All posts by Jami Badershall

Jami Badershall

About Jami Badershall

Jami Badershall is the Communications Manager for the Maine Dairy & Nutrition Council and Maine Dairy Promotion Board. She also owns her own small farm. On "The Dairy Dish", Jami ventures to Maine farms, highlights events around the state, and gives you recipe ideas using local dairy products.

Cows are true Mainers

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the cows think it’s delightful! Seriously, cows much prefer the cold of winter to the heat of summer. I highly doubt the happiest cows are in California. Maine weather is perfect for cows. It never stays hot for too long, and a lot of rain and a little […]

When butter is much more than just butter

When it comes to gourmet food, what is top of mind for you? Caviar, charcuterie, truffles, artisan cheeses, wine? But probably not butter, right? Well, maybe you should rethink that list because a small business in Southern Maine is working hard to change your perception of butter. Casco Bay Butter was the brainchild of couple […]

Dairy lessons

Farm to school. Heard of it? It’s all the rage – bringing locally grown food into the schools (The milk, by the way, has always been local.), planting school gardens and using the food in the school cafeteria. All good lessons, but to truly give students the knowledge of where their food comes from, take […]

Dairy goes big in June

June is National Dairy Month, and there really is no better time for it. While milk is in season all year round, this time of year, dairy farms and farmers are a little more visible. This is the time of year that school classes make their annual pilgrimages to area dairy farms so that students […]

Cream of the Crop Rises to the Top

The McKeen family at Silver Maple Farms in Albion had no idea they were under such scrutiny, and while that may seem like a lead in to some Jason Bourne-like plot, it was really an honor for the McKeens. Dennis McKeen, who owns Silver Maple Farms with his mother Jean, received the Master Breeder award […]

Still room for more maple

This is pretty much a part II to my previous blog, but my love for everything maple is out of control, and I keep thinking of one more thing I could make. I spent the entire week leading up to Maine Maple Sunday pairing maple and dairy in various ways. Had I only indulged in […]

Goes Together Like Maple and Milk

Rodney Hall considers dairy to be the hub of his family’s farm in East Dixfield. The spokes are hay, his brother Randy’s herd of beef cattle, firewood processing and Rodney’s maple syrup operation. “We were diversified before diversified farms were the ‘in’ thing,” Rodney says. “We knew that milking 50 cows, we weren’t going to […]

Enjoy the gifts of winter

Photo courtesy of Smiling Hill Farm Yes, it has seemed like a long winter, and as we dive back into another cold snap, it seems that winter is sticking around for a while longer. Well, how about making it a little more pleasurable? Take advantage of all this snow and the cold that keeps it […]

Love and Farming

Love of farming can often be like the love between two people. It can be beautiful, but is oftentimes messy. You share the joy of births but also the sorrow of loss.  You celebrate your successes, but you also struggle through the hardships. Some days in farming though, depending on weather, finances, equipment breakdowns, and […]