Well… WE are not going. But our cheese is. We are quite excited that Rockhill Creamery has been accepted to participate in Slow Food Nation, a first ever national food celebration organized by Slow Food USA.
To be held Labor Day weekend, Slow Food Nation is THE foodie event of the year. I, of course, would love to go (this is clearly Jennifer, not Pete, writing this entry). But even though that’s not possible, we are delighted to have good friends from Slow Food Utah representing us at the Taste Pavilion.
Monday we shipped out four wheels of nine-month-old Snow Canyon. Our cheese will be served alongside cheese from 52 other cheesemakers from around the country.
Organizers expect to serve 1350 pounds of cheese over the three-day weekend. The Taste Pavilion will also showcase bread, wine, charcuterie, pickles, honey and other delicious foods.
We appreciate our Slow Food Utah convivium nominating us. To be accepted, we had to meet criteria that demonstrates our cheese is not only tasty, but also produced in an environmentally and socially sustainable way. Since we are a farmstead cheese maker (meaning our cheese is made only from our own farm’s animals) and we use raw milk, we had a leg up. In addition, we do not give our cows artificial growth hormones. And as anyone who has visited our farm knows the “girls” have a sweet life on pasture all spring, summer and fall.
It’s a great opportunity for us. Thanks so much to Vanessa and Christi who, armed with pictures and leaflets, will be sharing our story in San Francisco. –jh
Archive for August, 2008
We’re going to Slow Food Nation!
Thursday, August 21st, 2008Heide is a Mom!
Sunday, August 17th, 2008We expected Heide to calve around the end of July. She is Greta’s daughter and we knew she would be a great milk producer. Her udder kept getting bigger and bigger. By last week, she had so much edema that we decided to start milking her before she calved – hoping that it would help reduce the edema a bit. Well, by Thursday she was already producing 52 lbs per day. She finally calved Friday afternoon. She had a big, healthy bull calf. And the rest of the girls enjoyed helping Heide with her new bundle of joy.
Heide was quick to get up and start cleaning up her new calf.
Chloe was the first to come check out the new arrival.
Ingrid looks on as Heide helps her little one get up.
Iggy was the last to come check out the little guy.
Tony Grove Get-Away
Thursday, August 7th, 2008Jennifer and I finally decided to take advantage of our Tuesday-night, Wednesday-morning time off and loaded the “burlap boat” (as our friend calls it) onto the zuke and headed for Tony Grove Lake. Since we cut and wrap cheese for the markets on Tuesday morning, and since we had a tour for some out-of-town folks scheduled at 2 pm, we didn’t hit the road until after 4 pm. But the lake is less than 40 miles from our house (less than 10 miles if we were crows!), so we made it up in plenty of time to get a camp set up about a half mile below the lake. We had a very relaxing evening, then packed up and drove to the lake and were on the water by 8 am Wednesday. It was spectacular. Water so still it was like a mirror. Well, needless to say, we are going to remind ourselves that we do not need several days off to enjoy our beautiful surroundings. We’ll be making this a regular routine. A happy Jennifer and Pete make for happy cows and good cheese! -PS
Jen and Zoe enjoying the campfire.
It was nice to know the “girls” were just a few miles on the other side of those cliffs.
How much prettier can it get?
These are tiny.
Zoe winding down after a full week of patrolling the farm.