Happy Friday: January 12, 2024.
We're officially in the swing of a new year around here! We hope your year is starting out beautifully. Besides the overwhelm to bring the coziness of Christmas back into our home by way of lots of painting projects, we're all enjoying the slow, dark, cold nights of January. Lots of puzzles, board games, baking and popcorn in the Vivian house!
You may also have heard mention of our new farm education! We have so much passion for this Microdairy model and as we enter year 4 of our business, we're ready to share what we've learned along the way, in a larger form. We've helped several local dairy farms start their creameries, but we know we can reach so many more farmers by way of online education, so pivot we go! And boy, it's a challenge for us less-than-tech-saavy folk, but we're still chugging along and hoping to release a formal course by the end of the month. Imagine a Microdairy and Creamery in every town. Stay tuned!
We spent all Thursday in the creamery making possibly one of the most delicious gelato flavors yet (I say this far too often): BUCKEYE! This is reminiscent of my favorite homemade peanut butter candy which is actually representative of a tree (who knew?) We added so much peanut butter to our classic gelato base, churned it and just before it was ready, we added a generous amount of melted chocolate (to mimic the outside of the Buckeye), which shreds into the loveliest chocolate chip flakes. We swirled a little more peanut butter for good measure and a sprinkle of sea salt for the perfect sweet-and-salty gelato! It's a good one friends, and we have lots of it ready for you at the farm shoppe this weekend!
We added, also, a traditional stracciatella gelato this week. A classic vanilla gelato with a stracciatella chocolate touch. Stracciatella means "shred" in Italian, and is the process of pouring melted chocolate over frozen gelato, mixing it to creating a shredding of chocolate flakes throughout the gelato. (Stracciatella is essentially a fancy way of saying "chocolate chip", if that makes more sense!)
We're also releasing gelato ship-to-home boxes today! See the links below!
Our farm shoppe is open Saturdays 10am - 2pm through the winter, and fully stocked with a fresh candle selection, locally made sauerkraut, yogurt, gelato, milk and local maple syrup and pancake mix! We can't wait to see you!
And now for this week's links + finds:
- GELATO BOXES ARE LIVE!! Ship-to-home gelato boxes filled with winter gelato flavors are live on the site! And as a newsletter reader, you get first dibs! These are limited edition and will go fast, so grab one now!
- If you saw my stories, I decided to paint our white trim a creamy neutral to warm up our living space and I love it! This was my vision for contrast trim.
- I'm not a meal planner, but I know soup will make it's way to our dinner at least one night each week. And this easy, affordable hamburger soup was a hit!
- Our good friends gifted us this beautiful winter book, and we've read it on repeat: Snow Birds.
- The funniest, most lighthearted video I saw all week.
Happy Friday, friends.
We're so glad you're here.
xx,
Lisa