Farmers Market: Celebrate ‘national goat cheese month’

Barbara Johnson’s life reads like the words to a country song — one of the good ones.

She went into college to become a painter, came out as a sculptor with a strong love of painting. She’s worked as a cowboy and with an Alaskan commercial fisherman. She’s a wife and mother. She’s the cowboy artist and sculptor you know as Barbara Neville.

Now, she’s a cheesemaker, too.

Cheesemaking is an ancient art. “The reality is that you can make any cheese from any milk, like goat, cow, mare’s milk,” says Barbara Neville Johnson, local cheesemaker and artist from the Farmers Market here in Green Valley. The flavor is determined from the milk and the combination of cultures and enzymes used in addition to the heating and cooling and storage of the product.

Barbara makes five basic goat cheeses at her ranch that straddles the Santa Cruz River. Ch/vre is a lovely soft French-style cheese with a creamy texture and a combination mild-tart flavor. Barbara seasons her ch/vre for several different palates and even offers a plain variety. She also makes the more familiar Feta cheese, the Mexican specialty Queso Blanco and good old American Colby and Cheddar.

Barbara’s Rancho del Rio cheeses are farmhouse style cheeses, meaning they are cured for a shorter period of time than those you may find from larger cheesemakers. Curing times vary from one day as in Chevre to one week under refrigeration as in her Cheddar and Colby.

Traditionally, Cheddar and Colby would be cured six to 12 months or longer for a sharper flavor. “The difference in these cheeses farmhouse varieties is a milder flavor — they still taste the same, it’s just milder,” Barbara says.

“Goat cheese is easier to digest than cow cheese,” she adds. Barbara has four other reasons she became a goat-cheese maker, they’re the goats left from her children’s 4H projects.

“We’ve had goats about four years now,” she says. “I’ve been making goat cheese for more than three years, selling it at the Sonita Farmers Market.” We’re sure happy to have her bring this addition to her other goods at the Green Valley Farmers Market.

The artist in Barbara is still going strong. Here at our Green Valley Farmers Market, she sells her jewelry, paintings, and gourds.

“I buy beads and design my own jewelry,” Barbara says.

The carved animal fetishes she works into some of her bookmarks and jewelry are for sale to crafters, as well. “I’m getting into smithing, too,” she says, displaying a beautiful and unique necklace of turquoise and excellent copper smithing.

Barbara also markets her daughter Fox Neville Johnson’s accomplished leatherwork and silver smithing — everything from saddles to buttons.

Remember to ‘Shop the Market First’ and look for the hand lettered GOAT CHEESE sign near the ground at Barbara’s stall. August in National Goat Cheese Month, a perfect time to introduce yourself. Whether it’s cheese, jewelry or leather or art you’re looking for, surely there’s something here to catch your eye.

If you go

Green Valley Farmers Market runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Wednesday at the Green Valley Village, Esperanza Boulevard and La Canada Drive.