Public Interest Group Calls for Boycott of Tillamook Products

The Center for Food Safety (CFS), a public interest and environmental advocacy organization, called on Wednesday (9/25) for a consumer boycott of Tillamook dairy products "until the dairy giant commits to sourcing the milk in its products from farms which use the sustainable, humane practices that the company's advertising suggests."

Cows in a typical industrial dairy.

This follows on the heels of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of four Oregon consumers alleging that Tillamook's advertising misleads the public into believing its milk comes from cows munching on coastal pastures, when in truth the vast majority of the milk used in its famous cheese, yogurt, ice cream and butter comes from cows fed on grain and living on concrete and dirt feedlots in industrial conditions in Eastern Oregon.

Referring to Tillamook's advertising as "greenwashing," the CFS press release quotes senior attorney Amy van Saun as saying that "Big Food companies like Tillamook are exploiting consumer preference for small, local, and sustainable [food] by pretending that their practices support health, the environment, and a local living economy, when the reality is that the milk they're buying is dirty. Community food system advocates have fought too hard to protect the livelihoods of small family farmers, animals and our planet to see companies greenwashing their unsustainable products, especially a brand so beloved by Oregonians."

One of the ads in Tillamook's campaign.

The lawsuit accuses Tillamook, which projects $1 billion in sales in 2020, of violating multiple Oregon consumer protection laws. These laws state that, essentially, "consumers are not required to spend hours doing online research in order to correct deception that is being put forth by a marketer’s pervasive marketing campaign, ” according to an article quoting Kelsey Eberly, a lawyer with the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDS), which filed the class action lawsuit.

CFS has mounted an online petition titled "Be the Truth Tillamook: Say Goodbye to Mega-Dairies!" urging loyal consumers to tell Tillamook that "we have long believed your advertising about the source of your milk: family farms in Tillamook county, raising cows humanely on pasture, letting them roam free on rolling green hills."

Tillamook has always touted its small family farmers.

The petition goes on to say "Tillamook claims to be the answer to Big Food and 'Dairy Done Right,' but in reality, the majority of the milk that goes into Tillamook dairy products, including the signature cheddar cheeses, comes from the nation’s largest industrial confinement mega-dairy in Eastern Oregon—quintessential 'Big Food.'" CFS is launching a concurrent social media campaign using the hashtags #BeTheTruthTillamook and #DumpDirtyDairy.

As of the time of this posting, the Tillamook County Creamery Association, the co-op behind the Tillamook brand, has not issued a comment on the boycott, nor has Threemile Canyon Farms, the mega-dairy that provides the bulk of its milk. Easterday Farms, a new 30,000-cow mega-dairy—it bought the failed Lost Valley Farm in Boardman—has applied for a permit to supply milk but is not yet in operation.

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For more information on mega-dairies in Oregon, read my article, Big Milk Brings Big Issues for Local Communities as well as my post on Tillamook's connection to these factory farms, Why I'm Quitting Tillamook Cheese. Read my full reporting on Threemile Canyon, Lost Valley and Easterday mega-dairies.

Guest Essay: Goats Rule

My friend Jeffrey Hannan has had many past lives. An author, playwright and digital user experience manager, he lived on a farm as a child and gravitated to goats as his familiars. Which is why, whenever he visits Portland, it's a requirement that we stop by at least one spot where they gather, even if only through a pasture fence. His most recent appearance in Oregon entailed a road trip to the wilds of Gales Creek for a chat with Lise Bueschen-Monahan and her 100-or-so goats at Fraga Farmstead Creamery.

Goats rule.

At least in my private hierarchy of the animal kingdom. How, then, to resist an invitation to visit Steve Monahan and Lise Bueschen-Monahan’s Fraga Farmstead Creamery? Not possible.

Lise Bueschen-Monahan.

Kathleen Bauer and I bundled up and donned our farm boots one chilly afternoon in January. We climbed into her truck and headed 30 minutes west, to where the fringe of suburbanization meets wide open farmland. A bit further, to the south, before the road wants to rise into the Tillamook forest, lies a farm with a pond, a red barn and dense stand of pines trees.

Here a herd of 100-plus female goats roams a shady evergreen forest, rubbing themselves and their horns against the trunks of trees. They come running as a pack when Lise strides into the large open field and calls out to them: “Goaties!”

Some of Fraga Farm's goats.

Goats are curious looking things. Like most quadrupeds (and some humans), they have a big midsection supported by four slender appendages. Their heads are triangular. Their eyes are equal parts mischief and interrogation. They’re also set a bit too far apart, leaving us mere humanoids struggling to match their gaze.

They think nothing of strolling up and swarming around you, rubbing their thick bodies against your legs or chewing on your shoelaces as you stand in place to learn the story of the farm.

Goats like—they will often insist upon—your affection. They love to be scratched. However, they can be fickle creatures. They’re all too quick to divest you of their attention when they discern that fresh hay has been laid in the barn.

The farm's red barn and oak trees.

Lise is the goatherd of the family. She is aided by Franklin, a tall, amiable intern who, upon completion of his master’s degree, aims to establish a goat dairy when he returns to his native Ghana.

Lise’s husband Steve is the cheese maker. Together they create a small collection of superb goat milk cheeses—traditional chevre, camembert, feta, and an aged raw milk cheese akin to cheddar—as well as some insanely delicious goat milk caramels.

The quality of the product is not by accident. That’s why Kathleen and I were there: to uncover the method behind the magic.

Lise walking with her "goaties."

It was quiet time on the farm when we visited: a period of relatively little activity when milk production has waned and the busy-ness of kidding season has not yet begun. Kidding season lasts roughly from January through May. About 20 kids are born each year. Some of the does are kept as milkers; the rest of the kids are put up for adoption as pets.

