CALIFORNIA


Dolly closes her eyes and tilts her head towards the sun as I gently brush her wiry, coffee-


coloured hair. After a few minutes, her knees buckle and she tumbles down to my feet.


Ngoro trots over, licking my hair with a flick of his lilac


tongue before changing his mind and chewing on my jumper. Patti joins us, nuzzling my neck with a wide, wet nose. Seconds later she slumps against my back, sliding to the hay-scattered ground with a soft thud. Soon, I’m buried in a heap of sleepy water buffalo


calves. The official collective noun for the creatures is ‘an obstinacy’, although ‘a cuddle’ seems more apt for this particular scenario. Their behaviour is a chemical reaction, explains Audrey Hitchcock Ramini, the owner of Ramini Mozzarella. When they’re happy, the decidedly dog-like bovines release oxytocin, sometimes called the ‘cuddle hormone’. First, their tails curl, then they drop to the ground in a blissful stupor. I’m not sure what’s most surprising: that water buffalo


are so absurdly affectionate, or that they exist in this part of the world at all. Perched high in the village of


52 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/FOOD-TRAVEL


Tomales, a few miles from the coast in Marin County, Ramini Mozzarella is part of a growing community of proudly eclectic artisan cheese producers in Northern California. Boutique creameries and farmsteads are scattered around the valleys and hillsides of what locals call the North Bay, stretching north from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, encompassing the counties of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. There’s Cowgirl Creamery, where triple-cream Mt


Tam — like the silkiest, creamiest brie — is made in a converted barn by Point Reyes National Seashore. The sea breezes blowing through the pastures here imbue the cheese with a delicious marine tang. At Bohemian Creamery, on a hilltop near Sebastopol,


Sonoma, Lisa Gottreich keeps a herd of Alpine dairy goats, blending their milk with sheep’s and cows’ to create cheeses threaded with wild blue rye moulds. Two


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