Garlic chicken parmesan sandwiches

Hope you will love this recipe as much as we did! A few nights ago we decided to try some garlic chicken parmesan sandwiches and boy, they were a huge succes!
 

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound refrigerated pizza dough, sat at room temperature for 30 minutes
• ½ cup olive oil, divided
• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in half crosswise to create a total of 4 thin chicken slices
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• ½ cup flour
• 3 cups seasoned Italian breadcrumbs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup marinara sauce, plus more to serve
• 6 slices mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese, divided
• 8 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Intructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
On a smooth surface, cut the pizza dough into 3 equal-sized pieces. If your dough is sticking too much to the rolling surface, very lightly sprinkle the surface with flour. Roll the dough into long, even ropes, about 1.5 to 2 feet long. Tie each rope in a figure-8 knot and transfer to the prepared baking sheet, gently pulling at the ends to create a longer, thinner knot. Brush with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap for 20 minutes.
Bake until cooked through and just beginning to turn golden on top, about 22-25 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the chicken. Season the chicken slices with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Pour the flour and breadcrumbs into two additional, separate bowls. Dip the chicken pieces, one at a time, into the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs, patting and turning to adhere. Then, set the chicken aside on a large plate. Continue until all of the chicken has been breaded.
Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the chicken in batches and cook until the chicken is browned and cooked through, about 3-4 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a paper towel lined plate to absorb excess oil.
Carefully slice the baked bread knots in half, crosswise. Working spoon marinara sauce on the bottom of each bread knot half. Then, place a chicken cutlet on top. You will have one extra chicken cutlet, which you can use to double-up a sandwich or you can save for leftovers. Top the chicken cutlets with additional marinara. Place two slices of mozzarella cheese on each sandwich, and then sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Cover with the top bread knot halves and transfer back to the oven until warmed through and the cheese has melted, about 5 minutes.
While the sandwiches bake, make the garlic oil. In a small, microwave safe bowl, combine the garlic, remaining olive oil, and butter. Cover loosely and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, cover, and microwave again for 15 seconds, or until melted. Mix in the chopped parsley.
Brush the sandwiches generously with the garlic oil mixture, making sure to scoop the garlic pieces with the pastry brush and dab them on the knots. Serve warm with additional marinara.
 

Recipe from here http://hostthetoast.com/garlic-knot-chicken-parmesan-sandwiches/

Kitchen arrival

It’s here!  It’s here!  My kitchen equipment is finally here!!!

After weeks of waiting, weeks of delays, filling out paperwork and refilling out paper work (again and again), my production facility equipment has finally arrived!  It was like Christmas day, only better!

Every day I would send a message to Troy asking for my daily update on where it was and how it was going. Hoping that his return message would say delivery tomorrow.  And it finally happened.  On Wednesday, 1 March, I got the message that the container had cleared the border and would probably be delivered the next day.  On Thursday, I got the call that the container would be leaving for the farm in 30 minutes... uh, ok. I’m out delivering cheese!!  Can you give me a ride and are you sure 30 minutes cuz that’s what I need to finish deliveries!  Yup!

I place my call to Susie and let her know the good news, only to have her tell me, “Right.  I’ve already informed everyone that delivery wouldn’t be today.”  Time to re rally the troops! Unfortunately, Sone, our contractor is away for the weekend so even though my things are coming nothing will be happening with it all until Monday.  Uuuugggghhhhhhh!!!  

So, Troy picks me up and we go to the junction of Kuang Si Road at the radio station to wait for the container truck.  I am so excited, I’m practically bouncing. 30 minutes later, there they are!  We hop in another truck and lead them out to the farm, but because of the road and how fast the truck can go, we beat them by about 20 minutes out to the farm.

Just as I decide to stop standing around at the kitchen door, anxiously waiting, and go wander over to see the buffalo babies, I hear a series of honks.  And they sound like big truck honks.  There it is!!  The truck has just come around the corner…..and now the fun begins.  

Just picture this: there’s a 20’ container on top of an 18 wheeler driving down a narrow twisty road and now he has to make a 120* turn into the farm.  Riiiiggghhhhtttt……  Oh yeah, and watch out for the electrical wires that hang low over the entrance!  The decision is made that it would be easier to back in the truck instead of pulling in.  So he pulls ahead of the gate and about 5 of our team members run out to the road to try and stop traffic.  I say try, because generally in Laos when a vehicle is trying to back out of a spot on to a busy road everyone just drives around the vehicle backing up without a care in the world!  Amazingly enough they seem to respect the enormous truck trying to back in enough to stop and watch.

Twenty minutes later, after a few attempts of back and forth, the driver manages to do it.  And after he pulls in, Susie comes up to me and said that one of the Expat Locals who lives in the area was driving by and stopped and asked her when could he pop in and buy cheese.  Susie’s response, “ See that container?  That’s the kitchen so the timing just got closer!”  Yay!