In some industrial goat dairies, the moment kids are born they are taken from their mother and killed so that every drop of mother’s milk is reserved for commercial use. Not a drop, so to speak, is wasted. In contrast, when a kid is born at Fraga, both kid and mother are put in their own enclosure after birth to give them a chance to rest. The kids then nurse for about two months, at which point they are weaned and the mother’s remaining milk is used to make cheese.

This nurturing, natural method of raising goats leads to better cheese. Not to mention a healthy quality of life for the animal. It is fairly well documented that the commercial raising and slaughter of animals for meat and dairy is highly unnatural and traumatic. This trauma ultimately finds its way into the end product—be it meat, cheese, milk or butter.

Fraga Farm's chevre with honey.

“Everything is hormonal,” explains Lise. Birthing, feeding, weaning and milking all are driven by hormones, just as hormones drive interactions between human mothers and their children. When animals are dragged into slaughter or robbed of interaction with their parent or offspring from the moment they’re born, the animal’s normal hormonal processes are disrupted. Moreover, the cramped, unhealthy conditions in which many industrial food animals are raised adds a deeper degree of damage.

The natural, normal processes of grazing, birthing and weaning that take place at Fraga are antithetical to industrial methods. Fraga’s methods are emblematic of a larger food movement which strives to farm with the earth and its inhabitants instead of against it or in perceived domination of it.

The farm's camembert-style cheese.

The methods that small farmers like Lise and Stephen apply result in superior products with a higher cost of production. Unfortunately, the demand to keep retail prices as low as possible while maximizing profit means ethical trade-offs that holistic farmers are not willing to make.  As a result, small farmers face relentless competition from industrial farms and large retailers whose sole objective is to increase their own share of the consumer’s wallet.

When it comes to producing food or dairy, there is an uncomfortable symbiosis between man and animal: we are far more dependent upon them than they are on us. That said, a herd of animals—dairy goats, for instance—requires conscientious care if we’re going to right the current imbalance. These workers require and deserve our diligence and decency.

The same can be said of a bed of vegetables: by nurturing their growth through natural methods such as soil regeneration, which ensures a healthy mix of microbial magic, instead of creating land that’s been fertilized literally to death, the negative trends in industrial farming can be countered.

Farm intern Franklin intends to start a goat dairy in Ghana.

Whether those trends can be reversed is an entirely different argument. Even at a friendly sit-down at a wooden table in a farmhouse. After a tour of the farm and a lengthy visit with the herd in the barn, the three of us retreated to the farmhouse. Warmed by fresh coffee, farm-made cheese and bread, our degrees of optimism varied. What was agreed upon, though, is that many of us, when we buy food, have a choice: we can choose the cheaper industrial product or we can seek out humane and healthier alternatives.

This is the hard mission of Lise and countless other farmers in the bountiful Northwest: to create those options and stave off the inevitable demise wrought by big ag. It is also the work of Kathleen to provide exposure to these alternatives, to get people to understand where food comes from: to remember that we exist in a web of natural inter-relationships. If we are to eat well, and live well, we have to re-engage with the realities of our food supply.

With Lise and her goats, it's all about the love.

Food labeling, though, is an issue. (And a lengthy, head-spinning side topic.) What, after all, I wonder, is truly organic? What is “free-range”? These neat government labels, written by and for the benefit of commercial producers, do little to truly inform the public. They are guideposts that reveal nothing of the real methods of production behind them, but instead point us in directions we feel obliged to follow.

Are we being misled? This intentional ambiguity is a not just a crisis of conscience but a crisis of health: If the food we put in our mouths is grown in soil denuded of nutrients and nature’s complex, life-giving secrets, and if the animals we eat are abused in their service to us, what are we really putting into our bodies?

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Sam (black), Marilyn (tan), and Jeff. La Mesa, CA, ca 1989.

Author's note: Sam and Marilyn hung out in the chicken enclosure, where they had a homemade house of wood where they slept at night, and a wooden picnic bench and table that they could hop around on. When I’d get home from work or school I’d let them out to run around the yard and climb the giant boulders on the property. Marilyn loved corn chips and a sip of white zinfandel, which perhaps, alas, contributed to her early demise.

Empowerment through Food: Claudia Lucero of Urban Cheesecraft

"The line I draw between my former career in nonprofits and my company, Urban Cheesecraft, is empowerment." - Claudia Lucero

Raised for the first three years of her life by her grandmother, who'd immigrated from Mexico and lived in a neighborhood near the border in San Diego, Claudia Lucero said that her grandmother was a huge influence on her life and that they shared a special bond, one bound up in culture and a common passion for good food. Lucero remembers regular visits to Mexico so that her grandmother could see relatives there, and that during those visits they'd go to the tortillerias and fresh cheese shops and make cheese tacos right on the spot. Another treat was the instant chocolate mix called Maizena that her grandmother used to make a drinking chocolate called atole.

Cheese maker and author Claudia Lucero.

There were also the doughnuts her grandmother would make using inexpensive rolls of biscuit dough from the store that she'd roll out into disks. She'd have Lucero rummage in the kitchen for a just-the-right-size cap from a bottle to use for cutting the hole, then she'd fry the disks in oil until they puffed up before young Claudia's eyes.

Large blocks of surplus government cheese were a staple that was always available and "kept us going," Lucero recalled. After the age of three, she and her sister lived with their mother, who considered herself "a modern woman and working single mother" who had no interest in cooking. Lucero took over the job and recalled cutting the orange government cheese into cubes and cooking them in the microwave until they melted, turning them into crunchy cracker-like crisps just like the frico that's so popular now on restaurant menus and at deli counters.

Fresh cheeses you can make at home.

For several years Lucero worked for nonprofit organizations in San Diego focused on providing support services to girls, women and the LGBTQ community, then came to Portland to work for the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls. For several years she'd been dabbling in home cooking projects like pickling and making bread, yogurt and simple fresh cheeses such as paneer, but it was feedback from friends at a weekly soup night that caused Lucero to take these pursuits more seriously.

