Off the Shelf: 'Goat Song' by Brad Kessler

I had heard of Brad Kessler before, but I had never read a book written by him before "Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese."

So when I saw this book in the library, I was immediately intrigued.

I expected it to be a bit more heavy-handed with information, but it was quite breezy and conversational in tone. The book is broken up into parts, and the middle part is perhaps the most intriguing.

It features a diary-like presentation with each page denoting one day with Kessler's thoughts on the day as well as how much goat milk was produced (and often why: to wit, if production was down, he would not a goat was not feeling right, or something of that sort) and notes on some of the cheeses he tried to make from that milk.

The other parts focused on buying mountain land in the Northeast and about his and his wife's travails in setting up a goat farm and the process of going through it. Later in the book, the author wrote about his trip to France and his attempts to mimic the goat-cheese-making process from that area.