Eat Local Cheese - The Guide

Via, you can get a guide to Wisconsin cheese.

The Crack is Back

I needed to put my older daughter on a train this AM very early. It meant I also got to get my Marion Street Cheese fix very early. So early, however, that the ode-worthy (you know who you are, Mr. Poet) danish were still in the oven. I settled for a cup of coffee and a very needed fix for the wife.

Hoo-hoo, see the coolers are all back in service at Marion. With that, Marion is now carrying my wife's favorite local dairy product (and she has a lot from Hidden Springs Creamery "Driftless" spreads to chevres from Prairie Fruit Farms to all our Wisconsin cheeses). I'm talking her near addiction, Trader's Point Creamery Orchard Trio yogurt. I'd ask her for a few words but she's sleeping off a very late night, a deadly combination of shelling beans and searching for a cell phone.

On the Road Again

More Nothing to Come

Well, I could have something. New favorite Mado came through again (well everything but the farro), but old favorites Semeramis and Margie's failed us. My praise-o-meter that stalled on Marion Street Cheese's danishes needs to get working on the rare and precious heart-shaped baby tomatoes from Catalina Farms at the Oak Park Farmer's Market. I totally screwed up the Eli's thing. Last week was the engaging Stan Schutte. You can hear poultry guy, John Caveny this Thursday. I'm sure I could cook up more, but we leave soon for Wisconsin. I may or may not be able to post more until Friday.

All of these people mentioned in this post will provide good reading while I'm gone. Or see what Bruce's up to on his roof. Will she make you as jealous as she makes me?

The big eat local news around here remains the stellar performance by our cheese team. Whoo-hoo! Me, the team includes at least Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, so I share the boosterism of Indiana fer sure. For the cynics, here's a less chauvinistic report on the competition.

For those following the more personal side of the odyssey, we put away some more food, making it easier to eat local the coming winter. Of course, we buy too much anyways.

Don't wait for me, find a farmer's market close to you. There's only one guide to tell you what's in season now. Believe it or not, you can find local at Jewel these days, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to check up on the engaging [ed. and charismatic] Cassie and her Green Grocer. Find some time also for the marvelously updated and enhanced Marion Street Cheese store.

Talk to ya soon.

Eat Local Cheese

We're Number 1

My beloved Cubbies hold on the National League is getting more and more tenuous. Luckily, my local cheese team took home the trophy (again) in the annual American Cheese Society competition (pdf).

This was the year of Sid Cook domination. His Carr Valley Cheese took first and third in the best of show honors. The whole list of winners is dotted with Carr Valley cheeses. Many local cheeses won honors at the 2008 event, but from my casual eye, it seems like the local team did not clean up quite as much as expected. It's like when the US Olympians hit the stage, you expect a certain amount of medals but when you do not see them on top of the swimming or track podiums, you wonder what happened. Now, I do not know all the cheeses entered in the competitions, so I do not necessarily know who "lost". It did surprise me to see less of certain names.

Brunkow Cheeses, with the able assistance of Joe Burns, makes outstanding English farmhouse style cheeses. None of those won awards (although Brunkow did take high honors for their raw milk spread and Brun=uusto baked cheeses). Willi Lehner's BleuMont Dairy's name could be found but once on the list of winners. Is this considered an upset: Trader's Point Creamery Yogurt came in second? Our butters won but one of the several awards. Illinois's goat gal, Leslie Cooperband and her Prairie Fruit Farms one but won too. Another local goat lady, Capriole, also won but one. And my favorite, my favorite of nearby goat cheese woman, Wisconsin's Fantome Farm won but none. Did they compete?

Still, local cheesemakers can be be found through out the winners, even ones not named Carr Valley. Previous stars Uplands Cheese and Leelanau Creamery went head to head, taking second and third in a washed rind category. Brenda Jenson and her sheep did even better, taking several awards for her Hidden Springs Creamery. Where do you really want to see Wisconsin cheeses win, the cheddars right? Hoch Enterprises's Braun Suisse Kase [ed. ever hear of?] aced baby cheddar; Maple Leaf Cheese Co-op got adolescent and another Braun Suisse Kase cheese got the old timer (aged over 4 years). Wisconsin cheddars did not take first places in the adult cheddar (aged between 25 and 48 months) and the more prestigious bandaged cheddar categories. Classic Wisconsin names like Widmar, Roth Kase and Hooks can also be found in this year's awards.