The breads and cheeses she made and contributed to the communal meals got consistent raves, so when a friend's mother was visiting, Lucero put together a simple cheese making kit—containing citric acid, salt and cheesecloth—as a gift. With her nonprofit job barely covering her living expenses and with student loans to pay off, she had the timely epiphany that these home cheese making kits might be something people would buy for themselves or for a gift.

Queso blanco and paneer traditional cheese kit.

At the time, that meant getting her home kitchen approved for food production from Oregon's agriculture department, a process that has been made easier by Oregon's Home Kitchen Licensing law passed in 2016. Coincidentally, the website Etsy had launched a couple of years before Lucero formed her company, Urban Cheesecraft, in 2009, and it provided the creator-friendly platform she needed to get her business up and running.

A success almost from the start, Lucero was producing her kits solo, doing all the purchasing, promoting, packaging, sales and distribution out of her home. That's when she got a call from Whole Foods asking if she could supply their Pacific Northwest stores with her kits, to the tune of 20 kits per store, which added up to 500 kits per month. Shortly thereafter, New Seasons Market started requesting her kits for their stores. The good news? She paid off her student loans within a year. The bad news? After two years, she was exhausted and realized she could no longer do everything herself.

Lucero's first book on home cheese making.

Fortunately, at about that time Portland distributor Provvista Specialty Foods (sold in 2011 to Chef's Warehouse) stepped in to pick up the sales and distribution aspects, which took a huge load off of Lucero's shoulders. Then she was laid off from her job, giving her more time to focus on the business. Fortuitously, within a month of being laid off, kitchenware and home furnishings retailer Williams Sonoma came to her with an opportunity to develop custom kits for the chain's stores, and Workman Publishing offered her a book deal.

Her book, One-Hour Cheese: Ricotta, Mozzarella, Chèvre, Paneer—Even Burrata, was an almost instant hit with its simple instructions and step-by-step photos that guided even the most cooking-averse readers through properly heating milk, stirring curds, molding, kneading, and stretching the cheeses. One reader commented, "[Lucero] starts you out at the very beginning with a fast and easy farmer's cheese. This is so basic and easy that it encourages you to know you can do this and will keep people reading the rest. She also has many photos, so you can really see if you are on track. Very well thought out."

New dairy-free kits.

As the business grew, Lucero found a co-packer, DePaul Industries, which could put together the kits for her. She then switched to another outsourcing company, Relay Resources, to assemble the kits so she could concentrate on recipe development and work on her second book about making dairy-free cheeses at home. Called One-Hour Dairy-Free Cheese, it came about because of the questions she got "from day one" about using non-dairy ingredients with her traditional kits. (You can't.) She also hired a sales director to manage the business flow, and found a new distributor, Frontier Co-op, to handle the new dairy-free kits.

Urban Cheesecraft's dairy-free cheeses.

Lucero said that, as a person who loves cheese, it was interesting to start making the dairy-free versions. Judging from the types of vegan cheeses available in stores, she came to believe that most vegan cheese makers—understandably—don't know what real cheeses taste like any more. So her aim? To develop vegan cheeses that taste like real brie, fondue and feta, just a few of the many styles she's developing.

"Cheese is milk's leap toward immortality," she says in her video on Etsy, quoting author and media personality Clifton Fadiman. She adds, "Whether it takes an hour or a month [as with aged cheeses], I want to make it easy, accessible and empowering for people."

Guest Essay: Ode to the Egg

Writer and cookbook author Nancy Harmon Jenkins has traveled and lived all over the world, in the process coming to the realization, in her words, "that there is a powerful connection between who we are and what we eat. That food is a dramatic (and delicious) expression of who and what people believe themselves to be and how they got that way. Is this cultural anthropology? Yes, I suppose it is, but it’s anthropology with the very important difference that you can taste the culture on your tongue and feel it between your hands, not to mention sniff its often heady aroma on the air."

It’s the simplest, most basic of foods, the one cooks turn to when there’s nothing to eat in the house—because there’s almost always an egg or two in the pantry, ready to be scrambled for a quick supper, or tossed with hot pasta to make a rich carbonara, or poached in chicken stock to turn unassuming broth into chicken soup.

Spring and eggs go together. When the light starts to strengthen and the grass begins to green, the hens begin to lay once more, which is why eggs are so closely tied to the two great Mediterranean spring festivals, Easter and Passover. The egg on the Seder plate, the colored eggs in the Easter basket, are there to announce that winter is over and new life has begun.

Fortunately, eggs have crept out from under the dishonor in which they were held for decades, vilified for high cholesterol content and banned from the tables of anyone who feared heart disease. No longer! Dietary cholesterol is not usually the cause of elevated serum or blood cholesterol. That’s more the result of a diet high in saturated fat, or of unhappy luck of the genes.

Eggs, traditional kitchen folklore tells us, are good for you, an excellent source of protein of course, low in total fat, with 0 carbs and just 71 calories in a normal large egg. They are good sources of iron, selenium, phosphorus, and riboflavin, as well as vitamin B12. They’re also well supplied with antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin which protect against macular degeneration, among other benefits. Did your mother tell you eggs are good for your eyes? Mine did, and she was right!

But what kind of eggs? Cage-free, free-range, pastured, pasteurized, organic? The choice is confusing but for most and best flavor, my vote goes to eggs bought from the farmer who tends the chickens. Like Farmer Hubert’s eggs, pictured above, they may be multi-colored (the blue ones are from Araucana hens, the white ones from Leghorns, but I can’t tell you about the rest.) Going straight to the source, you’ll find out how the chickens were raised, what they’ve been fed, and how fresh the eggs are. A bonus: eggs from hens allowed to scratch around a chicken yard are almost always better tasting than ones raised in total captivity. Incidentally, brown eggs are favored in New England and white eggs preferred elsewhere, but the flavor and goodness are exactly the same.

