Annemarie and I just returned from a road trip to Pennsylvania. What took us there, you ask? A short course offered by Penn State University on the basics of artisan dairy processing.
Before the conference began, we stopped at Seven Stars Farm in Phoenixville, PA. We had an appointment there with Cindy, who runs the Seven Stars yogurt production facility. She met us with a huge smile and exuded all kinds of encouragement and enthusiasm for our upstart business. Cindy might just be Del Marie’s very own fairy godmother. She showed us around their plant then sat down with us for 2 hours to discuss the ins and outs of yogurt production. Annemarie and I drove away emboldened to start our creamery and committed to pay it forward with kindness to those who come into the industry behind us. Thank you Cindy.
After our stop at Seven Stars, we continued on to Myerstown, PA, for the conference. It was well worth the 18 hour drive. The first day was all about milk composition and microbiology, good manufacturing practices (brain strain!). The second day was sales, marketing, business management (got it!). We learned so much!
The afternoon of the second day we finally got what we’d been waiting for: a lecture on yogurt production by the yogurt guy, Dr. Bob Roberts. We felt like groupies, sitting in the front row of class, hanging on every word he said, raising our hands with too many questions. I may have actually heard an audible sigh come from our row as he said the words lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus as if the language of yogurt cultures were his mother tongue.
On our way home, Annemarie commented that she felt like we’d received a milk baptism. Yes, we have been born into dairy.
My middle name is “Del” in honor of my maternal grandmother, Delcie. And Annemarie’s middle name…well, that’s kind of obvious.
While dreaming up our plan to start a creamery, we started calling this not-yet-business “Del Marie.” After a while, we realized it just couldn’t be called anything else.
We think the name Del Marie is anonymous, yet personal. It’s inclusive to other cultures, but local. It’s quirky, yet grounded. It’s made with love, from our kitchen to yours.
For those of you who purchase organic milk at the grocery store, I have a question: Why do you do it? And what expectations do you have for the farming practices where the cows are raised, bred, and milked? I don’t know about you, but I’ve always assumed that organic dairy = the humane treatment of dairy cows and the ability to have pasture land on which to move about and graze.
Well, if that is your vision then you’ll be happy to hear that last week the USDA passed some new regulations that will help maintain the integrity of organic dairy family farms. After years of abusing the term “organic,” larger factory farms will have to comply with new rules that are being cheered on by family farmers who have long believed in and practiced allowing their cows to roam and consume a significant portion of their food from pasture.
Why is Del Marie Creamery happy about this? Most importantly, because we believe that happy cows provide the best milk, as Laura Chisholm says. And secondly, because the milk for all of our dairy products is produced from cows at Chisholm Family Farm – a farm on which the cows are allowed to roam and are on a rotational grazing system. The cows are 100% grass-fed. No grain, soy or corn. Ever.
If you love Indian food but are wary to cook it yourself, Gobhi Rasedar is the dish for you. It a great beginner recipe and absolutely, one hundred percent delicious. Eat it with yogurt, chutney and nan.
Click the links for the recipes and more information:
Gobhi Rasedar (Cauliflower & Potatoes in a Spicy Herb Sauce)
If you did a little overlapping time line of Annemarie’s and my life, you’d see that we didn’t meet until 2004. But you’d also see many unknown-to-us intersections way before that.
Both of us have had the opportunity to travel and live around the world
We have both dated my husband (Annemarie and Caleb “went steady” for a couple weeks in sixth grade)
We both come from a non-profit background
We love food!
Cooking, talking about and sharing good food was the backdrop to our growing friendship. Through our separate but extensive travels around the world we have both been captivated by the foods of the countries we visited. We somehow always make our way into the women’s kitchens and try to figure out how we can re-create the meals back home.
The people we’ve met around the world take very simple ingredients and turn them into deliciousness. They are experts! Their knives peel Romanian potatoes with lightning speed, cut Afghan eggplants into perfect slices, twist and pinch Nepali momos into perfect shapes, layer the spices into Indian curries just right.
We have especially been moved by the common threads of humanity that emerge from the life stories we hear in kitchens both home and abroad. People all around the world love their families, and providing good food for them is a huge expression of that love.
Many of the people we’ve visited are very poor. They consume very little meat, receiving protein from eggs and dairy products. They rarely have access to refrigeration so they eat it fresh or find a way to make it last. Nearly every country we’ve visited has some form of fermented milk as a main staple of their diet. The foods they make aren’t overly-sweet. Artificial colors and unpronounceable chemicals never show up at their tables. Their meals are simple. They are pure. They are full of care.
Our travels have shown us what many of us here in the U.S. are missing. Real food brings a slowness, simplicity and a richness to life that goes way beyond the bank account. These people’s lives have inspired us to provide pure, simple, personal dairy products for families here in Nebraska. We are excited to bring home the care — to you.
Real food. Michael Pollan is known for talking about it. Alice Waters, Frank Stitt, Thomas Keller and others are known for cooking it. And lord knows I certainly hope to be known for eating it.
Every single day each of us eats something but for many of us the question is – is it real? And what does that even mean? First of all, I’m definitely not Michael Pollan and will not for a moment pretend to be. And I am no chef. But I do love food. I mean … I really, really love it. And since I have to eat it, it sure as hell better taste awesome.
So, by my definition, real food means food that tastes good. But then, before buying or cooking something, how does one know for certain that food is good, that it is real?
Michael Pollan has it broken down into some fairly simple rules that can be easily summed up by:
Don’t buy it if your great-grandmother wouldn’t have recognized it, if you can’t read the ingredients or if it has more than five ingredients
Stay away from the middle aisles when grocery shopping
Don’t eat it if it won’t eventually rot
Eat with people you love
I might add two more rules: find it locally and eat it seasonally. Very simple. Pretty straightforward. But more importantly, it’s realistic and applicable.
So many amazing chefs have followed such rules for years and years. But what about the rest of us? How do we get started on this path of purely awesome (and healthy) food? Try starting with these:
The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters – Ms. Waters beautifully helps a novice cook along in eating seasonally and keeping meals simple.
Know your farmer – farmers, such as the Chisholms, would be happy to give you a tour.
There is so much out there that we can chew on, swallow and fill our bellies with – why not make it the best thing you’ve ever tasted every time you sit down to eat?
It is because I absolutely love good food that I follow these rules. It is because so many chefs have taught me to take different real food ingredients and turn them into magic that I want to be a chef groupie. And it is because I want to pass that magic onto others that I have partnered with Daphne to start Del Marie Creamery.
Throughout the process of launching Del Marie Creamery, Daphne and I have been asked question after question starting with the “why” word:
Why yogurt?
Why dairy?
Why local?
Why grass-fed?
Why Del Marie?
And I’ll admit I have often been part of that crowd.
I not only love but need to retrace my steps to make sense of what is going on in my life. And right now, there are a whole lot of those “What in the WORLD is happening” kinds of feelings (in a this-is-super-fun-ummmm-i-think-my-heart-just-stopped-please-save-me-no-really-this-is-great kind of way).
So, this seems like a good time to start answering those questions; to create a blue print of the how and why we got where we are today. I can’t promise that these questions will be answered in order or in any cohesive manner whatsoever but I do promise that my version of the “why” will be … well, really it will just be my side of the story.
In short, and hopefully what will come through in this little series of thoughts and stories, Del Marie Creamery is:
