Louis Pasteur versus My Friend Bridget

This past Monday (10/7/13) I posted pictures of a Louis Pasteur Institute bookmark from 1923.  Like Owen Wilson's character in the movie Midnight In Paris, I am obsessed with 1920's Paris.  Also I am completely charmed by the worshipful Parisian adoration that surrounds Louis Pasteur for saving the world from crazy old-timey illnesses associated with diseased milk.  Salmonella, listeria, e-coli...good times.

I love Pasteur's quote on the back, "Sans Labatoires Les Savants Sont Des Soldats Sans Armes"; scientists without a laboratory are like soldiers without weapons...  I am wildly enamored of the front, with a little Clara Bow look-a-like holding what looks to be a graduation cap.

                                   
                                   

But has a 1923 souvenir bookmark bamboozled me into thinking pasteurization is a must?

These days (at least within the incredibly enlightened circle of gypsies, tramps & thieves I call my friends) everybody is an expert on raw dairy, organic everything and gluten-free whatnot.  Like every schmo, I live in fear of our jacked-up food chain.  I don't want to consume milk from a miserable beast of burden whose daily intake consists of a banquet of hormoned-up antibiotic-laden frankenfood grain brought to you by Monsanto.  You don't have to be a PETA member to agree that dairy cows aren't exactly living the dream, what with their reduced real estate rights and inflamed udders.

And yet who wants to go back to Dickensian times wherein a lack of pasteurization seemed tantamount to death?  You know those kids were working in coal mines most likely without milk & Oreo breaks, but maybe they had a little diseased milk with their measly porridge portions.  I don't know what listeria is, but I picture tons of seven year-olds, with little coal-smudged faces, bloated & blue, being loaded into carts & hauled to a Potter's Field for a poor man's burial.  No more porridge for you little 'Enry (you really should drop the "h" for cockney imitations).  But maybe that's okay, because you know--no more black lung either.  No doubt, life was rough for those shorties.  Dairy cows today are living on easy street in comparison.

But I digress.  My point is that last month I visited one of my all-time fave friends, Bridget Paley.  Here's a picture of her milking her community cow.

She is the real deal.

You heard me right.  Bridget has a share in a cow at a fantastic agrarian organization:  Amy's Farm in Ontario, California.  And she's not afraid to use it.  I (of course) WAS afraid.  I fed the cow while Bridget milked her and there were a couple of moments when I wished I had circled in a helicopter ala Marlon Perkins in Wild Kingdom.  But we didn't have a helicopter, unless you count the horseflies.  Some of whom seemed large enough to carry me away.

The cow made it clear to me that I was not the boss of her.

Bridget uses her weekly yield (approximately four quarts) to make cheese.  When I make cheese the recipe consists of a grocery store & my ATM card, so I think of Bridget as someone who possesses traits of both Moses and Martha Stewart.  A person who is able to work miracles, then feed you afterward on a nicely set table.

My friend Bridget is simply one of the coolest people I know, as witnessed by her t-shirt ("Natives Discovered Christopher Columbus" in case you can't read it).  And if raw milk is good enough for her (and her little dog Corgi too, he was lapping it up!) by God I guess it's good enough for me.

But to be brutally honest, the bottom line is that I don't drink milk.  It makes me gassy.

More to come about Amy's Farm.  Keeping it real in a major way, here's their number if you live around Ontario, CA.  http://www.amysfarm.com or (909) 393-2936.  This business is truly on the ground floor in terms of sustainable living, REAL food and best practices for the humane treatment of animals.