Here’s another interesting fact to put in your egg file: Eggs in North America must be washed before they can be sold. Not a bad idea, you’re thinking? Think again. Eggs come with a natural protective coating that gets dissolved in the wash water. In Italy, where I live part time, eggs don’t have to be refrigerated, while in the U.S., I’m told, it’s best to keep them, if not refrigerated, in a very cool place to protect them. (You may find that eggs bought from the farmer have not been washed.)

What about salmonella? If you think eggs are risky, cook them thoroughly, either hard-boiling or baking in cakes or cookies. Hard cooked eggs can quickly become deviled eggs, a seriously delicious, old-fashioned treat. Do them up Mediterranean style, mixing yolks with a little mustard, some capers and a few green olives chopped with fresh green herbs, the whole bound with a dab of olive oil and another dab of mayonnaise. Or serve them plain, halved and garnished with a black- or green-olive tapénade.

Take a tip from the Italian kitchen and drop eggs, one after the other, into a bean-and-pasta soup, then serve a poached egg with each soup portion, perhaps with a little parmigiano reggiano sprinkled on top. Another dazzling egg trick I learned from Maria Jose San Roman, a great chef from Alicante in southeast Spain: Use gently fried eggs as a sauce to top sautéed potatoes: Sauté sliced potatoes (in olive oil, of course), then arrange on a platter, season generously, and top with eggs similarly fried, the yolks basted with hot oil so that when they break they make a rich, golden sauce for the potatoes. Nothing could be simpler—or better.

Easy Cheese Soufflé

Cheese soufflés transport eggs to the height of elegance. They have a reputation for being tricky but they’re actually easy when you understand the concept. Basically, it’s a béchamel sauce into which egg yolks are stirred and then the stiffly beaten whites and grated cheese, baked until the eggs puff up, and then served immediately. Wait just 10 minutes and the soufflé will deflate—still tasty but not the exciting thing that comes straight from the oven bursting with cheesy fragrance. Another advantage: You can prepare most of it ahead of time, then just beat up the egg whites and fold them in with the cheese right before you put the thing in the oven for 20 minutes. Most soufflé recipes make enough for 6 people but I like this snug little way of making just enough for two.

You’ll need: butter, a small amount of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, a little all-purpose flour, about 3/4 cup of whole milk, 2 eggs (separated), and a cup of grated cheese (gruyere is best but emmenthal or cheddar will work well too). Plus the usual salt, pepper and, if you wish, a pinch of ground red chili and/or a spoonful of French mustard.

First butter the inside of a couple of small soufflé dishes, the kind that hold about 1 cup. Butter them generously and sprinkle the bottoms and sides with grated parmigiano–you’ll need about a tablespoon for each. Set these aside and in a small saucepan melt about a tablespoon of butter over low heat. While you’re doing this, warm the milk in a separate saucepan–it should be very warm but not simmering.

Whisk about 1 1/2 tablespoons of flour into the melted butter, whisking well to avoid lumps. Cook, stirring, for just a minute or two to get rid of the raw taste of the flour, then start adding the hot milk, a little at a time and whisking after each addition. This will avoid lumps in the béchamel sauce. When all the milk has been added, continue cooking for a bit to let the sauce thicken to the consistency of very heavy cream. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool down a bit, then add the egg yolks, one at a time and whisking well after each one. Add a little salt (not too much because the cheese will be salty), ground black pepper, a pinch of chili pepper if you wish (I like to use piment d’Espelette, the chili from the Basque country of southern France), and a spoonful of Dijon mustard. Stir all this together then set aside until you’re ready to continue making the soufflés.

When you’re set to continue, heat the oven up to 450º. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, then gently stir half the egg whites and half the grated gruyere into the béchamel. Top with the remaining egg whites and cheese and, using a spatula, fold it all together.

Add the mix to the two soufflé dishes and transfer to the hot oven, immediately turning the heat down to 350º. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the soufflés have risen and turned golden on top. Remove and serve immediately.

Update on Tillamook's Mega-Dairy Suppliers

Due to new developments in the Tillamook cheese story I posted about previously, I decided an update was needed.

If I needed more assurance that my decision to stop buying Tillamook cheese was the right one, this past week the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Environmental Quality both gave the go-ahead to Lost Valley Farm, a 30,000-cow mega-dairy, to begin operations in the Boardman area.

Tillamook's Boardman processing plant.

A California-owned facility, Lost Valley joins North Dakota-based Threemile Canyon Farm, with its 70,000 cows, in supplying milk for Tillamook cheese. According to a story in the Salem Statesman-Journal, "both dairies hold contracts with Boardman’s Columbia River Processing, which produces cheese for the Tillamook County Creamery Association, maker of Oregon’s famous Tillamook Cheese."

Lost Valley also had to gain the official approval of Morrow County's commissioners, although according to a story in the Oregonian, "the county [had] no legal way to stop what would be the state's second-largest dairy, and its three commissioners are deeply worried that it will sap already-limited groundwater from local farmers, and exacerbate water and air quality problems."

The site of Lost Valley Farm in Boardman.

Since the county had no choice but to approve the facility despite its deep misgivings, the article then asks, "that raises a crucial question for a coalition composed of local and federal government agencies, small farm advocates and environmental organizations: Are Oregon's rules for mega-dairies and livestock feedlots too loose?"

Ivan Maluski, Policy Director of Friends of Family Farmers, thinks so. "We've been warning for some time that Oregon's rules are too weak, and we're in danger of being a big factory farm state," he was quoted as saying.

Animal sewage draining from barns at Threemile Canyon.

In a recent op-ed in the Oregonian titled "The Toxic Truth Behind Oregon's Factory Farm Stench," Dr. Nathan Donley, a senior scientist in the Portland office of the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “The new Lost Valley [Farm] operation will generate as much waste as a small city that will be stored largely in open-air lagoons, then disposed of on fields.

