Posted on 01/01/2007 12:11:49 PM PST by Coleus
There is nothing better than going to a farm for all-natural food. The air is crisp, despite the occasional whiff of cow manure, and the two-lane blacktop is winding and scenic. But the real enjoyment comes in the following days, when cave-aged cheese, wood-fired bread, organic eggs and meat from grass-fed animals brighten your meals at home. Small farms in Morris and Sussex counties are close enough for comfortable day trips, but given that cozy inns, restaurants, antiques shops, parks and wineries are nearby, you can easily stretch your visit into a weekend.
Routes 80 and 23 will speed you to Sussex County, and 80 also takes you to Morris County. But the really great driving awaits on sinuous stretches of two-lane roads, such as Route 515 between Routes 23 and 94 in Sussex and Route 513 between Long Valley in Morris and High Bridge in northern Hunterdon County. On Route 513 south, you'll roll past horse farms and historic sites draped in fall colors. Further reward awaits in High Bridge with a meal at Circa, a bistro serving New Jersey cheeses and wines. Don't leave town without checking out the art-deco bank building that now houses a liquor store.
Slower pace
Two-lane roads reveal an older New Jersey, where life is lived at a slower pace and naturally grown food is a welcome alternative to overprocessed and overpackaged supermarket fare. Here, artisans think nothing of cave-aging a wheel of cheese for 20 months before selling it. In the hills of Sussex County, you'll find cheese makers Nina and Jonathan White doing just that at Bobolink Dairy with their herd of about 30 cows. The nearly 200-acre farm in Vernon has a lot to offer -- raw-milk cheese, rustic bread and grass-fed meat, and a chance to live there and learn baking and cheese-making. Once you've braved the steep hill to the parking area, the atmosphere is relaxed, with a friendly farm dog and pecking chickens near the small store. You can taste before you buy. The Whites use no preservatives, and their animals receive no antibiotics or growth hormones, practices followed at many family-run farms.
The baker, B. Young, formerly of Balthazar Bakery in Englewood, took time out from his work to give my 9-year-old son feed for the chickens. Many nearby farms have stopped selling food to the public, and Bobolink has trouble finding good sales help to staff the farm store and Manhattan farmers' markets. So why do the Whites do it?
Family friendly
Their goal, they said a few years ago, was to promote "grass-based, sustainable, profitable, family-sized dairy farming as an alternative to the industrial, confinement-based farms that typified the dairy industry." To help spread that message, the Whites offer internships of 12 weeks to one year, including room, board and a weekly stipend. Visitors also can get tips from the couple on such nearby attractions as Wawayanda State Park and Warwick, N.Y.'s historic downtown. You'll leave the cows behind when you visit a more ambitious enterprise, Valley Shepherd Creamery in Morris County, a family-friendly sheep dairy that blends traditional cheese-making with modern equipment from around the world. The dairy uses just about every part of its pasture-raised ewes and rams and invites the public to witness milestones of their relatively short lives (about eight years, less for most rams).
The 120-acre dairy is in Long Valley, a quaint crossroads that offers farm visits, restaurants, antiques shopping and lodging in old homes, all within a few miles. On our first visit about a year ago, we stopped at the nearby Alstede Farms, where my son loved riding a pony and we shopped for produce. At Valley Shepherd, we visited the sheep barn, the unusual rotary milking parlor and the cheese-making room. (When it's time for the ewes to be milked, they're so eager, they literally try to climb over one another to be first inside.) We bought sheep cheese and tangy yogurt, then capped off our day with dinner at the Long Valley Pub & Brewery, where 4-ounce samplers of seven brewery beers are served in a converted 200-year-old barn.
All about cheese
"We've gone crazy," Eran Wajswol, the seemingly indefatigable cheese maker who runs the dairy with his wife, Debra, said of their newest products: ravioli stuffed with Valley Shepherd ricotta and intensely flavored gelati. You can usually find Eran in a white jumpsuit, rubber boots and a hairnet, but don't get him started on artisanal cheese-making or curds and whey unless you have a couple of hours to spare. There's more. In the large, shipshape Sheep Shoppe, you'll find shelves of sheep- and cow-themed merchandise, blankets of the ewes' wool and lambskins (from those condemned rams) for holiday gift-giving. Weekend tours now include visits to the deep cave in a nearby hillside where cheeses are aged. At the beginning of April, you'll be able to visit the lambing barn and witness the birth of an expected 700 lambs. Later that month, the dairy will stage a wool-shearing festival. Until then, don't forget to pick up a 40-pound bag of EWE-POO ($5), "the richest compost you can buy," made at the dairy from manure and barn straw.