One category that I found, perhaps, a bit surprising, was the Italian hard cheese style. The more commercial orientated BelGioioso Cheese took first and second and the more artsy, certainly more expensive, SarVecchio took third. In related cheese catagories, I see no local cheeses amongst the mozzarellas. I would guess that my guys just don't enter a thing like this. I wonder how the hand made stuff at Caputo's in Melrose Park would stack up against the winners.

At the end of the day, how many people will still associate Midwestern cheeses with orange blocks a step above Velveeta [ed., or even better, shaped like the state of Wisconsin and wrapped in red wax?]. How many shoppers will go looking for a "prestigious" cheese and head straight for the Red Hawk or Cyprus Grove labels? Me, I stick to local because it's my team. Luckily, it means some fine eating too. Eat some local cheese this week in honor of the champions.

What's Local - Marion Street Cheese

Eat Hard to Find Local Cheese (and more)

Fromage fanatics, let alone locavores clamor greatly for one cheese in particular (leaving aside any general clamor from bootleg real Camembert and that kinda stuff). I'm talking the 2007 American Cheese Society Grand Champion of Cheese; the Midwest's own Raclette from the Leelanau Cheese Company of Michigan. Well, courtesy of a well-traveled source, Marion Street has it now. Rich and creamy with the intensity and complexity of an aged raw milk product. Get there.

Want more cheeses? Today was the day for retailers to poke and prod the wares at the 2008 American Cheese Society shindig in Chicago. I know some folks from Marion went with their wallets open. Check in with them to see what they got.

I'm Not Bitter - Blogday

I am NOT motivated to blog all day by my bitterness towards all things Chicago Tribune. I mean if I refuse to look at the paper this morning, the Cubs might have won yesterday. Besides, does Gerry Smith know I'm a Tribune vendor. It's just with the holiday and all, I'm very behind in my blogging. I've been blinded by bitterness, but I've got lots to say.

First, some link love. I hope you all have seen MikeG's video on local, the guy with the passion for roof tops and roof top gardens as well, Bruce, now has a blog. Check it out.

Other things that should show up today or soon:

Eli's Cheesecake hosts a farmer's market on Thursdays. They are also hosting a series of lectures on local food related topics (a series that seems to have slipped by everyone's radar). Last week Lloyd Nichols spoke. Next week it's Terra Brockman of the Land Connection.

Bitterness aside, I don't buy this quote from the CTrib's article

"Illinois does not have a lot of local vegetable producers, so when you go to farmers markets you see folks from Wisconsin and Michigan," Slama said. "It's a regional approach if you still consider yourself someone who eats primarily local food."

It is true that when you go to farmer's markets in the Chicago area you will find farmer's from Michigan like Hardin Farms, who grow the best stone fruits or Walt Skibbies with an outstanding selection of apples and pears, but when it comes to vegetables, market shoppers are most likely to find Nichol's Farm at their market. They can also buy vegetables from Farmer Vicki's Genesis Growers, Henry's Farm, Kinnikinnick Farm, Sandhill Organic; there's the Midwest Organic Farmer's Coop that Robin "Winter" fronts at Daley Plaza; hell there's City Farm who show up each week to the Logan Square Farmer's Market. And speaking of Logan Square, what about Farmer Rob and his Montalbano Farm. He's also at the Ridgeville Market in Evanston that needs your love. Of course, maybe you are not a market shopper, there's that small outfit out of Illinois serving the CSA needs of many, called, um, Angelic Organics. I could go on, but I have other things to not blog about.

Scotch Hill Farms, who oddly enough, are in Wisconsin, but show up at the Oak Park Farmer's Market, are seeking interest in a milk and cheese CSA. The CSA, with a delivery at Oak Park, would provide high quality local products such as Sugar River Dairy yogurt. Stop by their stand and tell Tony or Dela you are interested.

I've had Mado on the mind for reasons that will be revealed some other time, but 'cause of that, my wife and I decided to dine there last night. It's been good before, quite, good, but last night was the best meal so far. Still, despite Rob's promises, they're not serving bread. I'm not bitter about that either.

No, grapes are not in season yet, but the market is awash in new products. Concentrate now on the products with the most fleeting of season. Chad Nichol's tricked us into buying fava beans with this clever conceit, he grilled them for us. We bought a pound and a half. Unlike last year, the Chicago area locavore has apricots to eat. Grab 'em now.