“Without adequate oversight, there can be no question that every time the state approves a new factory farm it will be opening the door to dangerous health risks—not only for workers but for all those families unfortunate enough to have no choice but to breathe the air around those facilities.”

As I noted in my previous post, Tillamook's slogan is "Dairy Done Right." I disagree. There is a bill, SB 197, before this session of the Oregon Legislature that will set common-sense regulations for air emissions from these facilities—there are no regulations currently on the books for the ammonia and other gasses they emit—so please consider e-mailing your legislator with your concerns and ask them to support this bill.*

* Suggested text for a message to your senator: "I am a constituent and I am contacting you to ask that you support SB 197's passage out of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee and into the legislature for a vote. Oregon’s air quality should not be compromised by out-of-state mega-dairies flocking here to take advantage of our lax regulatory system. Thank you. (Signed, your name and address)"

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UPDATE: Though SB197 did not pass this legislative session, the work to establish regulations around toxic emissions continues. I've posted this column about the effects of corporate agriculture in Oregon from Friends of Family Farmers.

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UPDATE: Lost Valley Farm, mentioned above and one of the Boardman-area factory farms supplying milk to Tillamook, has been the subject of intense scrutiny due to owner Greg te Velde defaulting on loans, getting arrested in a prostitution sting operation and for possession of meth, as well as a history of failure to maintain the standards set out in the facility's state permit. Read that story here.

Why I'm Quitting Tillamook Cheese

"As Oregonian as a lumberjack sharing a craft beer with a beaver, no one does cheese like Tillamook." - New Seasons sale flyer

Their packaging says "Thank you for buying Tillamook and keeping our family farms strong."

Since childhood I've been a fan of Tillamook cheese. Molten and gooey inside grilled cheese sandwiches, grated into mac and cheese and melted over just about anything you can think of, its bright orange hue has been a color theme weaving through my life. On trips to the coast my parents would stop the station wagon at the cheese factory to follow the steps that the milk took from liquid to curd to sliced chunks which were finally pressed into logs, aged and dipped in wax (now wrapped in plastic) to be displayed on refrigerated shelves.

"Keeping our family farms strong."

On those same trips my parents would point out the cows munching grass in the brilliant green coastal pastures of Tillamook County, their pendulous udders swaying as they moved to the barns to be milked twice a day. "That's where our cheese comes from!" we'd think.

That's why it is with a heavy heart that I've finally decided to give up Tillamook cheese. It's not because the flavor has somehow fallen off of a cliff, or that I've discovered a better product—their extra sharp white cheddar had become our house cheese after my husband developed an intolerance to lactose. (Lactose is converted to lactic acid by cultures added to the cheese, and the longer it's aged, the less lactose remains.)

So why have I reached this decision?

Tillamook's Columbia River Processing plant in Boardman.

It turns out that only a portion of the milk that is used by the Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA)* to make their famous cheeses is produced by those cows munching that rich, coastal grass. Instead, Tillamook has partnered with Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman on the Columbia River, a factory farm that produces around 2 million pounds (that's 233,000 gallons, folks) of milk per day from 30,000 milk cows kept during the entirety of their short lives in confined barns. Add to that another 40,000 animals consisting of calves and "replacement heifers," young females that will be added to the milking herd at two years old.

As for the amount of milk produced in Tillamook County itself, a report from 2014 titled "Tillamook County Community Food Assessment: Growing Healthy Communities on the North Oregon Coast" noted that at that time "the cooperative…gets more than half its milk from outside Tillamook County and does a portion [of its] other cheese making and distribution from Boardman, Oregon."

Dairy cow standing in waste water at Threemile Canyon Farms.

An article in the Tillamook Headlight Herald from 2012, announcing layoffs of 50 employees doing packaging at the Tillamook processing facility—outsourced to companies in Utah and Idaho—quoted then-TCCA CEO Joe Rocha as saying that "all ice cream is made in Tillamook. Other Tillamook brand products, such as yogurt, butter and sour cream, are licensed products produced by other companies. All local milk is processed in Tillamook."

Tillamook has also built a large cheese processing facility, Columbia River Processing, near Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman that was designed to produce 58 million pounds of cheese a year at full operation. In 2014 it built a 64,000-square-foot expansion project to process whey, which is used in products like infant formula, performance nutrition products and products that "help manage some of the impacts of aging."

Open, manure-filled dairy lagoon is roughly 20 acres in size.

According to an article in the East Oregonian, the system is a "closed loop" where the milk cows "are loaded onto slowly rotating carousels where their udders are sprayed with a disinfectant and attached to automatic pumps. Each spin lasts just a few minutes before the cows are unloaded back where they started." The rest of the loop is made of the waste from the 70,000 animals—estimates are around 436 million gallons of liquid manure every year—that go into digesters and open lagoons that is then spread on fields of grain corn and triticale which is used to feed the cows or is made into animal bedding.

The manure spread on the fields is supposed to be carefully managed to avoid having the runoff pollute area groundwater, but an article on another proposed mega-dairy in the area, Lost Valley Farm, reports that it would add an additional 30,000 dairy cows and their waste to the already beleaguered groundwater system in the county. "The area is home to the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, where the level of nitrates in the groundwater already exceeds the federal safe drinking water standard," the article notes.

Treated manure is sprayed directly on organic crops.

There are also concerns about air pollution, and groups like the Center for Food Safety, Friends of Family Farmers and the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project are pushing for new rules to regulate air contaminant emissions (SB197) from large dairy operations. In 2007, Oregon exempted large-scale livestock operations from air-quality oversight, even though elevated concentrations of ammonia from Threemile Canyon Farms have been linked to acid deposits in the Columbia River Gorge, and nitrogen compounds are contributing to elevated levels of ozone in the vicinity of these operations.

