Raw Milk Does a Body Good.....

We are super excited to welcome Claravale Farm from Paicines to our group of suppliers. Claravale are one of the few raw milk dairies left in California and we are happy to support them just because we and they are rebels......and even more happy to get their wonderful products. They have raw cows milk of all kinds, raw cream and raw goats milk.

You have to be old as the hills (this is me talking) to remember milk that actually used to come in bottles, and had two or three inches of cream floating at the top. Not only that, there used to be a milkman: milk, eggs, butter and cheese came every morning at the crack of dawn, or earlier. Every house had a little metal ice chest on the back porch to care for the morning's delivery. I was about to say that it was recent.....1966....when I realize that 1966 was 45 years ago. I am surprised I can still see to type!

The "Got Milk?" people have a cute series of ads showing famous and beautiful people with little milk mustaches from drinking milk. Trust me....there is only one way to actually GET a milk mustache, and that is drinking real whole milk with the cream on top, straight out of the bottle. Busted!

We have started making our own sour cream, buttermilk, creme fraiche and mozzarella at The Store, and I am very happy we started a couple of weeks BC. Before Claravale. Our normal milk is either Clover or Organic Valley, neither of which suck.....but Claravale is over the top. Silky and satiny are the first adjectives that pop to mind.

A quart of fresh, local, real milk runs $5.75.....including the bottle. I was tempted to say "not cheap", but it actually IS cheap. A decent beer is six bucks a quart. Ben and Jerry's is five bucks a PINT. And if you knew the hoops these guys have had to jump through, and corporate and political pressure that have tried to exterminate them because of the awful threat they apparently pose.....

So.....Live a little. Quality, tradition, history....and rebellion...in a bottle. Less than six bucks.

Check out their website: http://claravaledairy.com/index.html

For a small dairy, their milk is available in every cool grocery in the area, and in California. It goes without saying that Whole Foods does NOT carry Claravale....you have to go to a good store like Cornucopia or Shopper's Corner or New Leaf. Or the Cachagua Store, not that we are either a grocery or cool.