As I drive through the rolling green hills I imagine that California happy cows are their happiest right now. The pastures are lush with fresh, green grass and weeds, tasty feed until the heat of summer sucks the life and chlorophyll out and the hills turn dry and brown. I wonder how that makes the milk change in flavor during the different seasons.
These bovine thoughts are running through my head because I am on my way to Petaluma to take the Cowgirl Creamery tour. The first time I heard the name Cowgirl Creamery was when their cheese was named as one of Oprah's favorite things. I soon tasted and fell in love with their triple cream Mt. Tam myself. I had been looking at their website one day when I discovered they offer tours and classes.
I am the first to arrive at a rather non-descript warehouse for the 11:30 tour. The Petaluma facility makes a majority of the cheeses, but does not have a retail facility. Their tours are on Wednesdays. The original Cowgirl Creamery location is in Point Reyes, where an old barn was converted into the a retail space back in 1997. There are classes at that location.
Vivien Straus is setting up the cheese tasting items preparing for the tour. Soon the other guests arrive until we are a group of about twenty. Vivien introduces herself as a member of the Straus family, as in, the Straus Family Creamery dairy that I have a glass bottle of milk of in my refrigerator. The Straus dairy was the first certified non-GMO and fully organic dairy west of the Mississippi. Their dairy has about 250 cows and is the primary milk supplier to Cowgirl Creamery.
Vivien starts with the history of the area starting in the early 1800s, the creation of the dairy region around Tomales Bay at the turn of the century, and how these dairies thrived with the terrain as well as the influx of people after the Gold Rush. Her family started their Straus Family Creamery business in the 40s and in the late 90s the dairy started supplying to Cowgirl Creamery.