Several months ago I switched buying milk from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy (though I still get my butter from them) in favor of Milk Thistle Farm. The main reason for the switch was that Milk Thistle is organic whereas Ronnybrook is not. In fact, in the beginning I slightly preferred the richness of the milk produced by Ronnybrook's Holsteins over that of Milk Thistle's Jersey Cows. However, that's not the case anymore. The Milk Thistle milk this week was just incredible. I don't know what the cows have been eating, but this is the most incredibly milk I've ever tasted. It's rich. It's creamy. It has more nuances of flavor than I could begin to describe. I first caught a change in the taste of the milk a few weeks after the cows were probably spending more time in the pasture, but that was nothing compared to this. If you're in the NYC area do yourself a favor and pick up a half gallon. Their green market schedule is below:
- Fridays: Union Square
- Saturdays (8am-3pm year round): Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NW entrance of Prospect Park
- Saturdays: (8am-3pm year round): Inwood, Isham Street between Cooper and Seaman
- Sundays: (8am-3pm June–Nov) Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Carroll street between Court and Smith
- Sundays: The Columbia Market, 114th & Broadway
2 comments:
I was surprised to learn that Ronnybrook was nonorganic, so I did a little digging around their website with a coworker, who noticed that their cows are fed "missing text". I don't know what that means:
http://www.ronnybrook.com/site_new/nutritional_info.html
It could be any variety of things that prevent them from asserting the organic label from restrictions on access to pasture, to the feed as you note, to a lack of willingness to pay for organic certification (though I've never heard any of their sellers at the greenmarkets mention this). It's still great milk and really great butter.
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