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Posts Tagged ‘Snowville Creamery’

Food Inc. and the Milk Men

Posted by CMH Gourmand on July 19, 2009

Thursday July 16th was the Columbus premiere of Food Inc, as a sneak preview at The Drexel hosted by The Ohio Ecological Council and The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA). The show was sold out. Due to demand, a second showing was set up which sold out as well. I won’t try to add movie reviewer to my repertoire. The movie is good. If you like it, I also suggest viewing a documentary called King Corn.

The premiere included food and snacks from food focused stores. The front of the theatre featured scoops of Jeni’s Ice Cream flanked by two milk companies with samples of delicious dairy available.

Paul Keida from Ohio Organic Family Farms was there with samples of milk, chocolate milk and cottage cheese. I met him for the first time a few days earlier at Weilands Market where he was serving a variety of samples of his products.

His milk hails from the Utica area and is the base that goes into Jeni’s Ice Cream. The chocolate milk in particular was excellent. At Weilands, I gobbled the Ohio Organic Family Farms butter and a big serving of cottage cheese. The cows are all grass fed and you can taste the difference. You are what you eat and many of us are eating junk that is food in name only. Start to know what is in your food and who is selling it to you.

Warren Taylor was present to represent Snowville Creamery. Those that have met Warren would describe him as a whirlwind of energy – you could power a small city with his aura. He roams the state telling people about Snowville Creamery and why milk matters. What goes into the cows goes into us – that is a food chain. There are some things that go into milk that we need to unlink from for our own good. People like Paul and Warren are doing just that – giving us decent dairy. If you see these guys at a store, take a few minutes to speak with them. Try their milk. In the meantime look at their web sites.

Another important aspect is giving to your community. I can say from personal experience that Snowville Creamery and Jeni’s Ice Cream are quick to volunteer to donate time and products to support charity events in our community. That is part of a chain too – what comes around goes around – if you take care of your community, your community will take care of you.

Posted in food | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Hills Market + Snowville Creamery = Beer Floats!

Posted by CMH Gourmand on May 27, 2009

Ice Cream Social

Ice Cream Social

Jill from the Hills teamed up with Jen and Warren from Snowville Creamery to craft a pairing of two of my favorite things – ice cream and beer. Visitors could sample either separately or even better – together in the form of beer floats (or a FrostTop Root Beer float for the timid, young and infirm).

There were many skeptics about beer floats but most were converted after the end of the the evening. I now will break down the steps in the process. DO TRY THIS AT HOME.

Step 1:
Get Snowville Creamery milk, a lot of ice, some sugar, vanilla and a few other items.

Step 2:
Pour, dump and spoon ingredients into your ice cream maker. In this case, Snowville’s bicycle powered ice cream churner. This is one of the coolest things ever.

Step 3:
Wait about 45 minutes for the ice cream to churn and chill. “Let” other people pedal the bike because it is fun, fun, fun! Then get a glass.

Step 4:
Select a beer. This is where people get a little squeamish. You have to choose good beers to make good floats. Jill and the Hills did a fine job with selection – three beers were picked that were float friendly.

Orange Blossom - Orange Ale * Framboise - Raspberry Lambic * Hoppin Frog - Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Orange Blossom - Orange Ale * Framboise - Raspberry Lambic * Hoppin Frog - Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Step 5 & 6:
Put scoop of homemade ice cream in beer glass. Drink float.

My favorite was The Orange Ale Float – it had an orange creamcicle quality that was perfect for a hot night.

Camera provided by and photo taken by Hungry Woolf

Camera provided by and photo taken by Hungry Woolf

It was a good evening for all. A few biked the Olentangy Bike Trail which conveniently ends at the Hills Market. For those of you looking to get a disinterested person on a bike then on the trail – dangle the Hills as the end of the road reward. If there is not an event going on – there are plenty of treats to be had including: pints of Jeni’s Ice Cream, Pistacia Vera cookies, Dorothy Lane Market Killer Brownies, Sugardaddy’s Brownies and many more reasons to ride.

