Food, Farms, and Friends

Ruby Bashant & Amelia Berthold

September 29, 2023

After a long week of waiting in suspense for their cook night to come along, it is finally Friday. Berit and Abhainn open the fridge to find no milk, no fresh veggies, no butter, and no meat. What will they cook? Mac and cheese is out the window, they can’t bake bread, and meat-based meals are no longer an option. After some digging, they find white rice in the back of the fridge from taco night along with a random assortment of unused veggies. With this discovery the idea of rice bowls is born. Soon enough pans are clanking, rice is simmering,  and veggies are frying. Berit and Abhainn are in full swing of making dinner for Arcadia.

While on the St. Lawrence University campus, students give little thought to where their food comes from as it is

cooked for them in dining halls. However, here at Arcadia we cook for ourselves. Each Arcadian is paired with a fellow classmate and assigned a day to cook breakfast and dinner. We stay with this partner until mid-semester break, then we switch for the second half of the semester, allowing us to work with different people. At the beginning of the semester, each cook crew was tasked with learning to navigate Arcadia’s tiny kitchen. Over the past six weeks, we have mastered cooking with just the essentials, a gas oven and stovetop. The cooking process has not only taught us to be intentional with what we are consuming, but also about where our food comes from.

In an effort to be sustainable consumers, we source our food locally whenever possible. We receive our weekly share of produce through a CSA farm share at Kent Family Growers in Lisbon, NY. “CSA” stands for community-supported agriculture and is an agreement that individuals or groups can make with small farms. Shareholders contribute money early in the growing season to aid the farms in purchasing and planting seeds, then the shareholders get weekly assortments of produce depending on what is ready at the time. This sort of contract is beneficial for small farms that would not otherwise have the funding prior to harvest, and it is a reliable way for consumers to get vegetables throughout the season. In our first weeks at Arcadia, we got tomatoes, zucchini, and way too much lettuce, but recently we have noticed a transition to fall crops such as pumpkin and squash. In addition to sourcing our food locally, this system allows us to eat seasonally, reinforcing our connection to the Adirondacks.

We also buy our dairy and meat products from small Adirondack farms, some of which we visited this past weekend on a field trip to Essex County in the eastern part of the Adirondack Park. We get our yogurt from North Country Creamery, a local dairy farm in Keeseville, NY, run by a young couple. We met the owners Ashlee Kleinhammer and Steven Googin who gave us a detailed tour of their facilities. Our introduction to the farm began before breakfast with a behind-the-scenes look into the milking process. As we walked into the barn, we were met with a series of clicks and the general whirring of machinery, an environment different from what we were expecting. North Country Creamery switched over to a mechanical system in 2020 after spending seven years milking by hand. This new system suctions in short intervals to imitate the way a calf drinks milk from the utter. From the cow, the suction carries the milk up piping into a 300-gallon collection tank. Despite the scent of cow permeating the barn, the idea of fresh milk carried us to the farmstand for breakfast.

We enjoyed a breakfast of yogurt, granola, and delicious pastries. Ashlee gifted us fresh, warm milk from that morning’s milking to complement the meal. We raised a toast to the cows, thanking them for their labor. As we brought our Nalgene containers full of milk to our lips, Steven began to guide the cows across the road, bringing them back to their pasture. We excitedly stood up to watch, noting all the cows’ names written on their ear tags as they passed; Mocha, Jade, and Vicki were among our favorites. Callie recognized Fritter from the barn and identified her as the best cow. “Holy cow!” exclaimed Ben as the bovines reached the other side of the road. Soon we followed the cows, making our way through the tall grass to the pasture.

Ashlee proudly highlighted the fact that the cows at North Country Creamery are 100% grassfed. To achieve this standard while still allowing for grass growth, the cows are moved to different pastures two or three times a day. This rotation system maintains grass health, an important consideration since cows eat for roughly eight hours per day. Ashlee explained to us how having grassfed cows produces more milk of better quality. On average, in summer months when grass is healthiest, each cow produces four to five gallons of milk in a day. The winter months are slower due to their diet switching to hay. With so many cows, hay becomes one of the farm’s biggest expenses, but Ashlee and Steven both agree that the commitment to quality is worth it.

North Country Creamery has 50 cows in its herd but usually only milks half of them at a time. The others are “dry cows,” meaning that they are getting a break from milking to rest and breed. Ashlee makes sure that the calves from the breeding cows are sent to good homes if the farm cannot keep them. She avoids sending cows to auctions, instead selling them on Craig’s List to families and other small farms. This ethical side of the creamery is also evident in the attention to detail throughout the care and maintenance of the herd as well as the milking and collection process.

During our tour Ashlee explained to us that while their farm is not certified organic, the farm’s practices follow the regulations; their only diversion from organic standards is that they treat cows with antibiotics when needed. Money is another roadblock to getting officially certified as numerous fees are involved. Ashlee also pointed out that because most North Country Creamery customers are aware of their practices, the organic label isn’t worth the expense. Another way that the community supports local farms is the lack of competition between creameries. In response to our question about competition within the dairy industry, Ashlee told us that “creameries really collaborate [with each other], there isn’t much competition.” This collaboration was evident to us in the North Country Creamery farmstand that sold products from neighboring farms alongside their own.

Just down the road from the creamery is Mace Chasm, another small farm from which we source our meat products. The farm raises chickens, pigs, and cows, as well as turkeys seasonally, and has an on-site butcher shop. We piled our van high with Mace Chasm products before heading home for dinner at the yurt village.

On a recent evening at Arcadia the familiar bustle of our small kitchen started up again as Meg and Ben embarked on their last dinner prep together before switching cook partners. The usual crowd of Arcadians doing homework in the kitchen were fooling around when Meg kicked everyone out thirty minutes before dinner. Confused, everyone obliged, parting ways until the dinner bell rang, followed by yells of “come get yo dinner!” As the Arcadians headed into the kitchen, laughter arose upon the discovery of Ben and Meg in each other’s clothes. Meg was dressed in Ben’s normal attire of a flannel and a vest, as well as the sunglasses and earmuffs he had donned post-concussion. Ben wore

Meg’s favorite shirt, although it was a little cropped on him, along with a tight athletic skirt. Meg and Ben’s celebration of their cook shifts together continued throughout the dinner to everyone’s amusement. As plates were cleared and dishes washed, the question still remained: Who would we cook with next?