And now it’s time!  Back that puppy up to the kitchen door and let’s get tucked into it!  The first thing off is a 350 kilo oven for someone else.  Boy is that sucker big!  Luckily, there is a crane truck with us as well and off comes the oven onto another truck.  Behind it, it’s mine!  All mine!  Well, almost all mine.  There are some things in the shipment that belong to other restaurants.  (I will secretly admit that I was actually jumping up and down at points and clapping my hands in happiness.  I hope THAT didn’t get on video!)

There are about 10 people unloading the truck so it is a bit chaotic!  Things are going this way and things are going that way…  All of my stainless steel counters are flat packed so they will all need to be put together.  The dishwasher and the oven come off in big wooden boxes.  I can’t even open the boxes to pet my oven!  Sniff, sniff.  I’m going to have to wait until Monday when Sone comes to install it all.  Luckily the counters are like Ikea put togethers (not really) but they shouldn’t be hard to do.

There are still a few things left to do in the kitchen…  Electricity needs to be placed above the doors so we can install the pest exterminators, the floors need to have holes cut out for the gutter pans, and electricity needs to be placed where the oven goes for my electric oven.  My hope is that all of that, plus putting together all of the counters will take a week.  Then we can order gas and I can get cooking!

There are few keys things that were missing from the order, like my industrial fridges and the industrial freezer, plus my industrial mixer, but mostly everything else is there.  On the flip side, I’ve just gotten the call that the fridges are ready to ship so maybe they will arrive at the same time as rest of the kitchen is put together.

Stay tuned for more farm life activities and excitement!!!

Ricotta Cake with Fresh Mulberry Sauce Recipe

So Rachel made a cake and it was so delicious that we almost forgot to take a picture!

And because we loved it so much, we decided to put it on the blog also! This it too good not to be shared with the world!

Ingredients for the cake:

188 grams softened butter
150 grams sugar
1 tablespoon lemon/lime zest
2 tablespoons lemon/lime juice
3 large eggs, separated
226 grams ricotta
89 grams flour
8 grams baking powder
dash of salt

Topping:

300 grams mulberries
100 grams sugar
100 grams water

Cooking the cake:

Preheat oven to 325* F/ 163*C.
Lightly grease and flour an 8” spring form pan.
Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.
Add lemon/lime zest, juice, egg yolks and ricotta cheese and beat until smooth.
Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and beat into the butter mixture until just combined.
Wash your beaters well and then beat the egg whites in a spate bowl until stiff peaks.
Gently fold egg whites into the batter then spoon the batter into your prepared pan.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until cake tester comes stuck into the center comes out clean.
Allow to cool to room temperature before serving.

Cooking the topping: 

Put ¾ of the mulberries, sugar and water into a thick bottomed pan and boil until sugar is dissolved and mixture becomes syrupy.  
Add the rest of the mulberries in and cook for further 10 minutes just to soften berries but keep their form.

Evenly spread mixture over cake when cooled.

And most of all, ENJOY!

How to use our mozzarella - Deep Dish Pizza Bites

Here is some inspiration on how to use fresh delicious mozzarella! As ingredients you need:

• Premade pizza dough

• ¾ cup shredded mozzarella

• ¾ cup tomato sauce

• 10-12 pepperoni slices

Watch the video here.

How do you cook it?

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Thinly roll out the pizza dough, and use a cookie cutter to form dough rounds.

2. Grease a muffin tin and press the dough rounds into the tin to form cups.

3. Sprinkle a layer of cheese into each cup, top with a slice or two of pepperoni, and spoon in tomato sauce.

4. Top with a little more cheese and mini pepperoni cuts, if desired.

5. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the crust is browned.

The president is coming! The president is coming!

Ok, ok, he’s the ex-president of Laos, but still!

On 7 December 2016, the Ex-President of Laos, Choummaly Sayasone, came to visit our dairy.  How much warning do you get when a dignitary of this level comes to visit?  Not much!  The week before we were informed that he would be coming at the end of the next week.  Great!  Susie was going to Bangkok for a few days, planning to return on Wednesday, so the end of the week would be good. But difficult.  Since I needed to feed him and his entourage, I needed to know how many people to make product for.  My answer? 25-30 people.  No problem!  I can do that easily. 

With Susie away for a few days, the guesthouse falls solely on my shoulders.  What does that mean in terms of cheese making?  Not much gets done.  Most of my day is spent at the guesthouse and by the time I get home I don’t have the hours needed to make cheese before the kids get home, dinner needs to be made and kids need to be given attention to and fed.  

So, let’s get a jump start on things.  As I knew she was leaving soon, I did my best to make as much product in preparation as I could.  But not knowing exactly when he was coming made that hard because you want everything to be as fresh as possible.  Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the people of Luang Prabang who want to buy the products.  As people started calling and wanting to place orders I had to start warning them that they might be able to have bits and pieces but no large orders as I needed to feed the president, I just didn’t know when.

