starters from Cultures for Health. Your class fee covers all instruction, an assortment of baked goods to eat in class or take home, a 3-pound bag of local organic pastry flour ($5.50 value), a 3-pound bag of local organic bread flour ($5.50 value), and a $10 coupon good toward the purchase of anything Kookoolan Farms sells, including organic Greenwillow bread and pastry flours, and the full range of sourdough starters from Cultures for Health. $45 per person, SOLD OUT, waitlist names accepted, next offered FRIDAY Sept 21 2012 see below. We're also working on putting together a gluten-free baking class, let us know if you'd like to be notified when that gets scheduled.
Saturday, June 9, 2012, 1PM to 4PM, Washed Curd Cheeses (Rudy Marchesi). This category of popular cheeses includes Gouda, havarti, and Colby, which are all made using the "washed curd" technique. This class is perfectly suited for beginners, for gouda lovers, and for folks who have already made cheese a few times. Rudy has been making Gouda-style cheese for years, having taken a one-on-one class from a Gouda Master on the East Coast several years ago. Rudy is the owner and winemaker of Montinore Estates Vineyard, and always brings a generous sampling of his wines to complement our extravagant gourmet cheese tasting plate as well. $70/person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!
June 16: placeholder
June 23: Home Creamery, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). Learn how to make butter, sour cream, creme fraiche, ice cream, yogurt, kefir, soft fresh cheeses including cottage cheese, and culturing milk generally. A great introductory class that will give you the confidence to safely make these great products at home in your own kitchen! $60/person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat! only a few seats left
June 30: Artisanal Cheddar 201, 1pm to 4pm (Scott) $75/person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!
Saturday, July 7, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: Surface-Ripened Cheeses: Reds, Whites and Blues! (Mary). Covers the basics of fresh drained cheeses, and introduces the next step of using surface molds to ripen your cheese. You'll learn how to make Brie, creamy roquefort-style blue cheese, and drier Danish style blue cheese, plus "Stinky Cheeses" made using Bacteria Linens, the "red mold". The cheese tasting plate for this class is particularly divine. $75 per person, WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class is already about half full
July 14: Private chartered class.
July 18: Private chartered class.
July 21: Mozzarella 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). We start with our own liquid raw cow milk, and in less than an hour you'll have hands-on experience kneading and forming the curd. This class does not have a brought-in cheese tasting plate because you'll be eating the cheese you make in the class, along with fresh tomatoes and basil grown right here on Kookoolan Farms and picked the day of the class! In this class you will have hands-on experience and instruction making fresh mozzarella from liquid milk. You will participate in kneading and shaping cheese, and you’ll get to enjoy eating the cheese too! $60 per person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Jul 28: placeholder
Aug 4: Mozzarella 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). We start with our own liquid raw cow milk, and in less than an hour you'll have hands-on experience kneading and forming the curd. This class does not have a brought-in cheese tasting plate because you'll be eating the cheese you make in the class, along with fresh tomatoes and basil grown right here on Kookoolan Farms and picked the day of the class! In this class you will have hands-on experience and instruction making fresh mozzarella from liquid milk. You will participate in kneading and shaping cheese, and you’ll get to enjoy eating the cheese too! $65 per person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Aug 11 Home Creamery, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). Learn how to make butter, sour cream, creme fraiche, ice cream, yogurt, kefir, soft fresh cheeses including cottage cheese, and culturing milk generally. A great introductory class that will give you the confidence to safely make these great products at home in your own kitchen! $65/person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!
Saturday, Aug 18, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: INTRODUCTION TO HARD CHEESES/FETA FEAST! (Mary Rosenblum). This popular class is our most basic introduction to making hard cheeses. Feta is the quickest and easiest of all hard cheeses, and is a great transition from making soft fresh cheeses (very easy) into making pressed hard cheeses (more difficult than soft cheeses, plus for aged cheeses you have to wait a long time to find out whether you got good results). Feta was perhaps one of the earliest cheeses to have been developed, but is not as well known in the U.S. as some other cheeses. This class will teach you not only how to make this cheese, but also how to serve and enjoy it. Enjoy a meza plate of middle eastern appetizers along with a sampling of several different fresh and aged fetas. No pre-requisite, no cheesemaking experience required, ideal introductory class for anyone wanting to try making hard cheeses at home. Bonus: This class also includes how to make cottage cheese! $70 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE
Aug 25: Soft Cheeses 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). One of our most popular classes, the ideal beginner's introduction to cheesemaking. Soft fresh cheeses are instant gratification! Learn chevre, fromage blanc, cream cheese, ice cream, and an introduction to surface-ripened soft cheeses such as brie. $70 per person. WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Sep 8: placeholder
Thurs, Sep 13: Private chartered class.
