 by Lani Raider Issue 27 (March-May 05) [Copyright © 2005, The Valley Table] What do nuns, cheese, cows, goats, summer camp and social justice have to do with each other? Put all these pieces together and they form an integral system connecting the food experience from the field to the plate, with lessons about food, life and the world around them for both current consumers and future generations. Sprout Creek Farm, in Poughkeepsie, is the home to this unique learning environment. "The more people we get to the farm, the better," says Sister Margo, visionary and co-founder of Sprout Creek Farm. Her hope is that the parking lot will be consistently full and visitors will eagerly experience all aspects of the farm: walking the grounds, interacting with livestock, tasting cheese, touring the greenhouse and generally making themselves at home. The openness and desire to welcome visitors every day of the year coupled with the creation of high-quality products have put Sprout Creek Farm on the map. Whether it is a group of aspiring chefs from The Culinary Institute of America, third graders from nearby Noxon Elementary School or staff members from Gourmet or New Yorker magazines, Sprout Creek Farm is attracting local and national attention. The farm's cheeses can be found at specialty cheese shops nationally and are part of cheese courses at fine-dining restaurants throughout the country; its meats are becoming more frequently requested by top chefs in the area. While Sprout Creek Farm is a resource for local grass-fed beef, veal, lamb and pork (in limited supply), artisanal cheeses, organic produce, and canned and baked goods--all for sale in their farm market--the farm serves as much more for the local and surrounding communities. The farm fosters learning through a variety of avenues, including one-day and year-round programs for children and young adults and cheese-making workshops for aspiring chefs, as well as festivals and a fall music series. Connecticut was the birthplace for the vision behind Sprout Creek Farm. Sister Margo, along with colleague Sue Rodgers, had an idea while teaching high school in the 1980s. The women saw idealism waning and cynicism that was usually reserved for college students sneaking into the minds of high school girls. They wanted to create an opportunity for high school students to learn about life beyond the media, the buzz of consumerism and the watered-down version of life skills being taught in the classroom. They believed that the exploitation of the media and the push for consumerism isolated these future adults from the world around them, creating a fear that this next generation would grow up not recognizing the intrinsic beauty and possibilities of the world around them. As Sister Margo explains, the farm "requires curiosity and ingenuity, an ability to predict, make decisions, draw conclusions, make both fast and slow judgments, have patience, reasoning, reflection, awareness and caretaking." Being exposed to these experiences and skills in this atmosphere creates a road map for a full human experience. The hope was that being exposed to and working on a farm would give children of all ages an opportunity to interact with their peers and the world around them in an honest and unabashed manner, while introducing them to the intellectual and physical skills needed for a fulfilling life. Through a grant from the Society of the Sacred Heart, a 15-acre plot of land in Connecticut became the original site for this life education center. The initial three-week-long summer programs were organized for teenage girls and encompassed animal husbandry, baking bread, spinning wool, growing vegetables and visiting local soup kitchens. Sister Margo explains that the success of these programs was exciting and fruitful. "The farm's summer program of living simply, working hard and feeding the hungry accomplished our goals of learning responsibility and commitment for one's self in the world." As the initial summer programs for the girls took off, so did the Sacred Heart Sisters' desire to offer this education year-round for children of all ages. Their commitment to having a daily impact on youth and the fact that they had outgrown the 15-acre space was the focus for finding a new site. Fortuitously, perhaps, the original site burned down, and the Sisters found themselves looking for a larger piece of land, which brought them to the Hudson Valley. Sprout Creek Farm, named after the creek running through part of the land, was born in 1990 owing to a generous gift from the estate of Elise Kinkead, a longtime Poughkeepsie resident. The stipulation behind the gift of 200 acres and the existing buildings was that the new venture would be a not--for-profit organization, keeping the land as a productive agricultural site used for educational and humanitarian purposes. Since its inception, Sprout Creek Farm has, through generous grants, built residence halls and two new barns and purchased machinery and equipment used for its year-round, summer and