As the days passed, we all went on about our business, doing what needed to be done, and waiting patiently for the call.  Steven started working to get the farm into ship shape.  I made cheese and Susie ran the business.  Finally came the time for Susie to leave us for a few days and go to Bangkok to work on getting some much needed equipment straightened out, and still the call hasn’t come about when our special visitor will arrive.

The not knowing can make you really nervous!  The weekend has passed and Monday rolls around…. Susie is away, Steven is at the farm and I’m playing the social director of Merry 1.  As I’m sitting at the desk, taking a moment to breath after breakfast service is done, guests have checked out, map tours have been given and everyone seems to have happily gone on with their day, the phone rings. 

“Hey Steven, what’s up?”  I say.
“Ah, well, the call has come and the ex president will be here on Wednesday,” Steven says.
“Wait, what? You mean, as in 2 days from now????? (insert many expletives here!) And Susie isn’t even here??  Do we know what time they are planning to arrive?”
“They think he will be to us between 1 and 2 pm and stay about an hour. Oh and the liaison says we should have our own photographers out there too.,” he says.
“That’s great.  Susie is supposed to land around 12:40, right?  She’ll barely make it for the end!! Crap! Ok, I’m leaving the guesthouse shortly and going home to cook I guess!”

Photographers???  Where do we get some of those???  Well, after a few calls around, a couple of my friends decide they will come help.  Thank you Julien and Alex for being available to come join our crazy exciting chaos and take some fantastic pictures of the day for us!

So, what’s on the menu for the Ex-President?  Well, we decided we would go all out.  We would have tomato mozzarella slices with olive oil and pesto, yogurt, baked tomatoes stuffed with ricotta, chocolate milk shots, ricotta lime cake, cheesecake, Saffron coffee ice cream and basil ice cream.  Right.  Thank goodness I had done catering in Singapore!  I sat down and made my lists of each item that I was going to make and exactly what utensils I would need to pack and bring with me in order to cater this for 25+ people. It’s a long list….platters, serving utensils, knives and everything else you can think of!  (I can’t wait until the kitchen production facility is built and up and running so I can have everything onsite that I need!)

On top of all of this excitement, my mom is in town.  So mom, wanna come meet the pres?  Uh, well, yeah!  

Skip ahead to the day of…..  It’s a nerve-wracking day… Get the kids up and out for school and then start packing up all my utensils and all the food.  It’s 11am and Alex and Julien arrive at the house along with the ever-faithful Mr. Thon, our tuk tuk driver, and we pack everything into the tuk tuk to start the day’s journey.  Mom stays behind to wait for Susie to arrive and come out by car.

Once out at the farm we take a moment to survey all the hard work Steven and the team have done to get the farm as ready as possible – but that’s his story to tell so I’ll let him share that.  It’s looking great though!  And so much more has been built since the last time I was out – I only get out about once a month right now.  Once I see where the set up will be, I get all of my stuff set so I can make my pretty platters of cheesy goodness. But, it’s too early to start putting anything together.

Hey, does anyone know if we can actually get a phone call from someone in the entourage to let us know when they will be leaving the stop before us and heading our way?  We are dealing with produce that spoils here people! Well, that would be nice, but, um, no.  And why you might ask?  Because no one seems to have the phone number of anyone traveling with the president.  How is that possible????

So, onward and upward we go.  I rearrange the fridge so I can plate as much as possible but still keep it cold.  Cakes are platted, mozzarella is sliced and seasoned, chocolate milk is dished out into cups, and the table is set with napkins, plates and spoon.

People start to arrive, but not from the presidents traveling party.  We are graced with a high school class from the local village, some military or police type people and a variety of others. But we really have no idea who they are.  But, still no Susie.  It appears Susie’s flight is delayed. Oh no!  What else can go wrong????

All of a sudden we notice a police escort entourage going down the road….could it be…..are they really here?  It’s about 5 cars all together…..but, no.  they drive right past.  Steven and I debate whether or not it is them and they have just passed us because they are unsure of where they are going.  But, truly, no, it is not them.  (Oh silly us!!!!  A 5 car entourage for the ex president???? Ha!  Laughable!)  

Somehow, someone calls one of the team that is here waiting for the pres to show up and we are told, he’s 10 minutes away.  Nope false alarm!  This happens about 4 times and all the while we are desperately calling Susie and trying to see where she is.  After pushing her way off the plane, whisking her mum away and through immigration, racing home at top speed, picking up my mum and changing, Susie finally arrives (but that is her story to tell so I’ll let her embellish it herself).  Thank goodness!

