in my experience and experienced opinion, shaw farm sells the hands-down BEST quart of milk available for 100 miles. (i'd wager further, but i haven't had enough experience beyond that distance to unequivocally say, but lets just use 100 miles for starters, and then also say that i'd be willing to put that quart of shaw farm's up against anybody's anywhere anytime beyond that radius and be very happy to learn the difference). i also say experienced, because my grandparents ran just one of the family dairies, (my great aunt and second cousin ran another), and i was raised on the real stuff, straight from the cow, and i know just a little bit about that which i speak. (you remember those clips of the farmers hand-milking cows and squirting the milk straight into the impossibly cute kittens' faces there in the barn? that's my childhood right there, only barn cats are quite a bit nastier than they are cute if you try to get up close to them and give them a cuddle, so don't say you weren't warned). which is all a long way of saying that i can tell you, that when i wrote here a year or two back to say that c'est right here in downtown lowell purveying the sweet pureness of shaw farm milk is one of the greatest things there is about shangri-lowell, that i wasn't just kidding around, or committing some offense of hyperbole--this stuff is the gold standard against which all other local milk can and should be judged.
so, first of all, we don't really need to talk about demoula's retailing their generic hormone and antibiotic-infused whole milk gallons at $2.69, because it's the kind of stuff that's not even really the same thing, and that's all that needs to be said about that, thank you very much. (but keep that $2.69 in your head for a bit, because there's a quiz later).
which brings us, second of all, to
shaw farm's website, upon which one can place an order for a full quart of the pure, unadulterated, low-temperature pasteurized, (ask me about pasteurization temperature sometime, and what it means to the taste of a quart of milk), nectar of the gods for $1.55, plus deposit for the great clear quart glass bottle in which is comes.
which takes us, third of all, to my hands-down favorite downtown milk dealer, c'est, where convenience takes that very same quart and drops it off walking distance from the apartment for a flat, clean and even $2.00, plus deposit for the great clear quart glass bottle in which it comes, and, i have to say, that is fair enough indeed, and i am never so happy to pay for quality as i am each and every week that i drop into c'est for my fix.
HOWEVER
today, owing, clearly, to the irresistible popularity of the sweet, white gold, and my having been busy yesterday getting things taken care of in advance of heading into the gahden to catch the bruins so i neglected to get there before the weekly allotment ran out, i was faced with the horns of a terrible dilemma. to skim, or not to skim... (the whole was sold out...)
trust me, if that skim shaw farm stuff was all there was downtown to be had, i'd have snatched up the blue-capped quart (almost) as eagerly as the red. if you've ever disliked skim milk for how watery and blu-ish it seems to you to be, try a quart of shaw farm's and be amazed. you'd think you were drinking 2% at least. however, being aware of all these things, as any junkie would be, i recalled also that the market street market has also now taken to stocking the proverbial white honey, and, given my neighbors' recent exhortations to continue to support the local grocer out of "buy local" principle as much as anything else, i decided to head down the block to get my fix there instead.
oh, i try always so diligently to remain positive when it comes to the local establishments...
strike one--the red-topped bottles ring into the register there at a whopping $2.69 per quart, net of the returned great and clear glass bottle in which these things come. yes, that's right, for the same $2.69 price that you can get a GALLON of "milk" (i guess the hormones and antibiotic additives can be considered "free") at demoula's, you can cop a quart of the good stuff from the MSM'ers. yeah, yeah, it's worth the difference, but, then, see, here's my old swamp yankee dairy farmer point: c'est will give you that exact same beauty for $2.00, and, if you don't mind crossing the river to dracut, you could even get it for $1.55 at the source itself.
strike two is the extremely patronizing, presumptuous and condescending explanation i was given at the register by one of the proprietors when i asked to confirm that the price there was, indeed, $2.69, and observing that this seemed quite a lot for a quart of milk. "that's just 10 cents more than at c'est, and the same price as at shaw farm".
oh, yes, you can bet i wasted no time after refrigerating the goods to head on out to the web when i got home, to establish that the shaw farm price is really $1.55, and, it should go without saying, because i already knew the "10 cents" line about c'est was an outright lie, that strike three is that this guy looked right into my eyes and didn't respect me enough to even bother to tell the truth.
you know, if it's $2.69 for some relevant reason, like, say, you like to make over a buck on each bottle you sell, well, it's up to me to decide whether or not i'm going to stand for it and we have a fair situation either way. but to denigrate and lie about a competitor who has done nothing but right by me since i moved here is to take that proverbial step beyond the pale.
my grandparents not only taught me dairy farming, but they also taught me the importance of doing business with honest people. now i'm not saying that the "10 cents" crack was premeditated or indicative of a larger problem, but i am saying that my grandparents didn't raise me to let something like that go without making an important personal decision.
my decision today is that i don't need to be buying my milk, or much of anything else for that matter, from the market street market until some sort of honest and better sense might some day prevail.
until then, and likely for a very long time after, because i love c'est for all that they do here downtown, in addition to $2.00 shaw farm whole milk quarts, and serving as a drop-off point for the world peas csa vegetable shares, and displaying and selling linda mccluskey paintings, and gratis consulting on the decoration of my building atrium with my building decorating committee, and for all that i know they will continue to do as honest, involved local merchants.
you can't ask for more than that, and, the good news is today, you don't have to.
thanks, c'est!
Labels: rant