day programs. Rooted in social justice, learning life skills and sustainable agricultural practices, every happening on the farm is an opportunity for an uncensored education; learning about sending an animal to slaughter is just as important as being at the birth of a new calf, harvesting spinach or making cheese. As Sister Margo explains, seeing animals from the moment of birth to being meat on the table is a valuable lesson. "Our animals are not cute pets--they have a job on the farm. We give them a good life and, in turn, they give us a good life, too." The experience of Sprout Creek Farm is that it is possible to have a solid food source while embracing compassion for the world around us, and that lesson is encountered throughout every aspect of the farm. Everyone on the farm staff--the four Sisters, the cheesemaker, the farm manager, the assistant herdsman and an assortment of interns--is considered an educator, responsible for making the education offered on the farm an empowering, hands-on learning experience for visitors of all ages. In each of the education programs (designed around day, summer or year-round curricula), the children work on the farm, learn about the cycles of life and the skills and decisions that go into making the farm a success. These programs are grounded in the children's involvement in the farm by growing, cooking and eating food produced there. Younger children learned about the cycle of life through interacting with the animals. Older children learned the cycle through planting, caretaking and harvesting the organic produce grown on the farm. The students also experience feeding others by taking the fruits of their labor to local soup kitchens. More than 5,000 students from local and surrounding tristate-area schools, clubs and organizations participated in the day programs over the course of the last school year. Select local schools had a dedicated piece of land and, with the assistance of the resident educators, literally grew and ate their project. Nearby Noxon Elementary School's third graders participated in a project called "There's a Garden in My Soup." The youngsters decided upon a soup to make and found a recipe. They searched seed catalogues for the needed ingredients, ordered and sowed the seeds, transplanted the seedlings, took care of the plants and harvested them. They washed their harvest, cooked and ate the soup in the farm's kitchen and café. The lessons? The students learned science and math in real time, as well as a new vocabulary of words and ideas. They also learned about the value of land, hard work, seasonality and, indeed, the cycle and value of life. A variety of year-round residential programs are designed for 10- to 18-year-olds. Feeding animals, planting and harvesting, helping to repair and build on the farm and, of course, cooking food to share with local soup kitchens are all part of the integrated, hands-on education that includes exposure to issues of social justice in their local and global communities. Previous participants, now in their thirties, are sending their children to Sprout Creek Farm--they have expressed a clear interest in offering their children the same opportunities for self-growth, exploration and fun. The summer programs are divided into day and overnight programs. These children experience life on the farm, learning about the animals and working in the organic gardens. They also help to grow, cook and bake all their own food. Busy with administering the ongoing programs and the daily operation of the farm, why would the farm want to take on the task of making and selling cheese? And how did this hidden Hudson Valley treasure come to have two of its three semi-hard cheeses--Ouray and Toussaint--place sixteenth and thirty-second in this year's World Cheese Championship hard-cheese category? Sprout Creek Farm is the home to many animals, including chickens, ducks, goats, cows, sheep and pigs. Like everything else on the farm, the daily animal husbandry practices are defined by the farm's lofty goals. Aside from providing a home for some rare breeds, these farm animals provide eggs, dairy and meat for the residents, students and others. In exchange, the animals are given a life of grazing, free of hormones and with antibiotics used only in times of crisis. Sister Margo explains, "With optimum [animal husbandry practices], the animals can be productive and happy and have physical well-being. We want to promote conservation and improve everyone's health. We have never used pesticides, herbicides or hormones. Why would we?" In fact, Sister Margo emphasizes that allowing their cows to graze and eat grass translates into healthier meat and dairy products, higher in omega-3 fatty acids like CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), crucial to the maintenance and support of our own bodies. Sprout Creek Farm originally sold goat's milk to local health food stores, but by 2001 they had turned to making cheese with the help of consultant and cheesemaker Jonathan White, owner