The nail in the coffin was driven in, for me, when I started to look into what these mega-dairies were doing to Oregon's small, family-owned dairy farms. As Jon Bansen, a third-generation dairyman who is hoping to someday turn his farm over to his son, wrote in an editorial in the Salem Statesman-Journal, "when the last mega-dairy, Threemile Canyon Farms, came into Oregon, an average of nine family dairy farms went out of business per month between 2002 and 2007. Mega-dairies flood the market with milk, driving down milk prices and making it increasingly difficult for family farmers to stay afloat."

Each barn (in white) is roughly a quarter-mile long.

Mega-dairies also degrade the lives of local communities. Bansen goes on to say that "the ways in which family dairy farmers and mega-dairies contribute to a community are drastically different. When something breaks, family farmers typically buy parts from the local store. When their animals need veterinary attention, they call the local vet. They support their feed stores, tractor-supply stores and more. After a hard day on the farm, family farmers often engage in their community, schools, civic groups and churches." Employees at mega-dairies have neither the time nor the money to spend in their communities; equipment is bought from the cheapest (mostly non-local) sources; and profits are sent off to corporate, often out-of-state, offices.

So for all of these reasons I'm looking for a new, delicious source for my cheese, and I'll try to buy from small cheesemakers who source their milk from small, family farms. It'll no doubt be more expensive than the cheap-for-a-reason stuff, but I'm willing to spend a little more and use a little less if it helps to support local families and communities.

The Tillamook slogan is "Dairy Done Right." I disagree. How about you?

* * *

UPDATE: If I needed more assurance that my decision to stop buying Tillamook cheese was the right one, this past week the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Environmental Quality both gave the go-ahead to Lost Valley Farm, a 30,000-cow mega-dairy in the Boardman area. A California-owned facility, Lost Valley joins North Dakota-based Threemile Canyon Farm in supplying milk that goes into making Tillamook cheese. According to a story in the Salem Statesman-Journal, "both dairies hold contracts with Boardman’s Columbia River Processing, which produces cheese for the Tillamook County Creamery Association, maker of Oregon’s famous Tillamook Cheese."

Lost Valley also had to gain the official approval of Morrow County's commissioners, although according to a story in the Oregonian, "the county [had] no legal way to stop what would be the state's second-largest dairy, and its three commissioners are deeply worried that it will sap already-limited groundwater from local farmers, and exacerbate water and air quality problems."

Since the county had no choice but to approve the facility despite deep misgivings, the article then asks, "that raises a crucial question for a coalition composed of local and federal government agencies, small farm advocates and environmental organizations: Are Oregon's rules for mega-dairies and livestock feedlots too loose?"

Ivan Maluski, Policy Director of Friends of Family Farmers, thinks so. "We've been warning for some time that Oregon's rules are too weak, and we're in danger of being a big factory farm state," he was quoted as saying. (Read an extended version of this update.)

* * *

UPDATE: As if I needed any more reinforcement of my decision to quit buying Tillamook products, a massive dairy sewage spill—more than 190,000 gallons—that flooded neighboring properties and entered the water systems that eventually run into Tillamook Bay has closed the bay to commercial shellfish production, according to an article in the Salem Statesman-Journal. This is the third time in the last month that dairy sewage has spilled from storage tanks or drainage ponds and caused fecal coliform readings hundreds of times higher than the standard allows. These leaks have been the subject of lawsuits on the part of local fish and shellfish operators, who often have to shut down for weeks or months twice a year during rainy periods when flooding can occur. The economic impact of this latest spill to individual fishing families and shellfish operators has not been estimated, but the cumulative effect of the shutdowns and spills to local fishing and farming communities over the years cannot be underestimated.

* * *

UPDATE: A recent column from Friends of Family Farmers outlines the effects of corporate agriculture in Oregon.

* * *

UPDATE: My article for Edible Portland on the dairies that supply milk to Tillamook, titled "Big Milk: Big Issues for Local Communities," expands on the topic of industrial agriculture's creeping influence in Oregon, challenging long-held traditions of our state’s agriculture as one based on small, family-scale farms.

* * *

UPDATE: Lost Valley Farm, mentioned above and one of the Boardman-area factory farms supplying milk to Tillamook, has been the subject of intense scrutiny due to owner Greg te Velde defaulting on loans, getting arrested in a prostitution sting operation and possessing meth, and a history of failure to maintain the standards set out in the facility's state permit. Read that story here.

* I contacted the Tillamook County Creamery Association Consumer Relations department for this post and was told they could not comment on the facts referenced in this post because "production numbers like the kind you are seeking are not figures that we generally share with the public."

Photos of cow barn and manure lagoon from Friends of Family Farmers. Photo of sprinklers from Threemile Canyon Farms website. Aerial photo from Google maps.

Oregon Cheese Maker Comments on FDA Ruling Regarding Use of Wood Shelves

This essay by Oregon cheese maker Gianaclis Caldwell of Pholia Farm was prompted by a Food and Drug Administration executive order that came to light last week in a letter to the New York State Agriculture Dept. from Monica Metz, Branch Chief of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition's (CFSAN) Dairy and Egg Branch. She stated that "wooden shelves or boards cannot be adequately cleaned and sanitized" and would no longer be allowed in American aging rooms. This prompted an outcry from artisan cheese makers around the country and within days the FDA rescinded its order.

Aging Cheese on Wood Shelves and Food Safety: A Non-Issue

As a person who tends to want to follow rules, it is sad to be reminded that a good portion of food production regulations have little to do with actual food safety. Rather they are the result of a ponderous, rigid system that steamrolls forward, sometimes based more on the ease of generalizing rather than the complexity of reality. The FDA has never liked wood shelves, especially when you set food, in this case naturally rinded cheese, directly on its porous surface. Wood does not fit their Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) model for a cleanable surface.

Wood shelving is used worldwide. These are in Argentina.