Besides apricots and favas, we keep on getting other local foods, including a whole half-a hog (which my wife did a masterful job of squeezing it into the freezer). I'll be updating the inventory soon.

Hey you, don't eat local. Instead of a year on a 100 mile diet, try a lifetime of reasonable eating.

I have infusions to write about and pics from a lavish Shabbat dinner, but until all that, go read Valeree's blog, it's very good. She's not the least bit bitter.

The End of Inventory

Starting in December, 2007 I started tracking our inventory of local foods in the Bungalow. The intended purpose was to show how my family and I managed to stay local in the darkest months through a combination of winter marketing and stored foods. I proudly reported on our ability to manage. Since then, with market and CSA supplies, I've had less need to post on the inventory, and have not made an inventory post since early May.

Last night, in seeking some garlic for Asian night (Thai inspired recipes need garlic), I found all of the remainder of our garlic supply kaput. About twenty heads of garlic given over to dust, insects and various micro-organisms. When poking around the basement, I also found a bag of potatoes with the types of beards one grows if stranded on a deserted island. Both went into the compost bin, and they will soon be joined by sprouting onions. It was only a week or so ago that the last Michigan apples went into the camp lunch of my younger daughter. Our inventory served us well.

I have not done a great job of tracking/reporting on our local purchases from the CSA, farmer's markets, Cassie's Green Grocer and the like. For the duration of the market season, I have replaced the inventory tally on the sidebar with a running tally of the last two weeks (or so)purchases. I don't have the memory to re-create everything we have purchased lately, but here's a stab. It'll be more accurate after we get our CSA box later today.

Genesis Growers CSA - 6/19/08

• 2 heads of leaf lettuce
• Mesclun bag
• Asparagus
• Strawberries
• Savoy cabbage
• French breakfast radishes
• Daikon radish
• Kale
• Eggs

Oak Park Farmer's Market - 6/21/08

• Strawberries, sugar snaps, snow peas - Nicholl's Farm
• Cherries (sweet) - Hardin Farm
• Raspberries - Skibbes
• Peas - Stovers
• Mint, basil - Genesis Growers
• Garlic scapes, green garlic - Sandhill Organic
• Duck eggs - Wettstein's

Maywood Farmer's Market - 6/21/08

• Garlic scapes, organic chickens, dill - Midwest Organic Coop
• Strawberries - Unknown farmer

Whole Foods, River Forest - 6/21/08

• Farmer's All Natural Creamery Whole Milk

Genesis Grower's Farm - 6/22/08

• Zucchini flowers

Green Grocer - 6/24/08

• Tarragon
• Trader's Point Creamery Yogurt
• Barley

Genesis Growers CSA - 6/26/08

• Red "salad" turnips (with greens)
• 2 heads leaf lettuce
• 1 bag mesclun
• Kohlrabi (with greens)
• Kale
• Collard greens
• Sugar snap peas (a lot)
• Eggs

Hines VA Farmers Market (Maywood) - 6/26/08

• Raspberries, snow peas - Unidentified Michigan farm
• Strawberries (flat), sweet cherries - Hardin Farms

Kolatek's - 2445 N. Harlem - 6/27/08

• Farmer's All Natural Creamery 2% Milk

Oak Park Farmer's Market - 6/28/08

• Snow peas, green garlic stalks (with scapes) - Nichol's Farm
• Basil, white carrots, arugula - Genesis Growers
• Cherries - Hardin Farms
• Peas - Stover's
• Raspberries, blueberries - Skibbes

MCA Farmer's Market - 7/1/08

• Raspberries - Ellis Farms
• Blueberries, strawberries, new potatoes - Noffke Farm

Eat Local Cheese

The Cheeses of Wisconsin: A Culinary Travel Guide by Jeanette Hurt

The Chicago Tribune's food blog, the Stew, points me to what will soon be a key part of the VI library.

Eat Local Cheese

"Not that he’s trying to discourage mold. Inside the cave, resting on cedar shelves, 11- and 38-pound wheels of English-style cheddar wrapped tightly in muslin are covered with splotchy, gray microbial colonies that after months of aging help the cheddar develop the exquisite caramelly flavors that can send chills jolting down the back of your legs."

There are a lot of great cheeses from the Midwest, but gosh darn if I had to pick an absolute top-top favorite, a first amongst a lot of firsts, I would probably go with BluMont Dairy's Lil' Wil raw milk cheddar from cheese master, Willi Lehner. Mike Sula tells Willi's story in this week's Chicago Reader. Willi is easy to find nearly weekly at the Dane County Farmer's Market just around the corner from where the State Street carnival hits the capital square at the BluMont stand. Have him autograph a block of cheese.