Now that Susie is here, Steven and I relax a bit.  Well, at least with the relief that we won’t have to do all of the talking now!  We get the alarm that the pres is 10 minutes away probably 5 more times and finally, his advance guard arrives.  In true Laos style, the president is finally coming to see us, but about 2 and ½ hours later than we expected, which in the end is a blessing in disguise because now Susie is here for the whole thing!

The advisor to the president makes us line up in the sun at the entrance to wait for him.  Susie and I have 2 beautiful bouquets of flowers to present to the pres and his wife.  (While they are beautiful, they weigh about 15 pounds each!)  Susie and I have spent about a ½ hour practicing how to say their names, nervous that we will mess then up when we greet them and hand the flowers over.  So we wait in line, in the sun….  Nope, no president yet.  Being as fair skinned as we are, Susie and I decide waiting in the sun can only make us look like lobsters and we choose to go back to the shelter to wait.  Steven and some of the staff go to one of the buffalo “umbrellas” and have a seat in the shade.  And everyone else generally breaks up into groups going this way and that.

We gather and retreat to shade probably 5 times as the call goes out over and over that the president is coming around the bend.  Finally, the first police vehicle goes by and the president is finally here!  (And it’s laughable that he would show up with the measly 5 vehicles we saw earlier!)  There must be about 15 cars and what amounts to be about 60 people!!!

As I look at the crowd, I have a freak out moment; at least 60 people!  I was told 25-30.  I silently wrack my brain to try and figure out of I can make it all stretch.  Yeah well, that’s a bit of a stretch!  At this point it is what it is.  Luckily, no one will eat before the president and his wife!  But we are happy to see that we also have the Governor and Deputy Governor of Luang Prabang here, along with a whole bunch of media.

As Susie starts to take them on a tour of the mini farm setup, I veer off and go set up the food in what will be our new milking shed.  We have a table very nicely lined up with all of the food and signs written in English and Laos with what we are serving today.  And now I wait for my part.  As I stand there and watch the mass of people come toward me and the food, I think it is exciting but yet a bit overwhelming.

Now it’s my turn to do the talking.  I introduce our food and answer some questions.  It’s interesting to watch the reactions on their faces as they try the products.  One of new favorites is Basil Ice Cream, but we can see that it takes a bit of thought for them to decide whether or not they like it.  The yogurt is a big hit.  So big that Mrs. Sayasone actually takes a few and put them away in her purse for later.

And finally it is time to sit and have a chat with them all.  Mr. Sayasone is very happy to sit with us and discuss the fact that he thinks what we are doing is going to be a wonderful thing for both the Laos people and the country as a whole.  He tells us that he supports us and that he and the governor are very happy to help in any way possible to get our business up and running fully.

Well, if that isn’t a golden ticket to happiness, I don’t know what it!!!

Stay tuned for Susie and Steven’s renditions of the ex President’s visit and the days leading up to it!

Buffalo Selfies

Life at the farm has some nice perks! One of them is having so many cute animals around us all the time!

Since July lots of selfies were taken so we decided this should be a trend. So many types of selfies out there, none of them with a buffalo? 

The initiator was definitely Stephen, who took the 1st buffalo selfie on our first milking day! You can read all about our adventure with milking the buffalo here.

The crew jumped in, of course!

Our fist buffalo selfie

Buffalo baby kisses!!!

Matt's Buffalo Selfie

And along the way more and more people started taking a #buffaloselfie.

Alex from white elephant adventure

Dana McDaniel from Wappinger Falls, NY, USA

Jan McDaniel from Prior Lake , Minnesota

Susan Elman. From Wappinger Falls, NY, USA.

Julien Faloppa From Clawson, Michigan

So if you visit Luang Prabang don't forget to drop us a visit, take a selfie and use the hashtag #buffaloselfie! 
Well, to be honest, the most important thing is have a nice afternoon, play with our calves and enjoy our delicious dairy products!

Thank you for following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Laos Buffalo Dairy – Meet the Neighbours and Fact Finding tour!

So what happens when you want to start a dairy but have very limited experience?  You try and find as many people as you can, to help you get off the ground!

We were extremely lucky to find a buffalo dairy just outside of Bangkok, Thailand with a wonderful owner by the name of Runchuan, who owns Murrah Buffalo Dairy, to take us around her farm and answer any and all questions that we had. Our trip was set up by Somsak, from Dairyinterline in Bangkok and he played tour guide and translator for us. This was actually Somsak’s first time meeting Runchuan as well.

The dairy is situated about 2 hours outside of Bangkok, so Somsak met Steven and I at our hotel at 9:30am and drove us out. Slowly, thru morning traffic, we managed to leave behind the hustle and bustle of the city life and it became a little more country-like the further we traveled. Somsak treated us to lunch in a little village not far from the dairy since we were a bit early and afterward a coffee at a little local shop. All the while, discussing with Steven plans we had made for the milking and cow shed designs.

