Citified Foraging

After our home inspection on Monday, our social worker told us that if we had any travel or entertainment plans for the near future, we had better do it this weekend. I had been wanting to check out some local organic farms, so I broadened my search area a little so we could get further out of town for a night. We jumped in the car on Friday evening and headed North towards the Catskills in NY, Pippin in tow.

We were just so glad to be out of New Brunswick for a couple of days, we always comment how, the tension just melts away the further we drive. Saturday morning we first drove to a remote farm in some tiny town not on the map where they raised grass fed beef, pork and chickens. The farmer was British, married to a Southerner, formerly an investment banker who said he just wanted to do something a little more "labor intensive." He had a little farm stand in a red barn where he sold frozen cuts of meat, eggs, and honey.

He pointed us to a dairy farm just down the road and we headed there next. This was great, we thought they would have some kind of store or something, but it was basically just the farm with a small processing plant. We lucked out and met the owner's daughter and she agreed to give us a tour of the farm/plant. Did you know that homogenized milk could be the cause of a lot of people's lactose intolerance? She gave us some unhomoginized milk in a glass bottle--so good. We also learned that the milk that comes out of the cow is first separated into cream and skim milk, and then the cream is added back to the skim milk to create 1% and 2%. She loaded us up with ice cream, chocolate milk, butter, and their very popular label of drinkable yogurt. Moooo

On our way to our next stop we passed a vineyard and took a detour. It was a small family owned winery and we walked around briefly and bought some of their table white wine. It was very scenic.

Our last destination was a creamery and farm that made their own cheeses. We watched some of the cheese making process behind a glass wall and sampled their 9 types of cheese. We bought a couple that resemble Parmesan and sharp cheddar and also some swiss chard from their garden. After Pippin was nearly attacked by the farm pheasants, we ran for the car.

It was such a great trip, we had a leisurely pace and came home laden with organic food. Check out this book, if you are interested The Omnivore's Dilemma, http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php. In it, he lists a great website where you can find organic farms near you: http://www.eatwild.com/.