So, every other Friday, Dimas & i get into the van and drive north for about 2 hours, until we arrive in York, Pa, to Perrydell Farm Dairy. 171 acres of beautiful rolling hills, with a small winding stream running through the farm. That’s where we go to pick up our cream, whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk and butter. Perrydell Farm Dairy supplies all of our dairy needs and it is the end to a very long search to find a dairy supplier, one where we know the folks and the cows and the land and the philosophy. These connections, with these kind of people takes what we do to a whole new level, it shows us how this is so much more than just running a shop and making artisanal gelato. It becomes about these people, and how they live and of how lucky we are to have these fresh, cared-for ingredients.
Every Friday when we drive up to York, they are milking the cows and bottling the milk, that very same day. The freshness and clean taste of their milk makes us all swoon over at the shop as their dairy is a thing of beauty & i won’t even try to explain what it does for our cappuccino.
This last Friday, when we arrived, they had just finished birthing a baby calf. The photo above shows the mom and the blurry new born resting in a century old barn. Tom Perry, one of the brothers running the farm, showed us where he dug forts and tunnels through the massive bales of hay when he was a kid, and where he had his first kiss. It sounds so cliche, but i guess it’s really the way it happens. It would be a kids dream to grow up with a barn in the backyard, like having access to this whole other world. Anyways, Tom & his lil brother Chip are some really cool folk.
This is the milking parlor where Tom brings in the cows and extracts the beautiful milk. Pretty cool & sci-fi , huh?