Nobody makes cheese like Lazy Lady Farm's Laini Fondiller, and in a few years, they might never again. After four decades producing farmstead cheese on her off-grid, wind- and solar-powered Vermont homestead, this 73-year-old artisan pioneer and veteran goat breeder plans to retire around 2027. "I want to plant some fruit trees, have a bigger garden, and buy a grill," she says. "That kind of retirement."
Lazy Lady Farm has specialized in soft ripened goat's milk cheeses like Thin Red Line since 1987. (Try our Lazy Lady Farm Collection to taste a smorgasbord of her work.) Back in the '70s and '80s, European style artisan cheeses like these were few and far between in the United States. There were no masters to apprentice with, no textbooks to study from, and no kits to start making cheese at home. Fondiller built her farm and creamery from the ground up, and even with opportunities to grow a larger brand or transition to less demanding work, she's kept to her artisan roots. "I'm not rich now but I started with nothing," she explains. "Sometimes it helps if you're stupid because you don't know any better." She speaks humbly about herself, however once you taste the briny Bonaparte or buttery La Petite Tomme, you'll see why Lazy Lady Farm is one of our most treasured creameries. It's a beautiful example of small-scale cheesemaking at its best.
Fondiller's journey to cheese was circuitous, to put it mildly. Here's a condensed version of her early career. A chance car ride from a fellow college student during spring break in her senior year introduced her to the subtle pleasures of farm life. "The quiet when I got up in the morning," she says, "with just a few sounds of rustling animals. It was the dirt, it was the honesty of the people that differed from my college and high school friends. It enamored me." After Fondiller graduated, she found work at Vermont dairies for $25 a week. During the slow winter seasons she visited her brother at Lake Tahoe in Utah. There she met some French vineyard owners who agreed to hire her when they returned home. But first they took a detour to Thailand, where a falling out split Fondiller from the group. She kicked around Thailand, then Japan, then Nepal and India before running into one of the vineyard owners on the streets of New Delhi. They made up and flew off to France together. Fondiller picked grapes for a season, then hitchhiked around the countryside until she met some dairy farmers who agreed to hire her for six months. Afterward, she spotted a Help Wanted ad that brought her to a family farm in Corsica, where she worked for three years and learned everything she could about the traditional goat's and sheep's milk cheeses that had no comparison in the U.S. "I had these epiphany moments [in Corsica] like, 'holy shit, I want to make cheese," she says. She was in Corsica without a visa though, and immigration authorities eventually caught up with her, forcing her to return to the States. Back in Vermont with $20,000 to her name, Fondiller's path was set. She was going to make the kinds of cheese she fell in love with in Europe, and there was no stopping her.
20 grand bought Fondiller some land and animals but wasn't nearly enough to establish a fully licensed creamery. So she made cheese in her kitchen with milk from a goat named Blooper and sold the ripened rounds at farmers markets. By 1990, she'd made enough to build a proper barn and expand her flock of goats. But she had also grown enough to draw attention from Vermont regulators who were wary of small-scale cheesemakers after a salmonella outbreak nearby. Fondiller's operation was so small that there was no kind of license available to her, so she made her case at a hearing packed with spectators for a license that cottage creameries like hers could apply for. She won her license in 1996 and set up her first aging cave in 1997. In 2002, she got a $30,000 loan from the Vermont Community Land Trust to build a full cheese room and a commercial vat for heating milk.
The work hasn't changed much since then. Fondiller built a second aging room in 2007 and took on some part-time workers to help with milking and making cheese. Since goat's milk only flows during the growing season, she started buying local cow's milk to make cheese year-round and keep her employees paid. She also developed an interest in goat breeding to get the best milk for her cheese. During kidding season in spring, just feeding the new baby goats takes over four hours a day.
Agriculture in Vermont today isn't anything like when Fondiller moved there in the '70s. "There were over 3,000 small dairy farmers when I moved here," she explains. "It was farmers and hippies. Now it's second homes." She gets emotional as she describes the toll that sticking to her guns has taken. "If you don't have a passion for farming and aren't ready to walk across coals, don't do it. It hurts and it's hard and it doesn't come in a day or a year or five. You gotta earn peoples' trust and stay with it."
Fondiller is looking forward to less stress, more time for family, and an honest to goodness day off once a week. Her legacy is sizable. Many of Saxelby's producers, not to mention our founder Anne Saxelby herself, have found inspiration in Fondiller's work that they've grown into a vibrant community of American artisan cheesemakers. For now, we're grateful we can still enjoy Lazy Lady's handmade cheeses for a little longer. The work pays off—and a new generation is ready to continue it.
Taste Lazy Lady Farm's one-of-a-kind cheeses, and sample a swath of them with our Lady Lady Farm Collection!
