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Driving on the A44, downhill on a country road, everything is calm and peaceful.<\/p>\n
Suddenly an old church on the left side of the road, the vehicle turns right and enters a farm.<\/p>\n
In front of a country house built of red bricks, a beautiful garden with stunning blooming flowers in the house front.<\/p>\n
On the left side of the courtyard, a wooden building with a rusty tin roof, in front of which stands an elderly man, holding a disk and cutting a concrete floor precisely.<\/p>\n
I walk down the gravel path toward the white building on which a small sign “Open – Monkland Dairy”<\/p>\n
I cross the doorstep and the thought that passes right through my mind: Hanan Hagaban, England branch!<\/p>\n
A small cheese refrigerator presents the cheeses produced in the place, behind which is a small kitchen equipped with a coffee machine, a bell glass dome cake stand on foot showing a number of typical English cakes, rolls that have just come out of the oven are set to cool on a net and fill the space with a sweet fresh pastries’ smell, a pot of soup, a shelf with teapots that indicate that at five o’clock it will be packed here …<\/p>\n
Shelves are scattered throughout the store and it is possible to purchase from a selection of jams, beer bottles and local gin.<\/p>\n
Among these are a few tables where polite Englishmen sit.<\/p>\n
A glass door from which you can view the aging room, in the center of which is a traditional wooden container for cheese-making. This is where, Karen, the landlady, prepares the cheeses sold in the place.<\/p>\n
It reminds me so much of my fromagerie in Israel …<\/p>\n
Karen, the owner of the place, decided one day to learn the cheese making craft and open the place.<\/p>\n
And so she tells: “One Friday evening, my husband and I sat drinking beer together, and then I suggested that we open a Dairy with a small shop and prepare cheese and light breakfasts …<\/p>\n
But there was one small problem, I do not know how to make cheese … “Karen bursts out laughing, shaking the top floor and then continues:<\/p>\n
“I looked for a recipe of cheese, and then I found Little Hereford, a cheese made of unpasteurized milk, that suited perfectly because I did not have a pasteurizer, it also didn’t required a roller and I did not have a roller\u2026 so that’s how my first cheese was born..”<\/p>\n
She counts with one finger. “I took the Little Hereford and smoked it in the smoker and that’s how my second cheese was born, ‘smoked Little Hurford’. ” She then counts with two fingers and laughing loudly.<\/p>\n
That’s how she counts all the cheeses she learned to make.<\/p>\n
Later, she enrolled in studies and today she makes a large selection of traditional English cheeses and several French cheeses and sells it in the place.<\/p>\n
In addition to cheeses, local agricultural produce can also be purchased, and the place serves as a caf\u00e9 serving light meals.<\/p>\n
In the Cheese Making Room Karen gives workshops, and that was the reason why we came to the place.<\/p>\n
Hadar settled on the top floor next to a window facing the landscape, opens the computer and started working.<\/p>\n
I went down to the Cheese Making Room and join the group of cheese-makers that was already warming the milk, a preliminary stage in making the Monkland Cheese.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is already 13:00 and I take a break and join the room on the second floor.<\/p>\n
Karen serves us a loaded (not really) plate that includes a slice of cheese, a slice of apple, half a grape, a few celery rings, one walnut and a roll, and of course an English teapot.<\/p>\n
We enjoy the scenery and the atmosphere of the place and then return to the Cheese Making Room to finish the cheese-making process …<\/p>\n
It’s already afternoon, we’re saying good-bye to Karen,<\/p>\n
We have a long way driving to Plymouth in the southwest of the island.<\/p>\n
See you in the next letter.<\/p>\n
yours<\/p>\n
Hanan Hagaban<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Driving on the A44, downhill on a country road, everything is calm and peaceful. Suddenly an old church on the left side of the road, the vehicle turns right and enters a farm. In front of a country house built of red bricks, a beautiful garden with stunning blooming flowers in the house front. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n