Say cheese

I'm drenched. The hot whey steam scorches my nostrils, I  hardly finish wiping my forehead before a slick layer of sweat resurfaces....

I arrived at Snow Farm hoping to take a quick tour of the dairy operations, and then talk over a nice cool glass of milk. Well, I was wrong. Before I could say Gouda I had been swept into a room resembling the high school showers, and was soon wrestling 50 pounds of steamy raw cheese into a bucket as my bare feet soaked in the pungent trickle of warm whey water.

 "Making cheese ain't as easy as playing baseball, is it?"

Aarron Snow chuckles across the vat from me. He has a long  neck, a sinewy build, and the smile of a seven year old on Christmas. His eyes are just like his dad's-- alive and giddy. His pops joins in on the laughter as he puts the finishing touches on my blubbery mold of cheese. His checks and forehead are shinning too--15 minutes of pouring hot cheese juice on mounds of giant silly putty is no cake walk.


So what was I doing on a perfectly nice Saturday afternoon indoors making cheese?


Cal and Aaron Snow may just be the coolest father-son cheese making duo this planet has ever produced. Mr. Snow has been a dairy farmer in Brooktondale all his life. By far the youngest of all his brothers he took over the farm in 1974 after graduating from Cornell. The Snow family has been farming in this area for a  long long time-- precisely 50 years before the civil war began.
But it's been a while since any Snows were making cheese, probably over 80 years ago.
So when Aaron returned from the Peace Crops. in Tanzania he and his dad thought it was a pretty swell time to put an idea 10 years in the making into action. Two years, a handfull of  runny provolone batches and  a few dozen workshops later Snofarm once again became creamery; the only in Tompkins County as a matter of fact.

Now I have known Mr. Snow for a couple years now, and I had heard about the cheese operation. When the Brooktondale Market had a day of Snofarm cheese tasting , a month or so ago, I decided to swing by. Well as Mr. Snow attested during my visit, the response was phenomenal. Arron and his pops joked before the event that they would be lucky to sell five pounds. By the time I had gotten there they had sold over 70. It was easy to see why, the cheese I tried was almost as good as its punny name-- fetish. That's when I decided to get an insiders look.


Although I visited,and made cheese over two weeks ago I am still so gosh darn excited by all that I filmed. I can't wait to show you.

Farmers really have got the good life figured out.