Sep 15: Soft 201: Surface Ripened Soft Cheeses, 1pm to 4pm (Scott) Covers the basics of fresh drained cheeses, and introduces the next step
of using surface molds to ripen your cheese. You'll learn how to make
Brie, camembert, and other cheeses that feature a bloomy rind. The cheese tasting plate for this class is particularly
divine, and we'll be pairing the cheese plate with Kookoolan World Meadery's new late summer 2012 release of port-strength mead. $75 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE
FRIDAY, Sep 21, 2012, 1pm to 4pm: Bread and Butter, Grains and Flour (taught by MaryAnn Jasper of Green Willow Grain Farm).
This class is perfect for any home baker who is willing to experiment.
You’ll learn fast, easy recipes anybody can do in any kitchen, even
with limited time and/or space. You’ll learn that what holds in cooking
also holds in baking: use great ingredients and it won’t turn out
badly! The focus is on the ingredients. Your family will love the wonderful baking aromas wafting from your kitchen more frequently! Greenwillow Grains, the sales side of Stalford Family Farm outside Tangent, Oregon, http://www.greenwillowgrains.com/,
mills and distributes its estate-grown, certified organic flours to
natural food stores and co-ops as well as upscale restaurants and
artisanal bakeries throughout the Willamette Valley. This
class puts the focus of baking on its primary ingredient: flour.
You’ll learn all about flour, including the difference between pastry
flour and bread flour, and how to use each of these in everyday
recipes. You’ll learn how to select and store flour, and even how to
blend your own all-purpose flour to your own preferences, with a
confident understanding of the trade-offs in texture. You’ll
also learn about production of the red and white wheats from which
flours are made, and the qualities of fresh local flour. In this class
we’ll make coffee cake or fruit cobbler using pastry flour; scones using
all-purpose flour; and overnight rolls using bread flour. We’ll use
locally sourced ingredients, including eggs, milk and cream from
Kookoolan Farms. The class will also work together to make fresh raw
butter, and we’ll talk about several different sourdough starters from
Cultures for Health. Your class fee covers all instruction, an
assortment of baked goods to eat in class or take home, a 3-pound bag of
local organic pastry flour ($5.50 value), a 3-pound bag of local
organic bread flour ($5.50 value), and a $10 coupon good toward the
purchase of anything Kookoolan Farms sells, including organic
Greenwillow bread and pastry flours, and the full range of sourdough
starters from Cultures for Health. $45 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE, this class is already more than half full. We're also
working on putting together a gluten-free baking class, let us know if
you'd like to be notified when that gets scheduled.
Saturday, Sep 22, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: Italian Hard Cheeses (Rudy). Enjoy an afternoon of wine and cheese. Local winemaker Rudy Marchesi owns Montinore Estates Winery in Dilley, Oregon. Learn the art of cheesemaking and enjoy a selection of Montinore's biodynamically produced and certified wines, plus a cheese tasting plate of eight fine imported Italian hard cheeses. Learn the techniques that will enable you to make Asiago, Parmiggiano, Romano, and many other favorites at home, for far less than the cost of buying the finished aged cheeses. $75/person, SPACE AVAILABLE, this class is already more than half full
Saturday, Sep 29, 10AM to 4PM: Advanced Cheese Theory (Mary). This is an all-day class that runs from 10AM to 4PM and includes breakfast, coffee, full lunch of all-Kookoolan ingredients, and extravagant cheese tasting (which you'll be walked through by Mary Rosenblum). Come hungry, and expect to leave full! This class takes you beyond following a cheese recipe out of a book. You will learn the processes going on in that pot of milk as the enzymes in rennet coagulate the milk and the curd becomes a ripe and flavorful cheese. The demonstration cheese for this class is Burrata, a stuffed mozzarella. Understanding the relationship of proteins in the milk, the butterfat, and what the culture bacteria you added are actually doing, will give you a much better understanding of your results, both good results and not so good results. You’ll begin to understand how to make changes that will give you the texture and flavor you really want in your finished cheeses. We’ll examine those processes in a hands-on way as we make an English-style cheddar, trouble shoot less-than-perfect cheeses, and experiment to create a new type of artisanal mozzarella. You’ll have a chance to use both a pH meter and titration equipment to see for yourself how quickly the bacteria in the cheese pot create the acid that makes your cheese a cheese. Bring cheese you have made, both your outstanding examples to participate in a cheese contest with a small prize from Kookoolan Farms, and bring the less -than-perfect results where you could use a bit of help understanding what happened and how to make it better next time. The class includes a cheese tasting plate featuring examples of the major types of cheeses as well as an excellent lunch prepared from all-Kookoolan ingredients. $95 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE, just a few seats left, this class is almost sold out already