After a deliciously filling lunch of local Thai food, off we went again to find the dairy. At this point we were only about 30 minutes away.

In we drive, to fields on our left and fields on our right growing grasses that we can only guess are meant for the buffalo. Finally we come to an opening and see a big house up ahead. As we get out of the car, a woman walks out of the house and approaches us. This is Runchuan. She apologizes almost immediately in Thai to tell us that she doesn't speak English and she will need Somsak to be her translator. Steven and I apologize right back that we don't speak Thai. And then she tells us that we have come at the right time as the afternoon milking will start soon.

We wander down a dirt road leading away from the main building and all of a sudden the view opens up and there are lots of buildings to house buffalo. Runchuan is working with about 400 ria of land and she has about 200 buffalo but only 60 are currently being milked.

As we walk further in, we come to the first pen which holds about 30-40 buffalo and has a nice big wading pond for them to enjoy. Only non-milking buffalo are afforded a wading pool, as you don't want any contamination for the milking buffalo. The structures she has built are very rudimentary but they are very functional. Being in an area where the weather doesn't get very cold or snowy, there is no need for walls in the winter, so the structures are basically metal posts, concrete and dirt floors and a roof made out of corrugated tin. The water troughs are large and made from concrete and have pipes leading out of them so they can be drained and cleaned as needed.

We walk around the farm from pen to pen looking at all of the different buffalo and all of the sets ups. She has a mixture of swamp buffalo, Murrah buffalo and a few other types that she cross breeds. Interestingly, we find out that it takes 3 generations for the horns of the swamp buffalo to curl in (and become less of a hazard to humans when you are trying to move around the buffalo! :-P). This is an important piece of information for us to have as the majority of the buffalo we will have in the beginning will be swamp buffalo and we are cross breeding them with Murrah.

Finally, we walk on and find the pens that have the milking buffalo in them and along side them we see the babies!  And as we walk up I have to laugh because right in the middle of the pathway is a playpen set up with a few babies in it. I turn to Steven and giggle and say, “I had a playpen just like that for my kids when they were little! I never thought I'd see buffalo calves in a pen like that.”

We stand here for quite a while as there are a good many things to see at this juncture. Runchuan tells us that even with all of the land she has, she is unable to grow all of the fresh grass herself that she needs to supply the number of buffalo she has so she uses a dried mix. In front of us there are large plastic barrels that hold the mixture and a conversation ensues between Somsack, Runchuan and Steven about what she uses and how she stores it. As this is outside my purview, I wander over to the babies and stroke a few noses and take some pictures. They are very cute in a bouncy sort of way and remind me of my youngest child with their bounciness.

I watch as the milking mothers are led into the milking area.  They seem to be happy following each other right up the ramp, head to bum, all the way. Runchuan tells us that since these mothers don't get a wallowing pond they get a nice long bath before being milked. Her system is set up so that there is a shower that comes down on each buffalo as they stand in line and another that sprays from the bottom up. As they stand there in the shower, a farm hand walks around them with a hose and hoses them down even further.

As we walk through the center of the building, we look at the ramp and structure that the buffalo have come up. It is basically a horseshoe shaped structure that allows for the first batch of buffalo to come in to be showered and then a gate is opened for those buffalo to continue to walk through to the next gate which stops them in the milking area. Here also, the buffalo stand head to bum in a line, on just a slight angle. This system is called a herringbone system. The buffalo are up on a platform and there is a trench dug on the outside so the workers can stand and easily attach the milking machines to each buffalo. In this system it takes 15-30 minutes to milk 20 buffalo at a time, depending on how cooperative the buffalo are being.

Runchuan has 5 or 6 men attending the buffalo on the milking side. They give a final clean to the udders of each cow, make sure the cups stay attached, tie down legs where necessary if a buffalo gets feisty and tries to knock off the cups, and collect the milk. The milk is collected in plastic buckets and wheeled over to the “boss”, a woman who sits at a table above them with a clipboard and a scale. Each bucket is emptied thru a sieve into another bucket on a scale. The men tell the woman which buffalo it is and she records the amount of milk at each milking each day. Then she pours the milk from that bucket into a big milking urn.

After watching the milking process, we went back up to the main house where Runchuan had had a table set for us so we could try some of her products. She gave us some warm buffalo milk to try as well as mozzarella and a butter that she has been trying to develop. They were all very tasty treats for the afternoon.

After these treats, Runchuan asked us if we wanted to go out and see her tourist part of the farm. Of course we said yes!  About 40 minutes from the actual farm, she has a beautiful site. At her other site, she has ducks and chickens, bunnies, goats and pigs and most of all, she has buffalo!

