Do you know what fresh milk smells like? Before this moment I didn’t. It smells clean. Sweet. Not neutral. But no hint of sourness. We took a group of employees to Grafton Village Cheese to learn to make cheese. We were at one of two production facilities, the one in Brattleboro. And the first thing you sense when you walk in is this really clean sweet smell of milk.

If you don’t know much about Grafton, they make award-winning cheddar. And they believe that their cheese will only taste good if it’s made by grass-fed cows and farmers who are paid decently for their milk. So they funnel all their proceeds back into helping small Vermont dairies overcome the increasing challenge of large national companies (ex: Hood) swallowing them up.

If you’d like to support Grafton Cheddar and the work they’re doing, you probably already are. You can find Grafton 1-year cheddar on our Breakfast Sandwich, Popover Breakfast Sandwich, BBQ Seitan Sandwich, Brussels Salad, and anywhere else cheddar appears on our menu. You can also buy a block of 1-Year Aged or Maple Smoked Cheddar on the retail wall at CloverHFI in Central Square.

I’ll have more stories from this trip coming out in future posts.