Oct 6: Basic Hard Cheeses/Cheddar 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott) $70/person, SPACE AVAILABLE
Oct 13: Mozzarella 101, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). We start with our own liquid raw cow milk, and in less than an hour you'll have hands-on experience kneading and forming the curd. This class does not have a brought-in cheese tasting plate because you'll be eating the cheese you make in the class, along with fresh tomatoes and basil grown right here on Kookoolan Farms and picked the day of the class! In this class you will have hands-on experience and instruction making fresh mozzarella from liquid milk. You will participate in kneading and shaping cheese, and you’ll get to enjoy eating the cheese too! $65 per person WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Oct 20: Milk soaps, 1pm to 3pm (Kristin). Just in time for preparing for holiday gift giving, luxury handmade milk soaps make beautiful, thoughtful gifts. Easier and less expensive than you'd think and oh so satisfying to be able to do it yourself! You'll learn safe handling, needed equipment, where to buy ingredients and supplies. Kristin will make a batch of soap from scratch while you watch! You'll be able to take home two bars of soap and a complete handbook written by Kristin. Simple hot-process soap making lets you complete your soapmaking in only two hours. Learn hot process soap making. Make your own soap and use it tonight: with hot process soapmaking there is no waiting several weeks for your soap to "cure." Make your own soap with all-natural ingredients including milk. The make-it-yourself price works out to about $1.50 material cost per bar for natural, homemade soaps. Great for allergies and sensitive skin, and great as a thoughtful, handmade gift for the holidays or having on hand for last-minute gift-giving year-round. Your instructor is a safety-conscious mother of young children, and she will also share her tips for sourcing, buying and (not!) storing the highly caustic lye used in all soapmaking. Kristin's handmade soaps are also available for sale in our farmstore. $60/person SPACE AVAILABLE
Sat, Oct 27, 5pm to 8pm: How To Make Mead (Doug) Kookoolan Farms is also a fully-licensed winery. Doug Remington, manager of Main Street Homebrew Supply Store in Hillsboro, Oregon, is consulting meadmaker at Kookoolan Farms, currently authoring a new book on meadmaking that will be released in about a year, and is a fifteen-years-plus friend of Farmer Chrissie. Mead has historically been made by just about every culture on earth: a common, joyous, ancient thread shared by all cultures and societies all over the earth, each with our own spin on wines made from honey. Mead is just a genre, as beer or wine are genres: mead is any alcohol produced from honey as the primary source of fermentable sugar. Mead can be sweet or dry, sparkling or still, weak or strong in terms of alcohol content, and flavored with hundreds of fruit, herb or spice adjuncts. Grape juice mixed with honey, called pyment, is a time-honored tradition in many countries, and here in Oregon's wine country you can count on pinot noir pyments coming from Kookoolan. A “melomel” is mead made with any combination of honey and any kind of fruit juice, where the fruit juice is not just a flavoring after the fact but is part of the fermentable must; apples, cherries, and apricots are three of the most popular blends. Nobody knows the archaic words “sack” mead or “sack” wine anymore (meaning strong alcohol and sugar): these are sherry-style, or liqueur-style, or dessert-wine styles which are closest to my favorite meads. The best European meads are aged for five years or more in oak barrels, and Kookoolan World Meadery will definitely be producing a straight-up, oak-aged mead. The Picts, a particular tribe in Scotland, made a mead with heather blossoms; heather bitters the nectar much as hops do for beer, but in addition a wild fungus grows on the heather blossoms that produces a slightly psychotropic effect on the drinker. Queen Elizabeth’s favorite mead used bay leaves, thyme, rose petals, and lemon balm. In our class Doug will turn a bucket of honey into fermenting mead right before your eyes! This class includes detailed handouts enabling you to make mead at home, plus Doug will walk you through a generous tasting of a half dozen or so commercial and homebrew meads. $75/person includes tasting a $10 coupon good toward the purchase of anything from Kookoolan Farms. SPACE AVAILABLE, MUST BE 21.
