Mark Gillman was teaching schoolchildren in Baltimore when he decided to move back home to his family's farm and start making cheese with his mother, Liz McCallister. "I had been away long enough to think about returning home," he says, "and I thought, if it doesn't work out I could always go back to teaching. That was 25 years ago."
Gillman took over from McCallister as head cheesemaker of Cato Corner Farm, a Connecticut farmstead creamery that specializes in pastured dairy and excellent raw milk cheeses like Womanchego and Aged Bloomsday. You may know them for Hooligan, one of the stinkiest cheeses in our collection with a supple, pudgy texture and intoxicating aromas of wine and fermented fruit. They're a major fixture at New York City farmers markets, and have been working market stalls long enough to see young family customers send their kids off to college. Saxelby Cheesemongers is delighted to work with this multi-generational farm and bring their local farmers market experience to the rest of the country.
When Gillman was growing up on the family farm in the 1970s, McCallister only had a handful of cows, goats, and sheep. She and her husband worked full-time jobs and approached the farm as a hobby project. But McCallister always wanted to make the farm a self-sustaining business. Land stewardship was important to her, and a working farm would protect the land for future generations. So when the state of Connecticut encouraged small farms to create value-added products like cheese, McCallister studied at workshops and took the plunge. Cato Corner sold its first raw milk cheeses in 1997. In 1999, the year Gillman came home to work at the farm, they got a state grant to install their first cheese cave.
The farm runs a shop on the weekends to attract local customers, in addition to their farmers market presence. Selling cheese directly to customers has been part of the plan since the beginning. "We have a lot of loyal people who've been coming for a really long time," Gillman explains. "You watch their families change."
Building these relationships takes time, but it's helped Cato Corner thrive. They've applied the same ethos to their staff. Their herdsman Arnoldo has worked with McCallister for two decades, and most of their team have been at the farm for five to 20 years. McCallister, now 80, continues to work with Arnoldo and staff on breeding decisions and farm operations. Gillman makes the farm's diverse array of cheeses and works on those all-important customer relationships.
Cato Corner's 45 milking cows, mostly Jerseys, graze on orchard grass, clover, chamomile blossoms, and wildflowers during the growing season. The farm recently received a grant from the American Farmland Trust to plant more drought tolerant grasses that can better handle long dry periods due to climate change. Manure from the cows becomes compost to nourish the soil, and a rotational grazing schedule keeps any one part of the pasture from getting munched too heavily.
Because Cato Corner sells so much directly to cheese lovers, Gillman wants his selection of cheese to feel like a full cheese plate. "I joke that we like to offer people something old, something new, something stinky, and something blue." In a few years, the farm should also be able to cater to lactose intolerant customers by producing cheese made with A2 milk. A2 milk contains lactose like regular milk, but it also has A2 proteins that make lactose more digestible for many people with intolerances. Most of Cato Corner's cows already produce A2 milk; the farm will be up to 100% once a few old timers get rotated out of milking duty. "It's not uncommon for us to have cows that are 12 years old or older," Gillman says. "We take good care of them so they last longer. We don't use growth hormones and only milk them twice a day." Two generations in, Cato Corner is strong evidence that good food takes time, and why it's worth the wait.
Farm photos courtesy of Cato Corner Farm. Cow and curd-cutting photos shot by Lisa Nichols / Bread and Beast Photography. Photo of Mark Gillman and Liz McCallister shot by Colin Sullivan.