Snowville makes it to a few events at the Hills Market and other places in town and sometimes they bring their bikeomatic ice cream churner with them. If you see it in action – get your ice cream first and shop later, homemade ice cream scoops out quickly.

Gourmand’s Note:
A funny things happened to me on the way to the market…..

I charged my camera battery for this occasion, but forgot to put it in my camera. Fortunately, there was a Hungry Woolf at the Hills. She loaned me her camera and one of her photos so I can promote my beer float cult. Thanks B.

Posted in beer, culinary knowledge, ice cream, markets | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Wild Goose Chase: A Cheese Tasting and More

Posted by CMH Gourmand on January 14, 2009

I left town to get caught up again. This time I was on sabbatical in San Antonio. The SA food scene has serious menu mojo!

Now for a journey back in time. A gaggle of folks from Wild Goose Creative put together a New Years Festival filled with a diverse range of activities running from December 31st to January 4th. I attended several of their events: a coffee tasting with the owner of Cafe Brioso, a pairing of Buster Keaton and Popeye for Saturday morning breakfast, another breakfast at the new Banana Bean location (Nick spoke about his breakfast blog and I chimed in a bit) on Greenlawn and a few other workshops. The event had a wide array of sponsors – many of them dear to my heart and stomach as shown below.

sponsors

What lured me in was the cheese tasting with Jen Bhaerman from Snowville Creamery. If you have not tried their milk – do so. Got Milk? Well compost it or give it to your cat then get Snowville instead, it is that good. You can find Snowville dairy products at North Market, Hills Market and other select stores.

snowville

Jen provided a packet of information titled The Pleasures of the Curd. This short handout provided a quick overview of cheese fundamentals. As part of the workshop she used several cheeses to hone our taste buds to the four main attributes of cheese – Appearance, Touch, Smell, and Taste. We started with mild cheese and worked our tastes up the flavor spectrum to wild.

Interesting factoid from her handout: Taste buds can detect only five flavors (bitter, salty, sour sweet and (not commonly known) Umani / Savory but the olfactory system can detect about 10,000 different aromas. So smell is critical to the tasting experience. Hmm, so why do I like stinky cheese so much?

cheese tasting

Jen knows her cheese and she works for a great company. Another bonus is she formerly worked for one of my favorite cheesemakers Cowgirl Creamery.

These are the cheeses we tried (photos not in order):

Twig Farm Goat Tomme

A raw milk aged goat cheese from Vermont. My favorite of the samples.

cheese 1

Oakvale Gouda

An aged cheese from just west of Columbus. Gouda..good.

cheese 2

Vermont Shepherd

Another raw, aged sheep’s milk cheese. Award winning and pleasing to my palate. Who told Jen I am a chupacabra of goat cheese?

La Chaux Doux (no link)
A washed rind cow’s milk cheese from a Fromagerie in Switzerland. This is a pungent, runny cheese that the group either loved or hated. I like stinky cheeses and found this paired well with the Gouda on a cracker.

cheese 3

Bayley Hazen Blue

A cow’s milk cheese made in Vermont using an English recipe, how is that for diversity? Jasper Hill Farm is a renown cheesemaker in a state that fields a lot of competition – we benefit from the high standards these cheesecrafters hold.

A guest also provided two additional cheeses from Bobolink Farm in New Jersey. Unfortunately, I did not note what they were.

Jen B

Jen does practice what she teaches – the photo above shows her sampling cheese – it is great to lead by example.

I think we can expect to see Jen in the future, maybe I can talk her into doing a tasting or two for Slow Food Columbus…stayed tuned.

Wild Goose Creative offers several food related events throughout the year. A taste of what is to come includes:

Whiskey Tasting at Mac’s Cafe – January 26th

Too Many Cooks: Pattycake Bakery – February 1st
See how vegan baking can taste so good.
(For reasons why you want to go to this event listen to Columbus Foodcast Episode 21)

Too Many Cooks: Northstar Cafe – March 1st
Learn some of the secrets of Northstar’s kitchen. If they show how to make one of their peanut cookies or the veggie burger I am in.

Check out the Wild Goose Creative web site for more details.

Posted in cheese, Clintonville, culinary knowledge, events | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »