Say Cheese

The sprawling 22-acre farm is the perfect detox for the soul. And it begins with meeting the charming Khans. Mansoor Khan is the son of yesteryear’s ace filmmaker Nasir Hussain and first cousin to superstar Aamir Khan. He himself made four memorable films including Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander,before walking away from the glitz and glamour of it all,because his soul yearned for the wild outdoors. Six years after he quit Bollywood for Coonoor,Mansoor says his life is like a dream come true.

If there is a gourmand secretly residing inside you,this could be just what the doctor prescribed for your soul. And if gourmet cheese is what lights your fire,think no further than Tina’s quaint Swiss-style cheese room,where most mornings she can be found explaining the elaborate process of making artisan cheese to a motley crowd comprising housewives wanting to add zing to their dull kitchens,stressed-out IT professionals and single men who are deeply interested in culinary art. Cheese from the farm can’t get any fresher or more organic — the farm’s 11 Holstein and Jersey cows roam freely and are fed nothing but naturally-grown grass devoid of chemical fertilizers.

We took a day off inside the cheese room,going through the ropes of cheese making,a process that starts early morning with the double boiling of humungous quantities of milk,cooling it and measuring out just the right amount of culture,enzyme and vegetable or microbial rennet for the milk to coagulate. Tina’s own venture in the world of cheese was serendipitous. The former software programmer quit her job to look after her two small children when Mansoor made movies in Mumbai,setting up The Last Bite,a baking and patisserie business that was doing brisk business,till one day that came to an abrupt end. “Mansoor announced suddenly that he could not live in a big city anymore. He packed his bags ,took the car and our dog and set off to live in Coonoor,where the family owned a house. Once he was gone,the inevitable phone calls started,luring me to the hills with promises of a better life for us and the children,” recalls Tina. It was only after a whole year and that too after Mansoor held out the promise that she could set up a cheese-making unit that she relented and packed her bags. Since then,it has been a hard,but adventure-packed and fulfilling life,she says today,as she stands over a tray of cream cheese,adding a handful of dill and some garlic or a dash of pepper before rolling it into cylinders and popping it into the refrigerator,for next day’s breakfast.

Tina and her assistant Vinod make a variety of organic cheeses including gruyere,blue cheese,haloumi,colby,feta,gouda,smoked gouda,parmesan,cheddar,and monterey jack. And she does some great fusion stuff too — Indian Summer,a delicate cream cheese with a medley of Indian spices such as cumin and spicy Indian paprika,was a delicious change from the conventional stuff that is consumed in our homes and was a great accompaniment to the toast and eggs that the family’s very able cook,Deepak,treated us to every morning.

There are other hidden benefits of enrolling for Tina’s cheese class. In a corner of the kitchen lie a few iron weights that Tina uses regularly to squeeze the last bit of whey out of the curd (the solid part left after the milk coagulates). These are no ordinary weights though. They belong to Aamir Khan who carried them with him while on a visit and forgot all about them. Now,how is that for cheese with some star appeal?

At Acres Wild,I discovered the joy of having my time and mindspace to myself,lazing on the verandah of our cottage with hot cups of fragrant Nilgiri tea and catching up with my spouse. At Acres Wild,we reconnected over the shared joy of watching a rainbow form a breathtakingly beautiful frame over the mountain ranges,at the sight of a new-born calf suckling a well-endowed mother and revelled in the mild monsoon showers that caught us unawares as we strolled through the farm.

We discovered the innocence of our younger days and even the sight of a barking deer streaking across the mountain side or scores of early birds getting their worms were joyous sights for our jaded eyes. Mansoor,an engineer from Cornell and Massachusetts Institute of Technology,is also a believer in the natural way of life and so the farm’s inmates follow a holistic,eco-friendly and self-sustaining lifestyle,growing their own food organically,generating gobar gas from the manure to run a good part of their own home and the cheese-making unit and keeping tillage in the farm minimum.

I took a day tour of the farm with him one morning,fascinated as he explained the ecosystem of the farm,his efforts to increase bio-diversity and his simple belief that all of us can make a difference to the future of our children,by just small changes in our lifestyles. Mansoor is a favourite with schools from Bangalore ,Chennai and far-off Singapore,many of them sending their students for a stay,during the course of which the kids feed the cattle,milk them,help out with the gardening and so many of the other things that city children don’t even know exist.

The Khans live in a lovely old-style cottage on the farm in which they have three cottages to let out,with a total of just five rooms. The cottages are tastefully done up and have fitted-out kitchens where you can make tea and even a quick meal. We were content to laze over a leisurely breakfast provided by Deepak and spent our time playing pool in the dining area,which also houses the farm’s lone television and lots of books to curl up with. Our perch up in the clouds made sure there was no cellphone signal in large parts of the farm. We occasionally ran into Zayn,the Khan’s lovely elder daughter. Pablo,the younger son,is passionately into drums while Mansoor spends a better part of his day making sure things are working in the sprawling farm. Rhea,the farm dog,is the most content of the lot,perfectly happy to follow the mistress of the farm wherever she goes and dozing off in the mid-morning sun when things get a bit frantic. I fell in love with the farm and mean to go back for a longer stay,sometime soon.

Sudha Menon is the author of the book,Leading Ladies