I will add, or stress, or whatever, that as good at the cheese can be outta the fridge, it can only fully be appreciated if you let it come to room temperature.

Eat Good Bread

Bennison's at Pastoral

I asked a food savvy friend recently where you could get good bread downtown. His response:

"Where can you get good bread anywhere in Chicago?"

I'm not fully in agreement on that. There is a list, not a long list, but a list of good bread in Chicago. At or near the top of that list is Bennison's. Anyone in the Loop should know that Pastoral, 53 E. Lake, sells Bennison's bread. Become French, take home a baguette tonight.

Pastoral carries a pretty good selection of local cheeses. Today they had a wide array of Brenda Jensen's Hidden Springs Creamery products, both the aged cheeses and the fresh tubs. They are also now carrying Trader's Point Creamery yogurts, but not the one my wife craves/needs, the low-fat vanilla.

What's Local -- Fresh Farms, Wheeling

Which Supermarket Would You Save

My wife agreed to drive home yesterday from our activities so I could make a few notes in my new beloved toy, the Blackberry. A few notes turned into some fixation, and between me and that, one daughter reading and the other daughter napping, the driver got a bit perturbed. To make up, to make needed conversation, I asked, "what's your favorite grocery store?" It did not work. She stayed mostly perturbed for the rest of the ride home. It was not until this morning that I remembered the right way to phrase the question. "Which, if you had one grocery (or supermarket) in Chicago (area) would you save?"

We love the which can you save game. If you only could eat one sandwich; if you only could eat from one type (e.g., Italian, Jewish) of food; if you could only go to one other state...invariably our, if only one questions lead to which five (at least), but this one was pretty straight forward. See, I was in the thrall of Fresh Farms of Wheeling. I could see some advantages to Fox & Obel as "the one", but because I was, yesterday at Fresh Farms ( especially) it was the one. My wife answered back, "Whole Foods."

I pishawed her. "Whole Foods." Clearly, for all our bitchin', we shop there a fair amount; surely for milk and soy milk and yogurt. Yet, there was nothing that I can think of that is at Whole Foods that is not at other places that we also frequent, at least nothing really necessary so to speak. Moreover, is there anything Whole Foods really does better beyond being convenient to the Bungalow.

"How could you pick Whole Foods over Fresh Farms" I asked incredulously. "Seasonal produce," she justified. "Ah" I snorted. I think she'd even concede she was hasty today. I mean can you walk into Whole Foods this week and get Michigan apples, Wisconsin potatoes?

Fresh Farms, to backtrack, is a Russian geared store, or I should say better, it is a food store geared toward Russian food habits. These habits include a need for zaruska (plural zaruski) appetizers/food to be eaten with vodka or tea/food for light meals. This habit is fulfilled in stores like Fresh Farms with ample stocks of smoked, salted, dried and cured fishes. Fresh Farms has a large selection, although not quite as good as the infrequently opened Renee Gourmet with its slabs of salmon, captain, etc. The habit also means an array of sausages I could never get around to trying en total unless this really was the one grocery store. I tend to get the beef sausage called, with no irony, Jewish Dry Salami on most visits. The habit includes plenty of pickles and yesterday there were two types of cucumber pickles, marinated apples and pickled green tomatoes. Finally, and most important to this post, there is the habit for outstanding dairy. The Russians, like other Eastern Europeans, like their milk. In fact the one thing we had to stop for on the way home yesterday, was milk. I was reasonably confident Fresh Farms would have our kinda milk.

They did. Beyond Farmer's All Natural Creamery milk and buttermilk, they had Farmers All Natural Creamery cheese (first I've seen of that); sour cream (no ingredients!), and cottage cheese (likewise without extra ingredients). They had the Cultural Revolution yogurts from another dairy in Kaldona, Iowa, and the yogurt my wife likes best, Trader's Point Creamery. She really appreciated that they had low-fat vanilla. Butters included Wüthrich European Style made by Grassland Dairy and the best, Clarendon Hills. Those Russians know what I know, to get the best in dairy, get local.

Until I hit some other favorite food market, the one to keep is Fresh Farms, 291 E. Dundee, Wheeling, IL (intersection of Milwaukee and Dundee).

Eat Local Sour Cream

How Many Ingredients?