of Bobolink Dairy in Vernon, New Jersey, and former owner of the famed Egg Farm Dairy in Peekskill. With his help, the distinct flavor profile behind the farm's cheeses was developed, as well as the design of the cheese-making facilities and the equipment designed specifically for their cheese production. Cheese production began in 2001. The dairy operation currently involves milking 30 cows (a combination of common and rare breeds) twice a day and making cheese six days a week. Cheese production currently consists of three semi-hard cheeses--Barat, Ouray and Toussaint--as well as fresh ricotta. Allison Lakin, the farm's former cheesemaker, says the cheese is really the culmination of communal hard work and education taught at the farm. "The creamery brings the whole cycle together," she stresses. "The animals are raised on the farm, using grass and hay grown on the farm. Cows are milked, and the cheese is hand-made on the premises. All of the whey [a waste by-product of making cheese] is then returned to the fields, where it helps produce the next generation of grass, eaten by the cows. The cycle comes full circle." Lakin's craft and attention to detail brought the farm's new cheeses to an award-winning level usually reserved for older, more experienced creameries. The farm's current cheesemaker, Brett Wasser, had an extensive, self-guided education making hand-crafted goat cheeses in Austria and Belgium through various internships. In Europe, Wasser discovered the possibility of making cheese as a profession and as a way to support a working farm. His vision of living on a farm and making cheese while studying at the CIA came true in 2004, his first year in the Hudson Valley. "Making cheese while attending The Culinary Institute of America is a good balance--it allows me to continue to exercise my own curiosity without interrupting the [cheese-making] experience that I had set up for myself." Continuing in the footsteps of other artisanal cheese makers, Wasser has embraced traditional methods of cheesemaking, believing that high-quality ingredients make a more desirable product. Though he makes the process of pasteurizing, inoculating, cutting the curds and forming and aging the cheese sound easy, there is both science and craft to it. "It's my job to overcome seasonal changes and provide consistency in our products and in availability," he says. "In England, there is summer cheddar and winter cheddar; Parmesan is only made seasonally. This is why it is a consistent product. We want to make a consistent product with slight variations in color or texture, depending upon the season." Grass-fed animals create milk with different flavor profiles at different times of the year, Wasser explains. Most people do not notice the changes, but working with the milk and cheese throughout the year, Wasser sees changes imperceptible to most consumers. "In the summer, the milk is yellow and has a grassy taste--the taste of the milk fluctuates depending upon which of our five pastures the animals are grazing. Herd management can also greatly affect the quality of the milk and what the milk is offering." Indeed, the changes in the milk and cheese represent important lessons in science, math, agricultural practices and taste and flavor profiles for everyone living on and visiting the farm. Wasser says that Sprout Creek Farm will develop new packaging, new cheeses and new dairy products this spring. "I hope to expand production to possibly include yogurt, sour cream and a pressed cheese (cheddar or aged goat cheese) in the spring," he notes. "We are looking for a way to make quality cheeses and stretch our production to make a profit [to support the farm]." While the programs offered to children include time in the creamery learning about and helping with cheesemaking, Wasser's full-time staff is coordinated through the Integrated Employment Services (a division of REHAB) and consists of four highly functioning individuals with disabilities. They arrive every morning with their job coach, excited and focused--their success is the success of the farm, this is their cheese, their craft, their dignity, their story. While foods produced with consciousness (grass-fed meats, local production, organic methods) are certainly sought after by today's chefs and home cooks alike, it is a rare opportunity to be able to see the full circle of this literally in our own backyard. This unique institution has had far-reaching and contagious effects, serving as a local model for living an inspired and fulfilling life. The foods produced at Sprout Creek Farm delight the senses while grounding us in the rich history and abundant resources of the Hudson Valley. Sister Margo believes visiting Sprout Creek Farm enables people to begin using their senses in a new way, "to begin to allow nature to be real in a world where we are so disconnected from the land and the cycle of life on a daily basis." Sprout Creek Farm, 34 Lauer Road, Poughkeepsie NY 12603 (845) 485-8438 www.sproutcreekfarm.org |
){kind=link}