While wood aging shelves have technically never been okay with the FDA, they have until now been mostly ignored and the decision to allow them been left to individual states. In many "big cheese" states, the regulators defer to the scientific knowledge of the leading expert within each state. For example, in both Oregon and Wisconsin (where at least 30 million pounds of cheese is aged on wood each year) the departments of agriculture have an official stance of "no wood shelves." But in both states, if a cheesemaker gets a thumbs-up from an academic expert regarding their maintenance protocol for the shelves, then [wood shelves] have been allowed.

Isn’t that sensible? Did you hear me mention the words “scientific knowledge”? Let’s review what is well researched and known about wood shelves [list of citations here]. Guess how many outbreaks of food-borne illness they have been implicated in since the dawn of cheesemaking? Zero. This doesn’t mean that pathogens can’t exist on a wood shelf. If a cheese is contaminated and the shelf is poorly cared for, it will pass it to the shelf, no matter what material it is made from. Contamination of any aging shelf can happen when poor practices occur at any stage of cheese production, but it is not any more likely when wood is used. Bottom line.

Pros and Cons

So why do cheesemakers and affineurs (the folks that age cheese) love wood shelving? Tradition? Romance? Practicality? In the days before the invention of plastic, that ubiquitous, malleable material that we now take so for granted, wood was the logical and singular option. But fortunately it was also perfect. Like naturally aging cheese, wood "breathes," holding moisture without being wet, pulling it both out of the cheese and also helping keep the aging space at a steady level of humidity, not unlike the natural stone walls and bricks of the pre-modern aging space. Wood shelves used in aging rooms also take on the same family of fantastically helpful microflora—yeasts, molds, and especially bacteria—that help create distinctive, out-of-this-world cheeses. The usefulness of these microbes has not only to do with flavor, but also with the final safety of the cheese.

Twig Farm, Vermont.

Given what I have just told you about how awesome wood shelving is, why isn’t everyone using it?  Or at least trying to use it? (At least 60% of American Cheese Society cheesemaker members do.) First it is, not surprisingly, highly discouraged thanks to the stance of our federal friends. Second, the knowledge of how to properly care for wood is tucked away in the minds of a few and only available in a smattering of books and papers. Third, many make only fresh cheeses where aging is not used. And, finally, it is more work. More work is not what most cheesemakers need or can even contemplate.

Let me tell you about our experience with wood shelves in our own aging room.

Wood Shelves at Pholia Farm

A few years ago we got permission from our inspectors to use wood shelves as long as we consulted with Dr. Lisbeth Goddik, Oregon State University’s Dairy Extension Specialist—a darned amazing woman. She suggested routine cleaning of the shelves with mild soap and warm water, then after rinsing with plain water either wiping the boards down with vinegar or a lactic acid bacteria wash. We did both. We marked which side of each shelf was treated with vinegar and which with bacteria. After aging the cheeses for many months, and before selling them, we swabbed the shelves and sent samples of the cheese to Agri-mark lab. All results, for cheese and shelves, whether vinegar or lactic acid bacteria washed, were free from pathogens.

So why did we stop? Ironically enough, it was another aging room reality that is on the FDA’s hit list (not recent hits list…) cheese mites. I won’t go into too much detail about these little buggers (see one of my most popular posts for all of the itchy details), but what is pertinent is that the dark underside of the cheese sitting on the board was very desirable real estate for the mites. This required more frequent cheese rind labor, something that we were not prepared to do at that time. But I am now.

So Why the Ruling?

Consider for a moment that the FDA is tasked with an enormous responsibility. As that responsibility grows and food systems expand it becomes more expeditious to simplify. This means generalized rules that apply to everyone—versus thoughtful, logical exceptions. Think about it: before a couple of decades ago, you would be hard-pressed (like one of those fabulous wood-aged European Comtes) to find any U.S.-made cheese that was aged in a cellar type situation with a natural rind. Consequently, the paradigm for aging became a squeaky clean walk-in cooler. The regulations that developed reflected that reality. With the looming burden of the Food Safety Modernization Act, it’s not surprising that they are now seeking to streamline and enforce existing regulations, rather than allow states to take the responsibility of allowing exceptions.

As we move forward as cheesemakers, I think we need to nurture a new paradigm, one in which the aging room is not treated as a processing room, but as a separate type of space in which a different set of GMP’s apply. When I was at a cheese science conference in England, it was repeatedly said that “The dairy/cheese plant is NOT A HOSPITAL.” Nothing could be more true in a room in which you are counting on microbes to flourish.

What Can We Do?

I am a member of the American Cheese Society’s Regulatory and Academic committee. This morning (June 10th) we finalized the press release and position of the largest body of cheese professionals in the United States.

So support ACS (join if you are not a member), contact your congressional representatives, let the FDA know how you feel, and most importantly keep buying and making great cheese! Now, I am going to go put those beautiful Pacific maple shelves back in the aging room. Watch out cheese mites, I’m watching you!

Top photo of Tumalo Farms cheese courtesy Tami Parr of the Pacific NW Cheese Project. Photo of cheese from Argentina courtesy Gianaclis Caldwell of Pholia Farm.

Gianaclis Caldwell is also the author of three books on dairying, including Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producer.

The Basics: Strata

It's become a Sunday morning tradition around here. After Will Shortz has his way with a listener on the puzzle segment of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, Dave starts puttering around the kitchen making breakfast. Sometimes it's as simple as his fabulous cheese omelets,  other times he's got some sourdough left over from bread baking to use for biscuits or even waffles. I know that whatever it is, it's going to be delicious and I try to be appropriately appreciative.

My recipe box, broken cover and all.

But on Christmas Day a few weeks ago, falling as it did on a Sunday, I wanted to let him off the hook regarding breakfast. I pondered the usual suspects…a frittata, pancakes, coffee cake…and then remembered strata, which I hadn't made for years. I pulled out my trusty old recipe box and found the stained index card right there in the Eggs and Cheese section.

Dead easy, this cheater's souffle consists of bread, eggs, milk and cheese and whatever other ingredients you want to add. Usually, in our case, this means mushrooms and bacon, but can include herbs, kale, tomatoes, asparagus, ham or other meat or seafood.