School trips and the general public can go in and see the Baby buffalo and some mums as well. She also has a restaurant set up too. She gave us some of her soft serve buffalo ice cream and I got to make a pizza. She does classes for kids and adults here using her cheeses and milk. Inside the restaurant is a gift shop where you can not only buy her cheeses and milk but you can also buy buffalo-y gifts. She also has a line of skin care products that she sends her milk out to be turned in to. If her products are anything like the feel of our milk on the skin, I'm sure they are a huge success!

All in all it was a great day. Very informative and lots of fun (and filling!). It's definitely a place we need to go back and take the kids next time. I'm sure they will love it!

Lights, camera, action

The phone rings and Lathsavong, Dairy Manager announces that the government would like to come and visit the Dairy tomorrow.  In Laos there can be a fair amount of government bureaucracy to satisfy with any business let alone a new industry, so not quite understanding the harassed quality to Lathsavong voice I ask what time they’re due to arrive, thankfully it’s tomorrow afternoon. We have the career fair at the Northern College of Agriculture starting at 8 am tomorrow but if we leave at lunchtime we should be able to make it the 90 mins over to the farm in time for their arrival. So unconcerned am I, that Steven, the Dairy General Manager is having a well earnt day off the next day and asks if he should attend.  No, No that won’t be necessary!
The career fair goes well (see Mobbed by the Crowd) and we start our journey across town with a quick stop off to pick up more yogurt and cheesecake having been cleared out at the career fair.  Arrive 90 mins later, set up a table with some information on the Dairy and some product ready to go.  The night before had seen torrential rain so whilst waiting for government we decide to help clear out the storeroom which had seen some water get in and unable to help myself, I proceed to re-arrange it.  We have printed out signs in English & Laos to keep everything in its proper place, so that my mild case of OCD is satisfied. Job done, we now wait to see what time our visitors will arrive.
A few minutes later we hear cars approaching along the road and a convoy of cars complete with police escort passes the gates.  We go to sit down again, however as we go to turn I notice the police escort do a U-Turn followed by the rest of the convoy, I say to Jennifer I think they may be coming back to us. Jennifer laughs no it couldn’t be ohhh it is, they are turning into the gate. A definite pregnant pause as we all look at one another with a “What do we do now?” expression across all of our faces. 
At this moment all I can think is: thank goodness we had the career fair earlier in the morning so I am wearing my “Sin” traditional Laos skirt and good shirt as opposed to my usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt.
I, Lathsavong & Lam all line up – think receiving line at an event with the Queen or equivalent! The rest of the team all looking slightly nonplussed pause in whatever they are doing to see what they should do next.  Very good question as we’re not quite what sure to expect at this point either. 
The cars have now driven up our very muddy road and begin to disgorge their guests. We have the official staff of the Lao National Council, Livestock & Fisheries department, Luang Prabang Agriculture and Forestry; the Chief of Luang Prabang Livestock and Fisheries, Mr. Kanchan and then our guest of honour Deputy Director Lao National Council, Mr. Sounthone. Greetings alone take a good 5 minutes particularly as none of us are really very sure on the protocol of greeting this many people from the government!  
The only “meeting spot” we have is a low table with tiny stools that the staff use when having lunch. Greetings over, we gather around the table, some on stools, some sitting on the railings and some standing, it’s quite a crowd! Lathsavong begins with a formal introduction of himself, me and the rest of the team, this could take quite a while!  It then moves on to a laptop presentation with me holding the laptop so everyone can see. The noisiest things by far are the chickens who have decided that running around between everyone’s legs and under the tables is great sport – definitely going to be chicken soup at this rate! 

Then proceedings pick up pace and it’s a whirl of activity as we head towards the milking area. Many questions and quite a few jokes ensue as we discuss milking and udders.  The word for milk and breast are the same in Laos, so quite a few guffaws all around as our husband and wife team Boon Soon and Saw step us to begin the milking with Boon Soon being asked about touching boobs with his wife in the vicinity.

Next comes feeding our baby calves. The cuteness factor never fails and we soon have everyone jostling for a turn to hold the bottles. Then it’s on to taste testing the yogurt and cheesecake. 

A few days later, there was another call from Lathsavong. Being “old pro’s” now we spring into action and have everything ready and everyone lined up for our next visitors.  Dr. Bounkhuang KHAMBOUNHEUNG, the deputy minister of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Luang Prabang province is our guest of honour today and have to admit it never gets old when your visitor has a police escort!  He is also companied by various staff from the ministry and today not only do we have photographers we have TV.  Sure enough after this visit we appear on the Laos News channel. One of our friends even took a photo of his TV screen to show us!

There is however a serious side and the government from both visits are very keen to understand more about the dairy and how everything works; the involvement of the farmers buffalo, how we will look after the buffalo and most importantly are very keen to know how they can help.  It’s becoming apparent that they see our business as the beginning of a sustainable industry filling a real need in the market for dairy products that will also assist the local farmers through additional income, conserve buffalo and provide another attraction for tourists along the Kuang Si Waterfall road thus extending their time in Luang Prabang and helping to increase the average spend of tourists in the city.

