At Bobolink Dairy and Bakehouse in Milford, the farmstead cheeses that Nina and Jonathan White crafted from raw autumn milk are ripe and ready. As their grass-fed cows prepared for the cold, their milk grew richer and fattier, resulting in winter cheeses very different from their summertime offerings.
Ripening now are such creations as the Jean-Louis Palladin, which they describe as sunny and crumbly with winey-beefy flavors. The couple is equally enthusiastic about their drumm cheese—smoother and runnier at its edge, filled with an earthy complexity.
Right now, their wood-burning oven is turning out a range of breads from mostly local flours. They taste of the same ancient grains and wintery goodness that likely fueled Washington’s troops across the Delaware a couple hundred Christmases ago. Bobolink’s “medieval levain” is both hearty and sturdy—it freezes beautifully and will last a week at room temperature. A hunk of Bobolink’s roasted garlic and duck-fat ciabatta is good reason to just stay inside and watch the falling snow.
Dedicated carnivores also have much to appreciate: To everything there is a season, and it’s… well… slaughter time. Traditionally, there is a logical reason why we might feast on a little suckled veal or lamb in spring, then turkey in autumn, and a plump holiday ham in late December. As the months get colder, larger livestock reach their peak weight. Of course, modern farming has found a way around nature’s schedule, but now is still an ideal time to buy meat directly from a livestock farm. Their fresh and dry-aged meat is a decadent, mouthwatering alternative to the shrink-wrapped industrial feed-lot stuff.
Berkshire pork, Angus beef, or even American bison might sound prohibitively expensive, but bulk purchases from farms bring costs down to—or sometimes below—supermarket levels. This year, Corné Vongelaar of River Bend Farms in Far Hills is offering whole, sides, and quarters of free-roaming and grass-fed Angus beef at less than four dollars per pound—a great option for those willing to buy and freeze 125 to 500 pounds of meat.
And it makes an impact. “Direct sales are saving New Jersey’s small farmers,” Mr. Vogelaar said, while loading my car with 82 pounds of fresh and smoked pork Saturday morning.
Then there is our coastline, dotted with thriving fisheries. Joe Atchison, the state’s Aquaculture Marketing Specialist, offers a list of the local fish we should be buying right now—taking into account a headspinning algorithm of sustainability, fish management practices, and rebounding populations (phew). This winter, he recommends that we eat Atlantic cod, flounder, monkfish, tilefish, and whiting.
But if none of this grabs you, then consider the adage admonishing us to “eat oysters in months with R.” (Totally false, by the way. Atchison jokes that “the R in refrigeration makes this unnecessary.”) However, many local shellfish farmers do claim that their oysters and clams become noticeably sweeter in winter months due to elevated glycogen (fish “sugar”) levels that occur naturally when the water gets cold.
For more information:
Slowfood.org and localharvest.org can help connect you with local farms and winter markets in your area.
Local seafood purveyors include: Freeman’s in Maplewood; Peter’s Fish Market in Midland Park; Shore Catch (still at the Montclair Farmer’s Market); and Whole Foods.
Find River Bend Farm here.
Bobolink’s products are sold at their farm store and can be ordered online at cowsoutside.com
ALLISON FISHMAN returns from her honeymoon next week.