Saturday, Nov 3, 1PM to 4PM: Cheddar 201, Artisanal Cheddar (Mary). We start with our own liquid raw cow milk, and by the end of the class, the cheese will be finished and in the press. Your instructor is Mary Rosenblum, local science fiction author, cheesemaker, and cheese judge. This class has a great cheese tasting plate, with eight different cheddars: local and imported, flavored and straight, young and well-aged, even one made from goat milk. You will learn the old-fashioned Real Cheddaring process, using traditional techniques, a step up in taste and complexity from simple farmhouse cheddar recipes. The class also covers the basics of making any kind of hard cheese. Our Cheddar 101 Basic Cheddar class is recommended but not required. Bonus: This class also includes how to make cottage cheese! $75 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE
Saturday, Nov 10, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: Sausage: Fresh and dry-cured (Rudy). How to stuff and season. Make and cook patties and links, and then make salami and maybe pork/fish sausage. This class is suitable for beginners. You'll taste several different homemade and artisan cured meats, and you'll get to take own your own curing pork belly for finishing at home as DIY bacon. $80 per person, SPACE AVAILABLE, this class is already almost full.
Friday, Nov 30, 2012, 1pm to 4pm: Bread and Butter, Grains and Flour, Special Holiday Baking Version! (taught by MaryAnn Jasper of Green Willow Grain Farm).
This class is perfect for any home baker who is willing to experiment.
You’ll learn fast, easy recipes anybody can do in any kitchen, even
with limited time and/or space. You’ll learn that what holds in cooking
also holds in baking: use great ingredients and it won’t turn out
badly! The focus is on the ingredients. Your family will love the wonderful baking aromas wafting from your kitchen more frequently! Greenwillow Grains, the sales side of Stalford Family Farm outside Tangent, Oregon, http://www.greenwillowgrains.com/,
mills and distributes its estate-grown, certified organic flours to
natural food stores and co-ops as well as upscale restaurants and
artisanal bakeries throughout the Willamette Valley. This
class puts the focus of baking on its primary ingredient: flour.
You’ll learn all about flour, including the difference between pastry
flour and bread flour, and how to use each of these in everyday
recipes. You’ll learn how to select and store flour, and even how to
blend your own all-purpose flour to your own preferences, with a
confident understanding of the trade-offs in texture. You’ll
also learn about production of the red and white wheats from which
flours are made, and the qualities of fresh local flour. In this class
we’ll make coffee cake or fruit cobbler using pastry flour; scones using
all-purpose flour; and overnight rolls using bread flour. We’ll use
locally sourced ingredients, including eggs, milk and cream from
Kookoolan Farms. The class will also work together to make fresh raw
butter, and we’ll talk about several different sourdough starters from
Cultures for Health. Your class fee covers all instruction, an
assortment of baked goods to eat in class or take home, a 3-pound bag of
local organic pastry flour ($5.50 value), a 3-pound bag of local
organic bread flour ($5.50 value), and a $10 coupon good toward the
purchase of anything Kookoolan Farms sells, including organic
Greenwillow bread and pastry flours, and the full range of sourdough
starters from Cultures for Health. $50 per person. We're also
working on putting together a gluten-free baking class, let us know if
you'd like to be notified when that gets scheduled.
Saturday, Dec 1, 2012, 1PM to 4PM: Mozzarella 201 (Mary). This class is a step up in complexity and flavor from the basic quick-method handmade mozzarella. We start with handmade curd from our own raw cow milk, refrigerated overnight, and you'll have hands-on experience kneading and forming the curd using traditional, artisanal, slower methods. This class does not have a brought-in cheese tasting plate because you'll be eating the cheese you make today, along with fresh bread, cured meats, and other goodies! Highly recommended for beginners. Our Mozzarella 101 class is not a prerequisite. $65 per person, WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Dec 8: Basic Soft Cheeses, 1pm to 4pm (Scott). One of our most popular classes, the ideal beginner's introduction to cheesemaking. Soft fresh cheeses are instant gratification! Learn chevre, fromage blanc, cream cheese, ice cream, and an introduction to surface-ripened soft cheeses such as brie. $70 per person. WE DO HAVE SPACE AVAILABLE, please call or email to reserve your seat!, this class sells out every time.
Due to past experience with
the vagaries of winter storms in Oregon causing last-minute
cancellations, we do not offer classes from December 15 through January
31 each year.
ABOUT THE LOCATION: Kookoolan Farms is a diversified, small family farm in Yamhill, Oregon. We raise chickens for meat and for eggs, cows for milk and for meat, and raise vegetables in 5,000 linear feet of 4-foot-wide raised beds. We are also a meadery and kombuchery. We offer a full line of cheesemaking ingredients, cultures and supplies from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and from Mad Millie’s Cheesemaking Supplies. www.kookoolanfarms.com We gladly accept check, cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover and debit cards. We do ask you to pay in advance for classes.
Online registration and shopping cart coming soon!