Cato Corner Farm
As a shop, and really as an industry, we love Cato Corner Farm. Cato Corner is a small cheese producer in Colchester, Connecticut run by mother-son team Liz MacAlister and Mark Gillman. They divide and conquer, with Liz running the farm and Mark running the cheesemaking, and it clearly works. They are producing some great cheese while also maintaining healthy land for future generations. How the heck do they accomplish this? Well …
Liz has raised goats and sheep since the 1970s and started making cheese in 1997 to make her farm self-sustaining. She started with 13 cows and a few farmers markets in the area, but over the years she has grown the herd to 45 cows, mostly Jerseys, which she and her farm staff milk twice a day. When the cows are on pasture, which is usually May through October, they rotate the herd around the fields every 12 hours. This means that the cows have plenty to eat and the land has time to recuperate. Since a part of Liz’s vision for Cato Corner is to provide healthy land for future generations, careful herd rotation is essential. Cato Corner has a closed herd, which means they don’t buy cows from other farms. This way, Liz can ensure she has cows that are likely to be healthy and strong, and she can even control the chemical makeup of the milk! With high fat and high protein milk, Mark can produce cheeses with the flavors and textures they’re looking for. The care they show for their cows and the land translates to flavorful and rich milk, perfect for cheesemaking.
Mark was a 7th grade English teacher until 1999 when he decided to join his mother and help run her operation. He monitors the quality of the milk in a given season to make the best cheese from that milk. Aged Bloomsday, that super sharp, sweet, gouda/cheddar hybrid miracle is made from summer milk which tends to be sweet, grassy and butter yellow. He uses summer milk for their aged cheeses, while he makes semi-soft cheeses from lower volume, fattier winter milk. The richness helps make the texture of the cheese more luxurious and creamy. The wonders of seasonal milk! And then Mark works his magic and BAM! Cheese!
Through Mark and Liz’s care and experience, we get delectable cheese from a farm we really love. Aged Bloomsday, as I mentioned before, is a customer favorite for sure. One time, we blasted through a whole 30 lb wheel in four days. We were into it and you were into it, too! We also have Womanchego, which wins the superlative of best named cheese in the case. It is a tangy, semi-firm cow’s milk cheese inspired by the classic Spanish Manchego that melts beautifully and is also quite delightful with a fruity jam and Marcona almonds. One of my favorite parts of my job is that we get to sell products from people who work so hard to take care of their animals, their land, their people, and their cheese, and Liz and Mark at Cato Corner do just that.
For the love of cheese and the cheesemaker/farmer,
Kiri