Mobbed by the crowd

It all started innocently enough, a visit to the Northern Agriculture & Forestry College about 45 mins north of Luang Prabang to discuss partnering with the College for research & training purposes with their students. For an Agricultural College surely 200 buffalo being used for the 1 st dairy in Laos must be of interest!

Sure enough there was a great deal of interest, in fact the College currently has buffalo on one of its many farms and they were quite keen to discuss moving them to our farm so they could have a larger herd size to study.

Then we started to learn more about the College and the types of programmes they offered, in particular;    

• Agronomy – soil management and crop production
• Livestock & Fishery – animal husbandry, breeding and vet science
• Food Production – micro finance, marketing & agricultural products processing

And that in a few days’ time there would be graduation for those students who had finished the 3 year courses.

Would we be interested in attending the College Job Day so students could learn more about Laos Buffalo Dairy and perhaps we could find graduates interested to work with us?

Considering we have 20 hectares of land to grow grass for buffalo, 200 buffalo due to arrive by November and a kitchen being built to produce delicious cheese and yogurt, students who had respectively studied; agrimony, livestock and food production seem to fit the bill perfectly!

Of course we would love to attend, what did we need to prepare? Nothing to complex just; a sign up sheet for students – buy clipboards & don’t forget pens, power point presentation in Laos, projector (find projector), some of our delicious food – yogurt & cheesecake, necessary serving implements…

Then the question “how many students would be attending?” A few hundred, oh ok 1 cheesecake may not be enough – quick call to the chef who was actually flying to HK the next day – “please make a few more cheesecake”, Chef -“How Many” oh just a few hundred mini- cheesecakes! Chef – “insert expletive here” and as pushing my luck anyway, “please make a strawberry compote to accompany the yogurt”. Chef – well I’m sure you can guess what goes here!

Food now taken care of we run around in the two remaining days to put together the rest of our list. Day dawns and I literally mean up at crack of dawn. Coolers for the 12 litres of yogurt, compote and cheesecake, tablecloths, plates, spoons, power boards, back up computers, your basic pack mule scenario! Then off on the 45 min tuk tuk ride, stop for ice, warm yogurt not quite so delicious!

Arrive to find we have prime spot opposite the stage and graduate presentation area. Set everything up and then realise it’s too bright so impossible to see the presentation. Unpack table again move to another spot in the back row and re-set table up. At least we know where everything goes – go 10 rounds with the borrowed projector which belongs to our French friends – practice my school girl French with technical equipment – Yeah…

Then the fun began, students started arriving from their dormitories en masse, a sea of white and orange (teachers & administrators) shirts swelled towards the booths and us. Food always a draw, we have wave after wave of students keen to learn about this strange new business in Luang Prabang and try some new foreign food. Yogurt and cheesecake not featuring high in the Laos diet! The sweeter cheesecake went down a treat although there were a few grimaces for first time natural yogurt eaters, at which point we added some strawberry compote and the grimaces generally turned to smiles. It’s now only 10.00am and we start to run out of mini-bowls, Link goes for a quick jog to a little shop 10 mins away to buy more.

A moment of calm to wander around and see some of the other companies participating. Our friends from Blue Lagoon Restaurant, Luang Prabang View Hotel, The Living Land Company, Indigo Farm & Helvetas.

We even manage a few interviews with prospective employees one of whom, Bee goes on to receive an award later in the day and is now working for Laos Buffalo Dairy! We now have 2 graduates Bee & Khamlee working with us at Laos Buffalo Dairy and more soon to join.

As lunch begins we hand out our last cheesecake and 12 litres of yogurt have been consumed, questions about Laos Buffalo Dairy answered and a significant list of job seekers names collected! Thanks to the College and Dr. Outhai for all their help and support in what will hopefully be the 1 st of many career days Laos Buffalo Dairy attends.

So that was the morning, now off to our farm 90 mins away for a government meeting we found out about yesterday but that’s the next blog post...

Buffalo Wrangling

It has been just over two weeks since our first buffalo arrived. This was the beginning of our “mini farm”. The idea of our mini farm was to start our first few months with 5 buffalo so that we could train our staff, perfect our recipes, and get the word out about our business while our main farm gets built.

After all the excitement of getting our business started and getting our first buffalo, we still could not have imagined what we were in for once we got going.

Getting our second buffalo was almost as hard as the first, but for an entirely different reason. One family in Muang Khay Village (where our dairy is) had always said they would like to rent us their buffalo, but that they wanted to be the second family just to make sure that other people were joining as well. Naturally, once we got the first buffalo, we called this buffalo owner and told him that he would now be second. He came and saw our farm, signed the rental contract and brought us the buffalo. The very next day, we went out to start milking our 2 buffalo to find that there was only 1 there again. We found out that the man’s wife had arrived and taken her buffalo back because she did not know about our company. We quickly backed away as the family quarrel started to rage. Thankfully, once we had a few more buffalo, the wife agreed and they brought their buffalo back together (and she is one of our best milking buffalo!).

