Immersed in the World
Golden Glen Creamery in Bow, Washington is spitting distance from the tulip fields we recently visited so we popped in for a block of cheese for our picnic lunch.
I wasn’t prepared for the decision making.
Golden Glen offers dozens of varieties of cheeses, including goudas, cheddars, feta, fresh mozzarella, parmesan and cheese curds. Some are aged, some are flavored with special additions like Queso con Salsa or Lavender Cheddar or Sweet Basil Cheddar.
After discussion with the gal behind the counter and a customer returning her glass milk bottles, and major deliberating, we chose more than just one hunk of cheese. I think the River Cheddar is my new favorite. It’s a double cream cheddar that’s aged one year and it’s both rich and sharp, and way too easy to eat.
We had to get cheese curds too because I grew up in Wisconsin where cheese curds are sold by the pound in plastic bags in every ordinary grocery store and their freshness is determined by the squeak they produce when bitten into. At Golden Glen we chose the Dill and Garlic cheese curds, and they were delicious.
During all that discussion and deliberating, I kept eyeing the Farmstead Butter. Normally butter isn’t of great interest to me but I’d just finished reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter, and it made me fall in love with food on a whole new level. After reading how Ms. Hamilton’s future husband wooed her with crusty baguette sandwiches smeared with cold butter and layered with proscuitto which he packed into a picnic basket and strapped to his bike before they embarked on their leisurely bike ride date through Central Park, I was craving a crusty baguette sandwich spread with cold butter and sprinkled with salt. This is the butter that’ll satisfy that craving, I thought.
I smeared a thick dab of butter onto a chunk of crusty baguette and dove in. It took me directly back to summer days around my Grandma and Grandpa Barta’s kitchen table. Gram and Gramps lived in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a town surrounded by dairy farms and Holstein cows, bordering Lake Michigan.
I think the creamery butter must be what butter was like when I was a kid, or least the butter Gram and Gramps bought in the dairy capital of America.
The tub of butter is now gone and my craving is well satisfied. I think I’m good for a while on the buttered sandwiches. But that River Cheddar, I may need to browse my co-op to find another block.
Golden Glen offers tours of the dairy. We missed it the day we visited, but I’m certain we’ll return for the tour another day.
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13 Responses to Golden Glen Creamery
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“I wasn’t prepared for the decision making.” I think that says it all! Everything looks, and sounds, so good! Especially that butter….
Kymri recently posted..A Taste of Darjeeling
It was especially hard deciding when the visiting customer kept raving about one cheese after the other!
Wow, I’m intrigued by the exotic flavors! Lavender, sweet basil, sounds so good.
Wanderluster recently posted..WanderFood Wednesday – Thali-ing Up What’s Good
I know, I can hardly imagine lavender with cheese, but I’d be eager to try it!
Now that’s cheese with a twist! In Guatemala we are barely breaking ground with regular chedder:)
Marina K. Villatoro recently posted..The Largest McDonalds in the World – Is This Necessary
Hi Marina, they certainly go all out in the varieties!
My kind of place! There is nothing like farm fresh butter and cheese…yum – I’m so missing gourmet cheese right now while we’re in South America.
Andrea recently posted..6 Things That Surprised Us About Argentina
Oh, the pros and cons of travel! I’d swap some cheese and butter for some of your Argentinian wine.
I like the sound of the River Cheddar – strong sharp cheese and robust flavours. Pity you missed the tour but as you said, next time
Corinne @ Degustinations recently posted..Vivid Sydney Lights the City with Colour
I was disappointed we missed the tour too, especially when we heard it had been just a couple hours earlier and they only do a few each week. Requires better planning, I suppose!
Haha! Chris and I love cheese curds – we were both raised in the Midwest also, so it’s a familiar treat, but not quite like all the roadside places you can just walk into in Wisconsin, and pick up the various curds. I don’t know what it is that I like about curds exactly… I think I like the squeaky texture.
Double cream cheddar? That’s outrageous… cheddar doesn’t normally get a high brow rep on cheese lists, but that sounds like some serious stuff! We used to go to a cheese / wine store when we lived in the DC area, and they had this double cream blue-brie infusion – we would eat a whole wedge in one sitting.
We’ll have to check out Golden Glen!
Don Faust recently posted..Cruising Carnival- Magic-Style- Pictures of Sicily Messina
Haha! Squeaky is definitely an asset. What about fried cheese curds? Those are really dangerous. And the double blue-brie deal sounds like something that’d disappear quickly! Yum.
That’s some nice looking cheese…thanks for sharing!
Jason recently posted..Attack Of The Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys