If you find yourself with a free weekend this fall, consider a day trip to Milford, N.J., home to Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse. There you’ll meet Jonathan and Nina White, who make rustic farmstead cheese and bake loaves of incredible bread, like duck-fat ciabatta, in their wood-fired oven. Back in 2005, this farm made a splash when it was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s New Jersey episode of “No Reservations.” Since then, the Whites have purchased a new farm and moved from Vernon to Milford, where they operate a farm store, teach classes and frequent area farmers markets.
Amram is a full-flavored round of grassy sweetness. It was the first cheese the Whites developed in 2003, after a trip to England turned them into cheese-nibbling fiends. David Amram, a jazz musician and the couple’s neighbor, began supplying them with milk, and the Whites fell in love with cheesemaking. Today, Amram (named after their music-playing neighbor) is one of a handful of cheeses the Whites produce, using unpasteurized milk from their own grass-fed line of “Bobolink Blacks,” a herd they have bred themselves.
On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the Whites offer farm tours along with tastings of their breads and cheeses. Reservations are required, as word has spread—making the Whites small-town celebrities. If you don’t make the tour, you can always pick up some cheese and a loaf of bread for a picnic along the banks of the Delaware. Add a growler of British pub ale from The Ship Inn in Milford, and you won’t believe you’re in Jersey. –Tenaya Darlington, madamefromageblog.com
Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse, 369 Stamets Rd., Milford, NJ, 908-864-7277; cowsoutside.com
