New Travel Book: ‘The Year of the Goat’

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  08.02.07 | 10:41 AM ET

imageFull title: “The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese”

Authors: Margaret Hathaway, with photographs by Karl Schatz. Hathaway, according to the book’s Web site, “loves any combination of the following: reading, writing, cooking, napping, animal watching, traveling, making puppets, and being outdoors.” She also managed New York’s famed Magnolia Bakery. Schatz is “a photographer, picture editor, web designer, and journalist,” and the former online picture editor for Time Magazine. 

Released: August 1, 2007

Travel genre: Food narrative, cheese-and goat-based

Territory covered: The United States, 43 of them to be precise

Actual miles traveled for book: 41,409

Promo copy: “Many people dream of leaving the workday world for a life of simplicity and freedom, and Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz did just that. Feeling like something was missing from their city lives, the couple began to dream of an existence that was closer to the land and became captivated by the idea of themselves as… goat farmers. Realizing that they knew little about goats, and even less about farming, they gave themselves a year to explore the world of goats and decide if that was where they belonged…From the largest goat auction in Texas to a small Indiana dairy, from a Tennessee barbecue cook-off to a tasting session with New York’s premier maitre fromager, from Chicago’s famed Billy Goat Tavern to the rolling pastures of Northern California, the couple pursues all things goat. But readers beware: when it comes to goat cheese, it can be love at first bite.”

Critical verdict, Zagat-style: Hathaway tells the story with “a wicked humor that nicely balances the naked earnestness of the endeavor.” (Booklist) “Local-eating, slow-food activists will find much to chew on here” (Publishers Weekly), but it’s also a book “for anyone who’s ever imagined going back in time to a simpler life—or anyone who loves cheese.” (Entertainment Weekly)

Find it: Amazon. Powell’s. The Lyons Press.