My time with #CabotFit this year was amazing - we saw the beach and farms and the country and the coast. It was incredible how much we experienced in a single long weekend.
After a late-night arrival and a delicious breakfast at the inn, the team headed out to Pineland Farms. I was really looking forward to the tour, because it's the Cabot farmers who are part of the coop that make this trip possible, and they're the heart of the organization. All of the profits go back to them, and they are the start of the delicious cheese I enjoy so very much.
So we took to the farm! It was a short drive from our hotel, but a world away from Portland. It was expansive, sweeping and bucolic; basically everything you think of when you think country.
We started our day in the building dedicated to collecting milk from the dairies, pasteurizing the milk and then making it into delicious, delicious cheese. We had a rousing discussion on the value of raw milk consumption and cheeses, the consensus being it's only damaging if you're immune compromised and not careful with handling it, or it came from a questionable supplier. Also, raw milk doesn't make for the best cheese when creating things like baby swiss, which rely upon not having competing bacterial in order to create the holes in the cheese we all recognize. I also learned there are five regional variances of cheddar cheese. Who knew?
After that, we went out to the dairy barn to meet the ladies working hard at making the ingredients for our favorite cheeses. Fun fact - dairy cows get milked perhaps 20 minutes per day. The rest of the farmers' time is spent securing the comfort of the animal to ensure they're not stressed. That includes keeping them cool, dry, hydrated and fed.
Then, I got to meet some cows :)
The barn was incredibly clean and the cows were rather chill. They let us pet them and take selfies without much incident. I did get licked, more than once, but I'm going to take that as a compliment.
Next up, we met Hemi, an award-winning Holstein dairy cow that produced 165 pounds of milk per day and is one of only a handful of such remarkable animals in the world.
It turns out they like getting scratches, just like Napoleon.
Before watching the moon rise over Cape Elizabeth just steps from our hotel.
As was her yorkie, Murphy:
Whitney was straight 'gramming this moment |
As you can imagine, I only want to see more. Thanks for an awesome trip, Cabot Creamery!
1 comment:
What a fun time you had in Maine!!!
Post a Comment