Fortunately this cogitating was happening a day ahead, since strata really needs to be assembled the night before, with the bread spending all night absorbing the custardy goodness of the eggs and milk in order to achieve its utmost loveliness. So I dashed to the store, splurged on some chanterelle mushrooms that would go nicely with the last of the bacon from Roger and got a few pieces of fruit for a salad.

After popping it in the oven the next morning, it bubbled away while we dug into our stockings. (And yes, we still do stockings around here…how else can you surprise someone with that DVD they've been ogling online?) And I think Dave was pleased that Santa had thought to make breakfast for him for a change.

Bacon, Cheese and Chanterelle Strata

3-4 c. bread, cut in 1/2" cubes (remove crusts only if you want)
1/2 lb. sharp cheddar or other cheese, grated
1/2 lb. bacon, cut in 1/4" strips
1/4 c. butter or margarine, melted
1/2 lb. mushrooms, chopped
3 eggs
2 c. milk
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt

The day before baking, sauté bacon until fat begins to render. Add chopped mushrooms and sauté till mushrooms get limp. Remove from heat and cool. Beat eggs, milk, mustard and salt in a small mixing bowl. In a medium casserole dish (I used my small Le Creuset casserole), place half the bread cubes, topped with half the meat and mushroom mixture, half the cheese and half the melted butter. Repeat with another layer of the remaining bread cubes, meat mixture, cheese and butter. Pour the egg mixture over the top. You can add a little more milk if it seems too dry, but go easy—the bread shouldn't be swimming in liquid. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator overnight to soak.

The next morning, preheat the oven to 300°. Place the casserole in a larger pan with about 3/4" of hot water (I used my 9" by 12" Pyrex baking dish) and place those in the oven. Bake for 90 minutes.

Read more recipes in The Basics series: 20 Minute Tomato Sauce, House Vinaigrette, Chile Sauce and Caesar Salad.

Dairy Report: Rocking Out and Rolling Over

Enthusiastic doesn't begin to describe Lisa Jacobs of Jacobs Creamery. Originally from Ireland, she moved to the States with her family in the 80s and just a year ago decided she wanted to make cheese for a living. With the help of Garry Hansen of Lady-Lane Farm, she's done just that, and now has booths at the PSU, Hollywood, Milwaukie, Hillsdale, King, Eastbank and Lake Oswego farmers' markets. And she just sent out her first newsletter this week. Here's an excerpt.

Holy smokes, what a week! The cheese room was a-rockin' this week. I processed 1,272 pounds of milk and, yes, show tunes and Willie Nelson were played and American Pie was belted out at full blast. Garry couldn't help himself and belted out a few tunes himself. I think the baby cows, which are closest to my cheese room, liked my singing because they started some of their own. They are awfully cute and work with what they have, which I respect, and there are a lot of moo moo mooooos.

One of the really super things about working with Garry is that he has cool dairy friends with very cool Jersey cows. Everyone loves Garry and always likes to help him, so when we were in need of some special equipment, he called up his dairy buds for a favor. I was given the task of picking up our borrowed gear and, boy, was I happy I did. I needed a cheese rake and Garry needed a snap thingy or other and so off I went to Coelho Dairy. They have 300 Jersey cows and I got the grand belle tour! Three hours later we were finishing up and he asked me if I wanted to see his truck. Are you kidding? Hell, yeah, I wanted to see it!

It was some truck. It has a Thermo King unit on it and is the box style van that I see the serious vendors at the market driving. Now, my van isn't small but it does seem inadequate compared to others. I must have some American spirit in me because I am starting to think with nine markets a week lined up, that bigger and colder might be better. That's very American because Americans all love things big and ice, ice, ice equals cold, cold, cold.

I am taking it to the doc to get inspected, so stay tuned. Stay away, too, because, as some of you have experienced, I roll over things from time to time. (Sorry about your measuring tape, Jaret.) If it happens that I get the truck, the Gorge-ites (people that live in the Gorge) that get me to deliver won't be the only ones on my route. We hope to offer a home delivery service in the fall and will be delivering fresh milk and yummy dairy goodies to your door. What a service!

I conclude this week with a super fab recipe for using my ricotta in your kitchen.

Ricotta Fritters (Polpette di Ricotta)
From Saveur magazine

Chilling the ricotta–prosciutto mixture after mixing it allows the flavors to come together and makes the balls easier to form.

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 tsp. crushed red chile flakes
1 14-oz. can crushed tomatoes
6 basil leaves, torn in half
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 c. homemade or store-bought ricotta
1 c. fresh bread crumbs
1/2 c. grated pecorino
1/3 c. grated mozzarella
1 tsp. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
3 egg yolks plus 2 eggs
4 oz. thinly sliced prosciutto, finely chopped
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
Canola oil, for frying

Heat olive oil in a 2-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 5 minutes. Add chile flakes; toast for 1 minute. Add tomatoes and basil, bring to a boil, lower heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce begins to thicken, 6-8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low; keep warm.

Stir together ricotta, fresh bread crumbs, pecorino, mozzarella, parsley, lemon zest, nutmeg, egg yolks and prosciutto in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper; cover and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

Put flour, whole eggs and dried bread crumbs into 3 separate shallow dishes; whisk eggs. Using your hands, form chilled ricotta mixture into 1 1/2" balls. Working with 1 ball at a time, dredge in flour, then eggs, then bread crumbs, shaking off any excess. Transfer to a parchment paper-lined sheet tray.

Pour enough canola oil into a 4-quart saucepan that it reaches a depth of 2". Heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer inserted in the oil registers 350°. Working in batches, fry the ricotta balls, turning occasionally, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the balls to a paper towel-lined plate. Serve with the tomato sauce.

Makes 20 fritters.

Biographical info thanks to Tami Parr at Pacific NW Cheese Project. E-mail Lisa to subscribe to her newsletter.