My New Surrogate Cow

I haven’t made cheese or yogurt yet with it, but I think I may have found a replacement milk! Golden Glen stopped producing bottled milk back in January and I’ve been searching for a comparable substitute, or at least hoping one would materialize for me.

PCC replaced Golden Glen pretty quickly with Straus, although I did have a week or two with Organic Valley‘s paper cartons. Organic Valley’s milk, though, is ultra-pasteurized. Straus’ isn’t, and the milk comes in glass bottles, but it comes from California – which works great when I’m visiting California, but it’s a bit far for every day. Pure Eire is local, but it comes in plastic jugs, which I’ve discovered are difficult for me to put in the cart. Sure, I can do it, but there’s a voice in my head that screams the whole time.

Fresh Breeze, with whom I’ve swapped some lovely emails and who has started bottling in glass, was the dairy Golden Glen recommended as a replacement source. But they’ve only been picked up by Whole Foods as far as I can tell, and Whole Foods is the natural market that’s farthest away for us. I called PCC to let them know and talked with some very helpful folks, but they seemed to think they would be staying with Straus for the time being (“Straus really wants to make this relationship work.”) It wasn’t ideal for me, but I’d muddle along.

Then I stopped in at Madison Market on the way home from somewhere else. They are carrying milk from Twin Brook Creamery. The dairy is local (Lyndon, WA), raises exclusively Jersey cows (seriously yummy milk!), uses no hormones, does not homogenize, only lightly pasteurizes, and bottles in glass. So happy! I have a replacement cow! Thank you, Madison Market.

Next up, time to start making this year’s cheese…

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