I've always been curious to visit the Crave Brothers farm in Waterloo, which apparently draws visitors from all over the world to see how the Crave brothers run their operation.
In addition to creating award-winning cheeses, the farm is a sustainable one with a manure-munching generator that powers not only the entire farm but also 450 nearby homes.
I read about the brothers yesterday in Ed Janus' great "Creating Dairyland: How caring for cows saved our soil, created our landscape, brought prosperity to our state, and still shapes our way of life in Wisconsin," published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Their dad was a dairy farmer near Beloit but gave it up. But not before the four brothers – Charles, Tom, Mark and George – grew up farming and had milk running through their veins. A few years later the brothers farmed a rented place near Mount Horeb before buying their current farm in Waterloo a couple years later.
This week, news arrived that Crave Brothers has earned yet another award, placing first in the 2011 American Cheese Society (ACS) Conference and Competition with its cows milk Mascarpone.
Their Petit Frère Reserve also nabbed third place in the Farmstead Cheeses category of the competition, which was held during the 29th annual American Cheese Society Conference in Montreal.
A record 1,676 entries from 258 American and Canadian producers were in competition for awards at the event. for awards.
Dear Crave Brothers, can I come and get a tour?
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