The fine farmers at Farmers All Natural Creamery, who supply me with my non-homoginized milk, are now also making sour cream. I love the ingredient list on the package: milk, cream, cultures. Don't get the joke, look at some of the labels in your dairy aisle.

I found my sour cream at Kolatek's (2445 N. Harlem, Chicago) an all around great market.

Eat Local MySpace

Eat Local Trendy

Look who's got a Myspace. I think that blogs (and the such) are great business tools, like how the folks at Marion Street Cheese are using their page.

What's Local Marion Street Cheese Market

Local Coincidence

The meals in the Bungalow, local as they may be, are a constant jigsaw or maybe Rubik's cube. One move, one meal, one dish, leads to another dish, another ingredient. We build from our inventory but embellish constantly. If we make this, it needs that. Take Friday. Pie was planned. Originally, my wife thought maple--I asked her "maple what", and she sez, "just maple"; just maple, think pecan pie without the pecans. She had made maple the week before and was interested in trying it again as last week's was a bit too sweet (who woulda thought). Then, going through some recipes, she finds a maple-apple. Sounds great, we've been carrying these pie apples for months. But here's the thing. Just maple gets garnished with whipped cream (with a hint of maple in the cream). We have cream. Maple-apple needs ice cream. And not just any ice cream. After our visit to Cassie's Green Grocer, we are spoiled to any other ice cream. It must be Trader's Point Creamery Vanilla. It has the further advantage that, when slightly melted from the warm pie, it will make a custard sauce like we dining at Hogwarts.

Friday morning, my wife calls Trader's Point Creamery in Indiana. "Where do you sell your ice cream." I mean nothing against Cassie, but her store's just a bit too far this day. Trader's Point cannot answer. They promise to e-mail.

Friday afternoon, I make the challah run. One bakery in Oak Park bakes challahs for Friday's, Prairie Bread Kitchen. PBK is not the worst bread in Oak Park, but that's one of these tall midget contest kinda things. What I like best about PBK, much more than the challah, is the Marion Street Cheese Market next door. When I make the challah run, I invariably stop at Marion, sometimes just for a taste, but usually something, some pricey cheese for the week.

No e-mail had arrived from Trader's Point by Friday afternoon (in fact as of now, no e-mail yet). I would have to get a non-local, not quite as good ice cream, probably Hagen-Daz. I noticed that Marion Street Cheese had newly displayed (to me), Trader's Point Creamery cottage cheese and fromage blanc (highly worthwhile products). How 'bout ice cream? I asked. It turned out they did. In back. In a freezer. Mostly stocked away for the staff.

The pie came out very fine. As expected, the ice cream complemented even finer.

Rick Bayless Drinks Local Milk

Shake Your Milk Thang

Last night I watched the first episode of a new season of Mexico: One Plate at a Time. Rick did a Mexican take on Spanish food. He needed milk for the flan. I could easily tell from the bottle and a brief glance at the label, that Rick uses the same milk as my family, Farmer's All Natural Creamery. Still, Rick or his daughter Lannie, I forgot who, was adding the milk, did not shake. When you use this milk, do shake as the milk is not homoginized. On the other hand, maybe what happened to Rick is what's happened to me before, all the cream went out in the first (lucky) pour.

Eat Old Cheese

Hook's 10 Year Old Cheddar

Sometimes I'm in bliss eating a local cheese that's less than a week old, find some Fantome Farm goat cheese at the Dane County Market. Other times, like today, I get my cheese bliss from the aged. And I mean old, Hook's ten (plus) year old cheddar, which I had for lunch today.

You can read about the Hook's and their aging process here. The Hooks say.

Some people say they don't like aged cheese," Julie says. "They think it's bitter. But chances are they haven't had an aged cheese that's done well.

Well, maybe it's not bitter, but 10 year cheddar is not starter cheese. It does not taste like cheese you may know. For one thing, it is crunchy. Do you expect your cheese to crunch. Hook's 10 year cheddar is not the only cheese to crunch. Most often from calcium lactate, the crunch, or crystals, can be found in other aged cheeses, including English cheddars and older Parmesans. The tiny crystals in Hook's aged cheeses add an unexpected pleasure. The other thing though, that's maybe not as unexpected. That is the funks of aged cheese. OK, it's not bitter, but it aint smooth. Maybe a bit sour, whiffs of ammonia, the taste of aged cheddar is not one of decay or stink like a mold ripened cheese, but it is far from nuanced. It helps to balance a cheese like this against something, some keeper apples, the maligned red delicious add the necessary off-setting sweetness as I had with my local ploughman's lunch.

