montanaseniornews.com TAKE ONE! FREE! Sue Cummings Has Taken A Cheesemaker’s Journey
Article and photo by Gail Jokerst; gailjokerst.com Like many of today’s grandparents, Sue Cummings has a Facebook page and grandchildren she adores. But unlike many of those same grandparents, she does not post photos of her progeny on Facebook. Instead, you will find pictures of something else that gives Sue almost as much joy as those five
little Cummings, her homemade cheese. “After I take the cheeses out of their molds, I am so excited by how they look and what they’re going to taste like, I take pictures to share with friends and family,” admits Sue. This Kalispell native still lives on the farmland where she grew up and where meals consisted of food raised by her father or made from scratch by her mother. Sue’s path to artisan cheesemaker began with her first taste of fresh goat’s milk some eight years ago. It was love at first sip. She appreciated everything about the slightly sweet, creamy milk including the fact that nature delivers it pre-homogenized. “I liked it way better than cow’s milk and decided to get my own goats just for the milk. I realized I’d have more milk than I could deal with and that I’d need to make yogurt,” recalls Sue. That, however, posed no problems since she happens to crave yogurt the way some folks do chocolate. “You can buy goat’s milk,” she adds, “but compared to raw it tastes terrible.” Although cheesemaking never entered into her original decision, Sue figured correctly, even before bringing home three Nubian goats that she would still have an abundance of post–yogurt milk. And what better to make than cheese, another highly rated favorite food. Initially, Sue and her husband Steve planned to buy young goats and raise them over a period of 18 months. That would have given them time gradually to learn how to care for their little herd. However, that plan changed the day they received an emergency phone call from the woman selling them their goats. “Her two adult does and a doeling needed an immediate home, as in ‘come and get them today.’ There was no time to wait for babies,” remembers Sue. “We had to take all three right away.” (Continued on page 29)