When you make the best butter in America (awarded by the American Cheese Society, 3 years in a row), you must be doing something right! Linden Hills Co-op is proud to carry PastureLand’s butters and cheeses, from Minnesota family farms. Michelle and Roger Benrud, who are members of the PastureLand Co-op, will be our guest speakers at this year’s annual membership meeting October 28! Here’s a little snapshot of life on a PastureLand farm.

Morning at PastureLand

We get up to milk the cows early, before it even starts to get light. Usually it’s pitch black out.

Our newest local cheese offering is from Natural Valley Cheese, artisan quality goat cheeses from Hustler, Wisconsin (in the scenic Driftless area). Cheesemaker Tom Torkelson uses milk from area Amish dairy farmers, who graze their cows and goats during the milking season. This means the animals are consuming a greater variety of minerals than animals who only eat feed. Tom’s roots are in Wisconsin, since his father was a dairy farmer in New Glarus.

We’re proud to supply our community with high-quality, healthful 100% grass-fed, Minnesota raised beef, from Thousand Hills Cattle Company, based in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Grass-fed beef and dairy products are naturally higher in healthy Omega-3 fatty acids and lower in “bad fat” Omega-6. Read more about Thousand Hills here, and check out our new grass-fed chili and goulash at the deli counter!

If you’re a blue cheese lover, we’ve got some outstanding locally made blues you should try, starting with Faribault Dairy’s traditionally cave-aged St. Pete’s Select. This Minnesota company’s mission is as simple and straighforward as can be:

To make, package, and distribute world class American blue cheese

Crumbled on a salad, melted gently atop your favorite burger or accompanied by a glass of port and a handful of candied walnuts, these blue cheeses truly are “world class!”

Kim Dirr’s Upper Crust Fine Baking Company: From Her Kitchen to Your Co-op
by Kathy Gerhardt, from the Feb-March 2007 Rollin’ Oats Journal

If “necessity is the mother of all invention,” who knew it could taste so good? An innocent comment by a friend of Kim Dirr’s daughter sparked an idea that became the Upper Crust Fine Food Company. Dirr’s ready-to-bake cookies and breads are carried by co-ops and grocery stores around the Twin Cities, including Linden Hills Co-op.