The Hook's are usually at the Dane County Farmer's Market in Madison, so you can learn about their operations and buy many of their cheeses; they make excellent blue cheeses too. I've heard that some Chicago area Binny's carry Hook's cheeses, but I have not seen them. Keep an eye out. It's a local cheese worth finding.

Use Local Dairy

Yogurt, Ice Cream

Earlier this week, I blogged about all the good local milk that goes into local cheese. There's other ways to use our local milk.

I find three ways to make great yogurt. First, drain the stuff. You get a thick spread with a nice mouth feel. Second, use whole milk. In fact, the great yogurt in Greektown is the result of both of these steps. The third way is to use pasture-fed, organic, high quality local milk. There's at least three places around us doing that. There's Sugar River Dairy from Wisconsin, Whispering Meadows Farm from Illinois and Traders Point Creamery from Indiana. The first two are somewhat hard to find around Chicago markets (now), but my sources tell me Sugar River yogurt might be showing up at some markets, including farmers markets soon. Traders Point Creamery yogurt can be found at most Whole Foods and also Fox & Obel.

While Traders Point Creamery yogurt can be found at a lot of places, I do not know many places to find their ice cream. Luckily, it's just another good excuse to visit Cassie's Green Grocer. Her freezer case contains the vanilla ice cream from Traders Creamery, and when I say ice cream, I mean cream. This is an ideal variation on the theme of cream, one in its more solid state.

Discover how our local farmers are putting their milk to good use.

Eat Local Cheese

Continued

Here's Jeanne Carpenter's, of Cheese Underground, list of favorite Wisconsin cheeses. Not a bad list, not a bad list...

Eat Local Cheese

NYTimes Highlights Wisconsin Cheesemakers

I bought the NYTimes yesterday, partly for the Spring Travel Mag; then I noticed that part gone when I sat down to read. I found it soaked, this morning, in the backyard. I must have dropped it. Luckily, Daisy on the Mouthfuls site tipped me off to the great spread on Wisconsin cheesemakers in the magazine that I could find online.

The piece gets it pretty darn right. Profiling (briefly) the really famous, Uplands; the almost as famous, Carr Valley; the one known to those in the know, Bleu Mont Dairy; the one who's almost just as known for not being able to have her cheese, Fantome Farm, and the one who's working hard to be known, Hidden Springs Creamery.

It's certainly a who's who of my favorite cheeses, with Bleu Mont's bandaged cheddar and Hidden Springs spreadable sheep milk being about the two best cheeses in the bungalow right now--being given some competition from some Hook's 10 year old cheddar I found hidden in our basement fridge.

Today's Must Read

Factory Farmed

From today's CTrib, a California dairyman looks to bring Cali-style milk farming to the Midwest. The words that give away the game:

Much of the feed for the cows he milks on his dad's land comes from the Midwest, and a good portion of the milk is shipped back to the Midwest. Bos said it doesn't take a business genius to figure out how to increase profits. "It's more expensive getting feed to California and hauling the milk back," he said. "It's more efficient to put the cows where the feed is."

Me, I prefer my milk from cow's that eat grass, on pasture.

Factory dairymen taut the economic benefits they bring, transforming a sagging part of the agricultural economy in Illinois.

He estimated the farm would create 40 jobs, paying about $10 per hour.

Wow

Now, I'm not against business and commerce and success. Farmers should be able to make money and best use their land (cf what's wrong with the current farm subsidies), but there's also good farming and bad farming. This is bad farming. Bad animal husbandry (I know I've toured a factory milk operation in Arizona), bad tasting milk (cows need grass), tremendous enviromental risks (google Smithfield). For forty jobs. Instead, try producing good milk that can demand a premium at the market, local milk.

Eat local encapsulates a lot of things for my family and me. We use local milk--I would say drink, but 95% of our milk purchases goes into morning coffee, so it's more like a condiment than a beverage--as part of our greater commitment to local. Local means supporting good farmers. Local means supporting sustainable agriculture. Local means finding products that tastes great. You can have it all. Here in the Chicago area we can chose from such dairy as Crystal Ball Farms or Oak Grove Organics or the most accessible, Farmer's All Natural Creamery from Kalona, Iowa. (Compare your milk here.) Be willing to pay the small premium for this kind of milk. It's worth it.