Morris County
FARMS
Valley Shepherd Creamery, 50 Fairmount Road, Long Valley, 908-876-3200, valleyshep herd.com. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday to Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 31, then weekends only until April 1. Cheese is $10 to $24 a pound.
Sussex County
FARMS
Bobolink Dairy, 42 Meadowburn Road, Vernon, 973-764-4888, CowsOutside.com. Open noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, until Dec. 31. Reopens in mid-January. Cheese is $20 a pound, most breads $3 to $5. Pork and beef start at $6.50 a pound.W
Windy Brow Farms, 359 Ridge Road, Fredon Township, 973-579-9657. Homemade apple, blueberry and pumpkin pies from its own produce, fresh-squeezed cider. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, until mid-December.
Stephens Farm, 476 Route 284, Wantage, 973-875-2849, call before you go. Certified organic by the Northeast Organic Farming Association. Organic pork, including bacon, sausage, shoulders, fresh and smoked hams, from $8 a pound.
Flatbrook Farm, 2 DeGroat Road, Montague, 973-948-2554, call first. Organic turkey, chicken, beef and eggs.
LODGING
Apple Valley Inn and Candy Apple Shoppe, 967 Route 517, Glenwood, 973-764-3735. Six rooms in a large country house, with wraparound porches, dating to 1831. All rooms with private baths, $140 to $150 a night, including country breakfast.
WINING, DINING
Andre's Restaurant & Wine Boutique, 188 Spring St., Newton, 973-300-4192. Entrees $23 and up.
Westfall Winery, 141 Clove Road, Montague, 973-293-3428. Weekend tastings and tours. Nov. 24-26, Wine Trail weekend with barrel tastings.
Hunterdon County
DINING
Circa, 37 Main St., High Bridge, 908-638-5560; entrees $19 to $30.
www.state.nj.us/jerseyfresh/ agritourismhome.htm
sussexfarmvisits.com
njskylands.com
Most regular supermarkets in the Northeast have organic eggs, Stonyfield organic yogurt (the stuff with the cream layer on top is best) and other natural products so you don't necessarily have to pay "health food" prices.
I tired of conservatives ceding the "get back to nature" movement to liberals. We're not talking nudist colonies here. We are talking good, wholesome food! In fact, what better way to demonstrate your conservative family values than to support the local organic/natural farms?
For veggies, fall fun and Christmas Trees, we go to Giamarese. The Christmas Tree is a our favorite to get at the farm. Every year, we all split up and go down the rows to find the tree with the preying mantis chrysalis. Every year we find one! In spring, when the chrysalis hatches, we have a little party. It is Giamarese's gift to us. We release the mantids into our garden and we see them as they grow all year.
Nope, give me processed cheese and pizza rolls and I'm a happy camper. Now I will concede on "real" milk fresh from the cow but even you natural foods folks frown on that.
Thanks for the links. I plan to go to both. Happy New Year ~~~Pandora~~~
Watch the Buffalo site for the date of the April round up. It is worth seeing!
I've found the only thing less fit for polite conversation than politics or religion is nutrition. Folks can opt out of politics or religion as they see fit, but everyone has to eat.
I, for one, spend my food money as my conscience dictates without consulting the 'experts' on FR. One of my favorite places is a nearby Menonite u-pick farm. I go there with family and friends to get blueberries and blackberries and raspberries and peaches. Sunshine, fellowship, and fresh fruit. Divine! Another favorite place is a local dairy (owned by the inlaws of our vet). They make their own ice cream, and again, it's a happening spot for local families during summer evenings. The lady down the road from us sells eggs, there's a butcher in the next town over that sells local beef. Buying from them instead of Walmart is not left or right politics, it's wholesome and entirely my choice.
Cool I will tell my husband loves stuff like that, Thanks!
excellent thread. thank you for posting it.
Stephen's farm in your original post is a great place to go for organic poultry.
http://www.nofanj.org/cof.htm
Northeast Organic Farming Association of
New Jersey List of farms
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