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The joy of a milking buffalo

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The calm amidst the craziness

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Chief of Thin Keo Village with his buffalo rental agreement

Before we could have any doubts about how hospitable our land is, we learned the need to keep other buffalo off of our land. As we store our quality feed and are implementing strict health standards for our buffalo, it is imperative that no other buffalo comes on our land to steal the feed or cause any contamination. On one day, we had staff at one gate bringing in one of our new buffalo, while other staff members were chasing about 10 buffalo off of our land at the other gate. We have painfully discovered each weak fence post and every fence wire that was too short. Admittedly, it has been a useful sales pitch to buffalo owners that their buffalo literally can’t resist coming into our farm!

Part of the procedure of learning to milk buffalo includes separating the babies from their mothers and feeding the calves milk concentrate and roughage. We got adorable calf feeding bottles from a dairy in Bangkok and taught our staff how to make the concentrate. Our first day was a little pathetic, as two of our staff tried to feed the baby buffalo a bottle, while the calf ran away. After a bit of research that night, we realized we would have to be a little more aggressive. Our research said to try and straddle the calf and use one arm to turn the head back and the other to put the bottle in the mouth. After drawing straws of who had to do it, we sent our first staff member in, who basically tried to straddle the cow and was immediately thrown off. We slowly added more staff members until there was 4 people trying to hold the buffalo still while one person poured the milk in. 

We had always known it was better to get the calves young, as it means more milk in the mothers and that it is easier to train the calves to drink from the bottle. We have officially learned that lesson the hard way, as our first two buffalo calves were already a month old. However, now these two easily take the bottle from just one staff, and drink it twice per day! It was that much easier to put the next three calves on the bottle, as they were much younger (and cuter!). Raising buffalo is just like raising dogs – well, except when they’re like buffalo.

So many trying lessons (and laughs and photos) to get us prepared for the big farm! 

Success! The milk is flowing...

July 18, 2016 was a very exciting day for Laos Buffalo Dairy. After a long year doing all the necessary preparation (getting licenses, renting land, preparing land, sourcing buffalo, getting more licenses etc), we hit a monumental moment: The arrival of our first buffalo! 

We met a man several months ago in Kok Mun Village, named Mr. Bing. Despite some people in his village feeling unsure about what our company was doing, Tao Bing said to us: “My people love to follow an example. I will be the example for you.” 

Mr. Bing’s buffalo was a little wild. It took 5 of our staff 3 days of running around the Mekong riverbank to catch her. 

We were all thrilled to welcome the very first buffalo to Laos Buffalo Dairy. We had not milked a buffalo in over a year, since June 2016 for our trial! The very next day, Susie, Steven, Rachel, Lathsavong, Lam, Jennifer and Link all went out to the farm and joined Boun Soun and Saw, two of our farm staff, for the first try. 

It took a few attempts to fit the buffalo into the crush (a few pieces of wood were removed and re-nailed). She was a little sensitive at first, but within a few minutes she was perfectly comfortable with our staff and let us try milking. 

We taught our staff how to properly clean the teats and how to attach the milking machine. There were a few tense moments, as the machine was on and no milk was coming – and then there was cheering! Our very first buffalo on our very first day gave us our very first milk! 

Each day we’re getting more milk and we are eager to see how this number increases further, as we begin milking twice per day and start getting many more buffalo. Most of all, we can’t wait to try our first piece of cheese, to be made any day now!

It was even more of an adventure trying to feed the calf for the first time – but we will have to save that story for next time! 

Getting started: Hello From Laos Buffalo Dairy!

We are very excited to share our adventure of opening up the first Buffalo Dairy in Laos with you! It has been an exciting process with every day a new challenge or surprise, and we are pleased to say that we are close to our launch! 

Our dairy will be located in Muang Khay Village (Ban Muang Khay in Lao language), right on the road to Kuang Si Waterfall! We have been getting everything ready to welcome our first buffalo – our first few will be arriving this week! 

We have over 4 hectares of land in Muang Khay. Our first job was to clean up the mess left behind by the previous renters – endless plastic garbage bags and tubes dug right into the ground. We had no idea what we were in for! 

It took us 5 days and over 15 staff in the heat of Laos in May (over 40°C/104°F) to collect all of the rubbish. Just look at how much garbage we collected on just the first day of work!! 

No need to worry, our sustainable and environmentally friendly business will look after the land much better! 

We are planning to post our farm and dairy updates here, as well as share the story of how we got to where we are, so please check back for more blog posts! 

- Laos Buffalo Dairy