Yesterday was a day devoted to MILK! And as I love MILK, yesterday was a very good day indeed.
We started off the day heading off to the Grafton Village Cheese Factory in, of all places, Grafton village. There we got to watch the folks actually making cheese. We learned what cheddaring means (to break up the curd to dry it) and watched as they cheddared, salted, and shoveled the curd to make it into cheese. Then the place squooshes out more whey and then lets it age.
In the store part, we got to taste all of the types of cheddar that they make. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 year cheddars, garlic, sage and hickory smoked cheddar. And after tasting them all, I bought one of each type of cheese that they make. Mmmmm, cheese!
Next we headed off to the Ben & Jerry’s factory to take a tour of it. judiang and I got the package deal of t-shirt, pint, and tour for $20. And we got our pints right off the bat so we could eat while waiting for the tour. (elsaf was smart enough to wait until the tour & all were done). We didn’t finish it, but we made good headway into our pints. I got the Brownie Batter flavor (which I’d never seen before) and Judi got the Peach Cobbler (ditto). Both were tasty.
When we got on the tour, we saw a couple of movies and then the factory bit which was cool to watch. The tour leader asked if any of us knew the significance of -40 (temperature). And of course I knew the answer (science geek that I am). Alas, I didn’t get a prize. Still, when we got to taste a sample of B&J ice cream at the end of the tour, there were leftovers and I had a second sample. Mint chocolate chunk – yum!
After the tour, I returned to the car to get our ice cream from before (and put our new pint of Creme Brulee in) and we managed to finish our pints. Elsa had some Americone Dream, and hergrace had a sundae with “Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz” as the ice cream base. All in all, a wonderful selection of ice creams.
We returned to the farmhouse nicely full of dairy and then worked on getting Doctor Who onto a platform we could view it. And when we were finally hungry (ish) we ordered pizza. Mmmmm, a nice capper to Dairy Day Monday.
A sign that cheese is around!
Cheddaring the curd
Shoveling the curd
Covered bridge by cheese store
View from the bridge
The Flavor Graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s
You got Americone Dream from the Waterbury plant? Last time I asked there, they claimed it was a grocery store-only flavor.
They were selling pints in the souvenier shop. They didn’t have it where they were selling cones & stuff, however. (They were actually making it when we went through the factory. They normally do two flavors at once, but they were double teaming the Americone.)